I mean it. Book Twitter is a weird place.
And yes, that’s already acknowledging that Twitter is a flaming cesspool. Which was true long before Musk got his hands on it. It definitely hasn’t gotten any better, but my brief examination of the book side of things the last few weeks was … Well, let’s just say it kind of felt like watching The Godfather or reading about The Sopranos.
Book Twitter is a very strange place.
Okay, let me give you some context. Normally, I ignore Twitter. I only have an account at all for two reasons, the first being that I didn’t wish anyone else to claim my name and start making posts and tweets under false pretenses—which is sadly something the book world has to worry about—and the second being that one fan has requested that I keep the Twitter account going because that’s how they keep track of the goings-on of my site.
Those are the only reasons I have it. Occasionally I’ll dabble in tweeting something specific for a book, or occasionally it has come in handy when needing to contact tech-support somewhere, but by and large, Twitter is something I ignore.
Oh, and it’s a flaming cesspool, if you haven’t heard. Twitter is insane. Even checking out my “feed” (which is supposedly content you’ll “like,” but Twitter seems to have a very different idea of what a rational person would like, and it’s only gotten crazier under Musk) a few times a year was enough to convince me “No, I have nothing I need here.”
But these last few months, I decided to actually look at the book-side of Twitter. I was following a project that interacted with “Book Twitter,” which until now I’d avoided, and I finally got my look at it.
It’s an utterly odd place.
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Unusual Things 