Let's talk about social media addiction and Booktube

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Addendum 1: August 30, 2022

In August of 2022, there was a bit of a blow up on my little corner of booktube because some booktubers criticized other booktubers for monetizing their videos, other booktubers took offense, and there was this whole big drama.  See here, for one example of this drama.

I was watching this whole thing unfold, and thinking to myself: "Booktube drama is so stupid. It's so easy to avoid drama.  All you need to do is talk about the books that you want to talk about, and don't criticize other booktubers, and then there's no drama."

But then, of course, I thought of this video, and I realized this was a video that was criticizing other Booktubers.  So I went back and added this addendum to the description of my video (and also pinned it as my top comment).

 For whatever it's worth, I regret making this video.  I haven't changed my mind about any of the substantive points in here, but recent events have made me realize that the most toxic thing about booktube is the predilection booktubers have for telling other booktubers that they are doing booktube wrong.  It just leads to bad vibes and unnecessary drama.  I desire in the future to just talk about the books I'm reading, and not what other booktubers are doing.

Addendum 2: January 25, 2024 

I've recently been going back through my old Youtube videos (to update the thumbnails).  And I'm becoming reminded of just how much junk I've posted on my channel over the years.  I mean, not just my book and movie reviews, but all the travelogue videos, all those vlogs, all those ESL listening exercises, filming old reviews from my blog, etc, etc, etc.

And why was I posting all of those videos?  Obviously because I was craving attention, views, likes and comments on Youtube.

And I thought, "It's pretty rich that I would ever accuse other Booktubers of having a social media addiction problem.  I'm clearly the one who has the addiction problem."

There was obviously a lot of projection going on in this video.

Now, to be fair to myself, there is one thing that separates me from some of the other Booktubers that I was criticizing of when I filmed this video.  Namely, in terms of the social media addiction, I never said the quiet part out-loud.  I at least had enough sense not to go on Twitter and complain that I didn't have enough subscribers (as a lot of booktubers do).  Or I never made a video complaining that I don't get enough views (as a lot of  booktubers do).

Part of this maybe that I apparently have a lower thresh hold for dopamine rewards than the other booktubers.  If I get 20 views and 2 likes on a video, that's enough for me.  I don't need any more than that.  (And given the production quality of my videos, I don't think I particularly deserve much more than that.)  But I do seem to need the dopamine reward regularly.  That is to say, even though I'm satisfied with a low number of views and a low number of likes, I do need to be constantly uploading videos to get fresh views and fresh likes to keep that dopamine coming.  And that explains a lot of the junk I've uploaded to my channel over the years.