BookTube
| Synonyms: | |
| See also: | YouTuber, BookTok |
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BookTube is the name for the book blogging community and the fan activity around it on YouTube.
BookTuber, a portmanteau created by combining "YouTuber" with book, readers to creators on BookTube – the people with channels. Viewers may be known as BookTube Fans.
Practices
Young Adult books are generally the most popular and are the subject of the most discussion on BookTube, but others genres also achieved prominence on the platform.
BookTubers may create a variety content, from book reviews to challenge videos to unboxing videos.
Reading vlogs are vlogs of oneself as they read a book. Vlogs also focus on book-related activities such as going to bookstores, book releases, author events, and so on.
Readalongs are events a booktuber conducts in which viewers and members of the communities are invited to read books following the same schedule.
Reviews
- Rant Reviews: Review videos, generally for one book, in which a BookTubers rants about a book they read and hated.
Booktube & Fanfiction
Examples:
Drama & Controversy
Wank and drama on BookTube rarely involves personal attacks, or even identifying individuals who contribute to problems being discussed.
In 2020, Booktuber readwithcindy released a humorous video called booktube in a nutshell describing BookTube and all it's facets.
Race
One of the most widespread and long-running controversies in the BookTube community has been about race, and the lack of success people of color see compared to white BookTubers.
This controversy was exemplified in 2017 to 2018 as a result of the film adaptation of The Hate U Give. A number of BookTubers were invited to be extras on the set of the film. This experiences was documented in their vlogs. Controversy arose when people pointed out that while this book and film are about the experiences and challenges that black people face in America, none(?) of the BookTubers invited onto the set were black.
This disparity was explained by the fact that only some of the most popular BookTubers had been given this chance; this then led to a discussion of why there were no major black BookTubers with comparable levels of success.
Negative Reviews
Negative reviews are naturally expected from a community based on reviews; however, at people have been accused on being deliberately divisive with negative reviews. At times, a book may become notorious or well known in the book community for being poorly reviewed or polarizing. People are accused of giving negative reviews to books that have large fandoms, large anti-fandoms, being excessively harsh and exaggerating in their reviews, and of personally attacking authors. Rant reviews and negative reviews do, in fact, often gain a large amount of views in comparison to more neutral videos by a wide margin. This has led to discussions about whether or not this practice makes or reveals booktube to be an overly negative community.
Popular Book Series
- Grishaverse: Grisha Trilogy and Six of Crows Duology
- Throne of Glass and A Court of Thorns and Roses
- The Hate U Give
- The Raven Cycle
Example BookTube Video Series
- HP Chats by ProblemsofaBookNerd: a mixture of discussions on specific Harry Potter subjects (meta and more casual chatting) and other Harry Potter related activities. Some examples from the series: