[shouting and firebending]

Bratz Babyz:

I work at a public library and book culture there is nauseating. Not really among the other employees (though we’ve had a few come through over the years), but the patrons?

Oh god the patrons. Most of the people who check out books are just regular people who like reading. I even have patrons who L O V E to read, and who spend a majority of their free time reading or discussing books, they’re part of multiple book clubs, they always bring a big bag and leave with it full. They aren’t the Book Culture People.

Book Culture People loudly announce that they’re so surprised that there are children who know what books are!

They act affronted when I mention our ebook service, and scoff at the idea that anyone could enjoy reading from a screen instead of off the page!

They are personally offended that publishers hire actors to read the books for audio versions, because they feel that “audio books cheapen the experience of reading” and “audio books are cheating”!

They have to proclaim their fetish for ‘real’ books, whether through tacky tote bags, weird quote filled pinterest boards and social media posts, or awkwardly shoehorning unimpressive humblebrags about all the classics that they’re reading into unrelated conversations with tired library assistants.

Hating accessible books and shunning technology is basically the antithesis of modern librarianship.

I don’t get the ebook hate, ebooks are literally just books. You cite ebooks the same way, and depending on the format, you don’t even say they’re ebooks.

It’s a performative, self important approach to something that I genuinely enjoy, and I think it bothers me more than, say, fandom antics, just because it’s so much more common. People get offended when I tell them I don’t read a lot in my down time, that I genuinely prefer audio books, that I’ll skip their recommendations because I don’t share their tastes.

Incidentally this is why while it’s not always clear what to get an actual librarian for their birthday, The Book People are so easily wrangled by marketing, cheap slogans on a bag– because icons repeat the idea, and in turn advertise their form of perceived status. What use is being a Book Person if nobody else knows what’s Important to them (and, by result, what these people consider unimportant in others).

You can see this in art circles where people fuss over gallery showings and being seen with art they consider totemic for their status, when people suddenly become amateur film critics as if through their taste they, too, are an auteur. Music snob culture is related. These same people get really fussy over what “real” art is, or the access the general public have to art. When Book People behave condescendingly over kids “actually reading” or sneer down their nose that “ebooks/audiobooks are cheating” they are trying to protect Books ™ as a status symbol only they care about, prevent it from degrading in ‘value’ in the face of the reality that kids read, books on tape are good, not all books are great literature, or that some genres aren’t going to yield many Future Classics™. 

Parenting

‘embrace the darkness in your heart’