Reading for Fun? Boo!

Somewhere along the line, we forgot to have fun when reading.

Somewhere on TikTok, someone started spouting how the short-form video platform was causing the rise of anti-intellectism in the book community.

Just so you know, this isn’t the first time this type of moral panic has seeped into media. It happened during the rise of Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey. Literary critics and elitist claimed that the book world would never recover at the publication of these two books. But guess what? Publishing continued. And people continued to reading.

People love to panic over nothing.

However, in this particular instance of people screaming ‘anti-intellectualism’, the TikToker stated issues with the over tropification of books. She argued that boiling books down to tropes was not critically engaging with the text, it was dumbing down the larger meaning and worth of books. Personally, I think this particular individual is misunderstanding that TikTok, for authors at least, is used for marketing. Even for large Booktokers, who make a living from reading and reviewing books, they are also marketing. The tropification of books is a marketing tool. It says nothing about the people actually reading the books.

In the realm of social media, grabbing someone's attention swiftly is crucial to keeping them engaged with our content. Boiling books down to tropes is one tactic that works surprisingly well.

And if someone is so bothered by the marketing methods being used on social media, which people are forced to use because of the algorithm and people’s short attention spans, then perhaps consider getting book recommendations from another source? There is always Amazon or Goodreads.

There appears to be this disdain for people who choose a book based on its tropes but also for those who like the simple pleasure of reading. This discourse made me feel as if I wasn’t doing mental aerobatics each time I sat down with a book, then I’m doing it wrong. Apparently, I’m dumb.

There is a time and place for a literary analysis of a text and that is, most often, in an academic setting. While it’s important to engage critically with media, it shouldn’t be a requirement every time we sit down to read. Even in a classroom.

Many people hate reading because they were forced to analyze books in academic settings at young ages when they were not ready. The act of trying to discern what an author’s intentions were when writing can easily suck all the joy out of any story. I’ve witnessed this firsthand as a former English teacher.

From a personal perspective, the thing that gets me critically engaging with my books is my enjoyment of a text. It was actually after enjoying A Court of Thorns and Roses series that lead me to researching the author and engaging more critically with the texts. In my research, I found Maas is Jewish, and it gave me a new perspective on her writing, and I could see the influence of her religious beliefs in some of her word choices and the way characters interact. But without that initial excitement over the series, no further analysis of the text would’ve happened on my part.

Claiming the book world is becoming more ‘anti-intellectual’ lacks nuance and stinks of classism.

Reading for fun or entertainment is more than enough.

Why?

According to the PISA, the Programme for International Student Assessment, in 2022 the United States didn’t even rank top 10 in math, science or reading ability internationally.

We still don’t.

Through my graduate education as a teacher, I discovered that reading skills are acquired at a very early age. Children need to be read to when they are babies and toddlers to gain the skills necessary to be reading ready when entering school. A large swath of children are entering kindergarten without knowing their ABC’s or how to spell their names. And guess what? Those children are already behind.

These same children continue through school, where they struggle to catch up. That gap is never closed. It was heartbreaking to see most of 8th graders were reading at a 4th or 5th grade level.

But we’ve always struggled with reading literacy in this country for several reasons:

1. More families than ever are stretched thin, working several jobs. This leaves less time to spend quality time at home with children.

2. There are no policies in this country to support working-class families, such an extended paid time off after birth, or subsided daycare. Parents are exhausted.

3. All over the US there is an attack on libraries, essentially taking away books and reading resources from the poor and working class.

4. Since the creation of our country, POCs have been deterred from reading, whether it’s through the underfunding of schools, the destabilization and displacement of Black and Indigenous communities. These communities have taken the largest hit to reading literacy.

5. Schools are underfunded throughout our nation. Schools are using outdated frameworks of teaching and curriculum. And all the funding comes from how well students score on tests. If a school doesn’t score well, they get less money. Seems backward. One would think if a school district is performing low, they would need more funds to afford more support for their students.

So please, stop acting like people reading for fun is the end of the world. This is a systemic issue. If anything, we should be excited anyone is reading, when we are being crushed by the heavy hammer of capitalism and living in a country who does nothing but repress education, POC and working-class families. If we are so worried about media literacy and anti-intellectualism, then we need to be looking at our country and policies that created these problems. Not pointing the finger at readers choosing books because it has a trope they love or simply picking up a book for the sheer pleasure of the activity.