We all know and love YouTube: it holds all our middle school memories (we all remember Charlie the Unicorn, NigaHiga, and all those lyric videos so we now know the actual lyrics to our favorite songs), and it’s still great today. YouTubers like Justin Bieber made their big breaks to mainstream media, and there are some huge and well-known YouTubers with millions of followers: JennaMarbles, PewDiePie, and Smosh. There are tons of communities on the social media platform, from beauty to gaming and everything in between. But there’s one community no one ever really hears about: BookTube. What is it, and why should you care?
BookTube is YouTube’s corner of the Internet dedicated to reading and lovers of all types of books. It’s where people online come to talk about their passion for written word, and share their own favorite books and series. It’s a close-knit group, since there aren’t many big names compared to other YouTube groups (such as in the gaming community). They have their own special events, like Readathons, and special tag-based videos, like this user’s Guilty Reader Tag video. There are also great unboxing videos for the myriad of book subscription boxes, letting viewers know what each box is like and see if they’d be interested in trying the product; more often than not, the BookTubers have their own special coupons to save you money on your first purchase (or any purchase).
As someone who’s always been an avid reader, within the past few years I have devoured series that my other book-loving friends hadn’t heard of or wouldn’t be able to have a lasting conversation with me about. This left me with bottled down feelings for things that were really important to me (some that are still important to me), and finding no solace for these emotions and reactions. Then, just recently, I discovered BookTube, and the people out there loving the same series I love, and sharing their feelings online and creating conversations through comments and vlogs. The day I saw Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy as the focus for a video by one of my favorite YouTubers, I got so excited.
So why should you care? Well, if you’re anything like me and love reading, you know the feeling of finishing a really good book and wanting to talk (aka scream and rant) to someone about it. But there are times when you can’t, either because the person hasn’t heard of the book, hasn’t read it yet, or just doesn’t want to hear you go on again about this book that they need to read. Insert BookTube. Like I said, there are fun vlogs on Readathons (reading marathons), special tag memes for BookTubers to do, and who doesn’t love a good unboxing video? Especially when it’s about finding a new book and getting bookish goodies? My days have been much better once BookTube walked into my life, and I hope you give it a shot, too. If you don’t know where to start, I’ve left the links to some of my favorite BookTubers below, but I also just searched “booktube” on YouTube and saw what came up. I also just watched any themed BookTube videos, like PixieTonic’s YA Recommendations (which also included her defending the young adult genre); those are always great to just jump right into and see if you like the BookTuber’s personality and if you have similar taste in books.
These are some of my favorite BookTubers right now, if you wanna try it but don’t know where to start: