 Imagine, if you will, that you die. Sad, I know. You open your eyes and wow, what's that? Well, it's the pearly gates. Congratulations, my guy, you've made it to heaven. Everyone welcomes you in and you're all like, Jesus Christ is many. A few days have passed now and you're really liking it in heaven. You click with everyone, they're supportive and they share your interests. Then one day you walk outside, everything is on fire. People are fighting in the streets and authors are being burned at the stake. This week, things will be back to normal. But for now, welcome to Booktube. Get back! Jesus, just tell me what's going on. I told you to get back. We're shaking Booktube, welcome to another video. Today I want to talk about a rather polarizing topic and that is the collective distaste that a lot of people have for Book Twitter. Book Twitter is a simple enough concept, a community of book lovers centralized on the platform of Twitter. It has been said a few times that Booktube is like a school. Booktube is other teachers who stand up at the front and put on a show while the audience watches. If that's the case, then Book Twitter would be the cafeteria where teachers and students alike hang out and let off some steam. Drama and bickering is an inevitable side effect of any community. It's not unheard of on Booktube or God knows any other YouTube community so holding that against Book Twitter in particular would not be entirely fair. And it should be said that not all debate or polarizing viewpoints on Twitter should be branded as nothing more than drama because that too detracts from the actual purpose of this video. The truth is that having a thriving community of book lovers on such an active social medium like Twitter is fantastic in theory and sometimes an execution. Having such quick and convenient access to book recommendations and thoughts from other people that you trust or otherwise relate with can be extremely valuable and entertaining. If you're taking part in a read-a-thon, chances are all of the updates and information for said read-a-thon will be easily found on its own dedicated Twitter account. The best part of all though is that it can all be accessed from the comfort of your own bed. Book Twitter has also been a driving force in promoting lesser known authors and diverse reads that may otherwise have flown under the radar. Not just small authors but small creators in general, booktubers, bloggers, artists, etc. There's a rather interesting feature on Twitter that has lent itself pretty well to sharing recommendations and ideas between each other and that's threads. One person makes a tweet, perhaps asking for recommendations on a great romantic read, and then anyone who replies to that tweet will add to a thread. A list format of responses that can be consumed within a few quick swipes. A good example of book Twitter being a good thing would be… sorry, just one second. Bear with me. Ah, here we go. Have a look at this. Here's some prime examples of when book Twitter has been an absolutely positive force. Now before I get into the all-consuming, ugly side of book Twitter, I want to make it clear that I think this platform is an exceptional way for book lovers to connect with each other. Book Twitter is not necessarily a bad thing, most of the time. Now I'm not going to go into a full in-depth conversation about cancel culture. This video isn't a cancel culture video, plus I'll let you in on a little secret. Shhh, just between us, sweetie. Sometimes people complaining about cancel culture is just as annoying as cancel culture itself. I do want to throw in here pretty quickly that if watching a straight white dude talk about cancel culture is something that you just can't stomach, I'm going to leave some links in the description below to videos that at least cover some similar topics to what I'm going to be discussing in this part of the video. And most of those videos that I link are going to be by people from minority groups. The points I'm about to make aren't just my opinions, for the most part they are, but they're also viewpoints that I've gathered from other people that seem to have a bad taste in their mouth from Twitter or book Twitter in particular. With that said, it would be impossible to discuss the overarching issues with book Twitter without talking about what could understandably be seen as a passionate love for putting people in the naughty chair. You need to shut the fuck up! I understand that the term cancel culture itself is resented by some people as they think it's minimizing genuine criticisms being discussed about what could truly be problematic content. However, I think that's missing the point. Genuine criticism actually being discussed generally wouldn't be considered cancel culture anyway, as that term, at least in my experience, is reserved for something a bit different. Cancel culture does not equal holding people accountable for their actions, which was what the cancel movement actually began as, seeking justice for the wrongdoings of people that would otherwise be untouchable. This is not a video about cancel culture. Cancel culture itself is such an immensely complex subject and it varies from case to case. It's complex because humans are complex and that's something we like to negate online. We should not undermine how quickly people can change their ideas. I know online it seems that people don't change their ideas because they are encouraged not to, but our ideas can change quite quickly and so to cancel people for tweets that they made years ago, potentially even things that they said last week, I think it's just a lie to yourself. Blanket statements when you're talking about cancel culture, whether you think it is or isn't a thing, it just doesn't work. I've spoken to quite a few people who consider Twitter a toxic space and there is something that is generally agreed upon between all of them. That is the idea that cancel culture is an attitude that is either becoming more common or is becoming louder, or maybe both. That attitude is believing that because