The book people just want a nice place
Threads won't be it.
I’m seeing a lot of enthusiasm among bookstagrammers who have, like me, lined up as raw material for Facebook’s new data-harvesting scheme. Despite an unusable search tool and a feed polluted with brands and lifestyle influencers, Threads is pulling in bookish posters who feel temporarily freed from the tyranny of polished aesthetics on Instagram. I’ve seen optimistic posts about how we can build a book-centric community that isn’t structured by the usual metric-obsession, follower-chasing, and other blighted incentives that make social media sites a toxic hellscape. The experience is frenetic and half-guilty: Everyone is reading threads instead of books, everyone’s neglected TBR pile is wailing.
For now, it’s fun. All I’ve done for 72 hours is post dumb jokes and I haven’t been consumed by the waves of self-loathing and post-posting regret that made it hard for me to use Twitter. We call this progress. (Follow me on Threads I guess I mean don’t really care.)
But it’s hard to believe this feeling will last.
I’m sure some people join bookstagram for the clout (though there are surely more efficient ways to make people pay attention to you), but I genuinely believe most book people want an online community — or perhaps an overlapping network of communities — where they can just congregate and talk about books they love and books they hate. But Threads isn’t going to be that; while Meta loves talking about community, it’s only capable of using the word as a cynical branding exercise.
I could always be wrong I suppose but the historical record isn’t great. Back in 2017 when Facebook was getting blamed for Trump’s election, Mark Zuckerberg responded with five-step plan to “build a global community” and I think it’s okay to say that this didn’t really work out; in the years since, Facebook became a content factory for the far-right and squandered billions on an imaginary metaverse that no one used.
Yet the men in charge of Meta are still out here talking about internet community like we’re all naive young millennials in 2006 and not aging millennials jaded by years of terrible decisions from terrible tech giants. The head of Instagram would like you to believe that Threads is supposed to be about cultivating a “vibrant community of creators that’s really culturally relevant.” But I don’t believe him!
Here’s what “culturally relevant” means so far: Threads is a place where Penguin Random House and Hachette can pretend they are cute and funny and trendy instead of monopolistic behemoths who have fostered an environment of extreme pay inequity for authors. (Don’t be fooled, they are here to make sure you buy more of their bestsellers.) I like Bookshop.org a lot; I’d rather buy books from them than Amazon. But my timeline is choked with the company’s cheeky posts and bookstagrammers responding to their cheeky posts. There are no “official” ads on Threads yet but posts from company accounts are sponsored content by another name.
None of this is a community: It’s a gathering of consumers.
Maybe it is impossible for us to have a social media site that doesn’t immediately transform its users into buyers and sellers, even if the only resource you have to sell is your attention. I’m not exempt from this criticism: I’m out there on Threads trying to buy a slice of people’s free time with my posts while advertising my writing. (Subscribe to my newsletter please and thanks!)
Do I think it is great that bookstagrammers have a place to post their little thoughts? Yes, and I would love if Threads managed to shake up the algorithmically-driven obsession with perfectly curated photos of books. Maybe it will encourage a bit more substantive, fun dialogue about literature or help people with niche book interests find each other more easily. It might still do that.
Let’s just not pretend it will be our utopia.