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2 Massive Trend among Current Readers


I am going to tell you a trend among people who are extremely centred around efficiency, productivity & stuff like that. However if you are a reader (or atleast has some connection to books of any kind) & if you have ever went over YouTube to get some book recommendation, then probably you are already aware of the trend. But hold on. Let's not get hurry. First let me share a tiny story which will make it easier for you to understand the heart of the trend. 

The story goes back to early 2010's. YouTube was the hottest buzz word all over the world. Every field was going through dramatic shifts. Lots of industries decimated & lots of industries started to thrive in leaps & bounds. People left jobs & became YouTubers. A group of readers saw this as an opportunity & started talking about books over YouTube. But they didn't like calling themselves YouTubers, so they  started calling them "Booktubers". This marks the rise a whole new industry called "BOOKTUBE".

Booktubers started talking about all kind of books, like novels, biographies, memoirs, science, philosophy & history. It was rejuvenating because for the first time in human history there is an industry that celebrates knowledge & talks about it boastfully in front of the world. It was also good in a way that it was able to attract even non-readers into reading, because those booktubers were talking (reviewing/ analysing) about books so cheerfully in a video format with decorative backgrounds, which was really really cool. Everything was going well untill the rise of "Self-Help" books. 

Trend 1 : 


It's not that Self-help books were not there in the industry. But it was sort of niche (if not totally hidden). As some of the booktubers started talking about Self-help books, all of a sudden the views started to skyrocket. Whether you talk about developed countries like USA or developing countries like India, the demand for Self-help grew everywhere like a wildfire. So booktubers started to snatch this opportunity.  Instead of talking about novels, biographies, social events, science & philosophy, they decided to talk about self-help books more & more.

Trend 2 : 


That's not all. There is one more seed that booktubers planted in the minds of readers. It's the art of "FINISHING MORE BOOKS". In order to meet the rising demand of Self-help books, booktubers started to read 2/3 times of what they usually read. They would set their video thumbnail like "I completed 100 books in a year", "I read 7 books in 7 days", "Self-help books have changed my life". So readers started to sense the competition, got excited about it & participated, thinking that it will also change their lives upside down. 

Now the question comes; how far these  Self-help books have helped the reader community ? Secondly, how much "reading 100 books a year" has changed the lives of readers ? As you can sense from my tone, the answer is NOT so positive. Let's start from Self-help. 

This is a genre of books that mostly talks about productivity, efficiency, belief systems, work life balance & many more. To most readers these books are captivating, inspiring & motivating because it teaches them tips & tricks to grow in a modern capitalist society. To be frank there is nothing wrong about this genre of books. They have huge potential to transform lives. Afterall, people write these books after lots of observation & life experience. But what makes everything worse is when trend 1 meets trend 2.

People aren't just reading self-help, they are swallowing self-help, day in & day out. Its kind of a illusion among readers that the more self help you consume, the more fantastic & enriching your life will be. It also gives them a sense of accomplishment after finishing 5 self-help books in a month. It's not accomplishment, it's cluttering your mind & welcoming confusion. Instead of integration & application of learned knowledge, the focus is on NUMBER, so that they can move to YouTube & declare that they have completed 100 books in a year. When one booktuber does it, hundreds of readers start doing it & end up in a mass epidemic. It's ironic that readers are living in such a state of delusion. 

I will close this blog with one question "what's next?" 

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