you take issue with something an artist has created, they should no longer be respected, looked up to, or even employed. Usually without providing the... And by discourse, I don't mean having a circle jerk with people who agree with you in a thread. I mean a back and forth with people outside of your bubble. Cancel culture is, by its very nature, the pursuit of escalating a conflict, rather than attempting to understand an opposing view. So let's put this in a way that might be a bit easier to follow. Here is how it will usually go step by step. Meet person A. Person A will read something that upsets them. Oh no. Person A will then make a tweet stating that this thing that upset them is either racist, homophobic, or otherwise intolerant or insensitive in some way. Person A's followers will be the first people exposed to this and being that they already liked this person enough to follow them, they will be predisposed to implicitly trust their view on the book that they may not have actually read. That may take the form of liking, retweeting, sub-tweeting, etc. And in doing so, we go to point four, which is that point three will repeat itself for each of these followers that have engaged with person A's original tweet. The snowball is turned into an avalanche and like most online interactions, it has escalated and now the author is, by extension, racist, a homophobe, or otherwise intolerant in some way. Essentialism is when we go from criticising a person's actions to criticising the person themselves. We're not just saying they did bad things, we're saying they're a bad person. Most times without them being able to provide a defence and if they do come out and provide a defence or an apology, it is received negatively in almost all cases. No one is willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. That's not a good enough apology! I thought it was alright. Ah! An apology apologist! He's for apologies! Get him! A perfect example of this would be when Veronica Roth's carved-a-mark was accused of being racist. Why? Well, because the story included two rival social groups. One a savage, dark-skinned culture, and the other a light-skinned civilised culture. Okay, that does sound a bit concerning. A tad familiar too. But here's the thing, this claim got massive circulation. It severely damaged the reputation of the author, Veronica Roth, at least at that point in time. But here's the thing. That whole claim about the two social groups, one dark-skinned, one light-skinned, it was completely, quantifiably, and objectively, false. So that was a fucking lie. Those two cultural groups that I mentioned were actually quite mixed. But no one cared to check this for themselves before passionately judging the character of a woman that they'd never met. This is cancel culture. Stop it! I should mention that carved-a-mark had a few other controversies, but if you read the book, you'll be immediately aware that they were either absurd or greatly exaggerated. Now, obviously there are books that have content that should be discussed openly, and perhaps sometimes even called out. But therein lies the problem. Each instance of this is astronomically different from one example to the next. It's something that could be viewed differently from person to person based on their lives and experiences. It's often subjective and it's always complex. So what do you think happens when you try to compact such a damaging and complex issue into 280 characters? When you try to point out a section or theme of a novel in a short tweet or two and label it with something as serious as intolerance or ignorance, you're inevitably scrubbing at least some of the context that in a lot of cases is so important to clarifying the need for that upsetting content in the narrative. This is an even bigger problem when you consider that it's often only one tweet within a thread that goes viral for the wrong reasons, and people will rarely read the rest before assuming the worst. You know, people on Twitter, they don't try to persuade me like I'm a human being. They order me around. They tell me what to believe. They demand that I say exactly what they want me to say or else. It's extremely objectifying. Now, to be clear, that's not to say that cancelling has no place in the world. I don't believe that. While I do believe that everyone should be free to say what they want just as everyone else should be just as free to call them on their bullshit. Shut the f- In some cases, I personally find it completely warranted to try and call for the cancellation of a certain project. A good example of this could be Kathleen Hale who is quite literally capitalizing off of an incident where she stalked someone who left her a negative review. I think giving someone a platform to make a profit off of a criminal activity should not be allowed and I don't think it's an example that should be set. But I think the important distinguishing flag here when we consider cancelling someone is intent. And with that, we come full circle. I believe that at the center of the poop storm that is booked to a chaos, the main issue is actually a rather simple one. And that is that the worst of the culture we're discussing here, cancel culture, again, not synonymous with holding people accountable, but the worst of cancel culture is when we're assuming that whoever the target is, whoever the villain is in this case has the worst intentions that you yourself are capable of imagining. Perhaps the author was simply unaware of the implications of what they were writing. Perhaps you misinterpreted what they wrote. Or maybe they are a vile piece of shit that hates the disabled and they should be remembered as such for the rest of their lives. Worse still is that if someone does disagree with you, then they, by extension, must be just as bad as the person that you're vilifying. Assuming the intent of someone, or worse, assuming the intent of someone defending that person is a form of gaslighting that would not be acceptable in any other social construct. Or in blatant terms, we, the people