There are a lot of things I don't like about myself, but one of the things that I have always been rather pleased with is my willingness to engage with the English language. A lot of this stems from being encouraged well at an early age, both by my parents and at school, but also a natural sense of inquisitiveness and curiosity about the use of words and language.
I mention this because I am seeing more and more reports of a "literacy crisis" that appears to be arising, primarily as a result of "BookTok" (i.e. people on the odious short-form video platform TikTok who supposedly talk about books) and "book influencers" (i.e. people on a broader range of primarily video-based social platforms who supposedly talk about books). Most recently, the thing that has come up is some of these people complaining to authors when they come across a word they do not understand — and rather than looking that word up for themselves, using it as an opportunity to learn, they instead throw their toys out of the pram and get very mardy, even going so far as to throw around terms like "ableist". (Fuck off. Your assumption that disabled people can't read is the ableist perspective here.)
This sort of behaviour is absolutely unthinkable and unfathomable to me. I have always loved it when I learn new words, concepts or ways to express myself from things that I've read. There are turns of phrase I picked up as a child that I still use to this day, and I relish the opportunity to make use of a word that I've recently learned.
I am also more than happy to look something up if I'm not sure of it. I actually tend to find this happens more often while I am writing than reading; I'll be tapping out a sentence, and for some reason a particular word that I'm not entirely certain of the definition of will pop into my head as maybe-possibly being appropriate for the situation. Rather than shying away from using that word for fear of appearing stupid by using it incorrectly, I will look it up, determine whether or not it is, in fact, appropriate for the situation in question, and then, if possible, make good use of it. It's not out of a desire to appear "clever" or to baffle the reader with my vast vocabulary; I just find it fun and satisfying to discover new ways in which one can play with language.
I've always been like this. I started reading books that were well ahead of where I was "supposed" to be as a kid, so by the time I got to primary school I was reading things several "Levels" ahead of my peers and taking on considerably more challenging reading comprehension exercises. By the top end of primary school, I was busting out words like "antidisestablishmentarianism" and "floccinaucinihilipilification" in the morning Daily Spellings session in Class Four, and being able to correctly use them in a sentence.
I apparently once also terrified my parents by, one day, aged maybe three or four, coming down the stairs and immediately quoting the beginning of Genesis to them. In this particular instance, it was not a "reading" thing — I hadn't been secretly ploughing through the Bible in between episodes of the Mr. Men — but rather a quotation from a cartoon I had recently watched on video. I guess it's connected, though; I had found the whole "In the beginning…" speech striking, so I wanted to deliver it in my own childish way. That's still a way of playing with language, just using the spoken word and listening instead of reading and writing.
The concept of "BookTok" makes me angry. It is completely beyond me exactly how anyone thought a community of people who make short-form attention-deficit videos online were ever going to come out with anything particularly worthwhile to say about a medium that rewards taking your time and drinking things in. And the very term "book influencer" makes me bristle. We never should have accepted the marketers' insistence than "influencer" is a valid job description. It's disgustingly dystopian, particularly since "influencer marketing" is now an established part of promoting any sort of product online.
I love language. I love reading, and I love writing. It makes me by turns sad and furious that, in the space of a generation or two, we appear to be losing all respect for the written word. Just the other day, I saw someone online earnestly recommending that anyone who wanted to spend their time talking about a favourite topic should "just become a TikToker" rather than starting a blog. I bit my tongue at the time because I couldn't be arsed to start a fight, but it just made me feel weary more than anything.
What are we doing? It almost feels like a deliberate attempt to siphon all the "culture" out of society, perhaps in an attempt to ensure that none of us step out of line or express any sorts of "dangerous" opinions.
Funny, I think there are a few books about that…
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
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