Ok, that’s a lie. A lot of things about “BookTube” drive me a bit mad. Most of it, really. There is good stuff, real good stuff, but I rarely care to watch enough to find the good stuff.

I’ll be in a mood to discuss more later, maybe, but here’s something from dozens of thumbnails that is now irritating me enough I’m going to start telling Youtube to not recommend me channels which use it:

Books {held | stacked | pointed to} spine back while a thoughtful face is front and center and there’s a title like…

Five Books I Will Never Read Again Because They Are TOO Good

or

Three Books You Have Never Read but Should Get Right Now

or

These Books Absolutely Wrecked My Summer

The last one probably with fake tears added to the thumbnail, or some such.

And it is so annoying to be so constantly baited into every video where even if you know the BookTuber or subscribe or whatever you still have to essentially pretend to be tricked into watching it.

The new The Algorithm demands sacrifice. Tricks for Clicks! If you know what are you getting into, you might not waste so much time forming addiction to screens, amirite?! It’s that or absolutely low-tier enragement farming.

Look, we’re adults, here. Just show the books. Let me know.

If I have not read the books, then good! New stuff!

If I have read the books and hate them, then good, I can avoid it (or join in to see a difference in opinion).

If I have read the books and love them, then I can either avoid or watch to have my sense of utter-correctness validated. Win win!

Mostly, I suspect, the middle-of-the-road absolutely un-timeless, un-classics which proliferate across BookTube’s for-all-tastes vibe will bear little interest for me and that’s ok. I’m not here to yuck your yum, not really. I love that you love to read.

Let me choose to click or not.

Otherwise, I’m no longer clicking a goddamned thing. Well, except the hide channel and such.

I’m sorry the soul-sucking, orphan-crushing machine to which your livelihood is attached requires you to screech like performing monkeys and trick your audience to make it happy.

OH, here are the books, by the way. Lest hypocritical be I:

There’s no real reason for those three. They were just near my desk and I didn’t feel like spending longer taking the photo than typing the rant.

All three: recommended, if you are into that sort of thing.