in a power position who have a lot of followers tell the people who otherwise would read that book or support that book that they will be shunned from the community and or their names will be dragged in the streets and or if they have like a livelihood in this industry and not a lot of power like we do amongst these people here, we're going to drag them in the streets and let everybody know that they have now been ostracized and if you associate with them, we're going to drag you too. If I can put it very bluntly, how you perceive a piece of artistic content is not always and in a lot of cases, it isn't an accurate representation of the artist's intent. Now, I know what a lot of people would say to that and it might surprise you that I would probably agree with you. Intent is not always a justifiable defense for ignorance or lacking a sense of responsibility that a lot of artists really should be taking for themselves. But that's not the point I'm making when I talk about intent. My point when I talk about intent is that in almost all cases I've seen where cancel culture has been prevalent, the thing that has been stoking the fire most is that everyone is assuming what the author intended by their statement or piece of artistic work. And when the author comes out and says, I'm sorry, but that's incorrect. That's not what I intended when I did this. They say, that's bullshit because clearly I know better than you. Remember guys, alienating or disqualifying people from a conversational community based on things like race, sexuality, or gender is a really shitty thing to do. Unless it's you doing it, baby. Slay. Oh my God, say it louder for the people in the back. Yes, Queen. So guess what? You're dead again. Sorry. But the good news is we're back in heaven. Imagine if you will that the trendiest activity here isn't publicly lighting people on fire and shooting at the people who ask you to stop. I told you to get back. But rather holding fair trials where you're required to look at polarizing topics from a different perspective. D-process! We are the jury! All right, that makes us qualified. And maybe even entertain the idea that the person on trial didn't mean to hurt anyone. I guess I just don't agree. I refuse to agree that everything now has to be so damn divisive. Nothing is treated with shades of gray anymore. It's either black or white. You're either on this side or that side. And if you don't fall into either side, then hey, you're a fence sitter and you're worse than everyone else. It sucks, man. It's not good. And whether you agree with everything I've said or not, hopefully we can agree on one thing. This isn't working. People's minds aren't being changed on either side. We're just digging a rift that is becoming harder and harder to bridge. Now, there's not much I can say about sub-tweeting. It is quite prevalent within the book Twitter community, but it's a Twitter thing in general. Sub-tweeting can be a really great way to share something profound and add your thoughts to someone else's tweet. However, I cannot see sub-tweeting during a debate or an argument as anything more than trying to encourage dog piling from your followers that are obviously going to side with you. It's cheap. I don't care who's doing it, even if you're a celebrity. If you're sub-tweeting someone's argument rather than responding to them directly on that tweet, it makes you look like a bit of a snarky douchebag. Like I said, it's cheap. Don't do it. Now, there is another thing and another thing that is talked about a lot when talking about toxicity within the book Twitter community. It is something I'm a bit more hesitant to address though, and the reason for that is that I can empathize with one side completely while agreeing with the other. This is the idea that book Twitter is comprised of clicks or small groups that rarely include others. A lot of the time, it looks like that depends on their subscriber counts or their follow accounts. Here's the thing. To a certain extent, I believe this is true. Like most cafeterias, nice callback, bro. Hey, thanks, man. There will be friend groups that can seem impossible to penetrate, especially if your opinions don't align with theirs. That's a shitty feeling within any community and feeling bummed out by that is completely valid. This is especially true when explosive growth on booktube seems reserved only for people within those friend groups. However, regardless of their intent or whether they do this based on subscriber counts or whatever, the hard pill to swallow is that no one owes you their friendship. That is a truth of life and holding that against someone is actually pretty petty. Sometimes creators gel best with other creators with similar sub-counts because it's less likely that they're being leached for clout. Unless these groups are actively talking shit on people outside of their bubble, they really aren't doing anything wrong. But like I said, I get it. It can be a bummer, especially on booktube where feeling disconnected from the community happens quite a lot. I believe booktweeter is a big part of this, but unfortunately, I just don't think there's an actual solution to that. So there you have it, my friends. Whether you agree with anything I've said or not, these are simply put some of the most popular thoughts among people who think that booktweeter is trash. Like I said, ultimately my perfect scenario would just be that the general attitude on the platform was less divisive and perhaps more open to non-hostile discourse. Rather than escalating every conflict, we would actually try to see where each other are coming from. Otherwise, nothing's ever gonna change. We're just going to continue to yell at each other and yell at each other and further solidify the hate that everyone seems to have for each other nowadays. Anyway, let me know what you think in the comments below. I'm sure there's no chance of that turning into a shitstorm. As always, thanks for watching. Catch ya. She's got class as dark wild. They're real old. Yeah, champions isn't all. Let me show ya.