The Internet and, especially, social networks have been in charge of invigorating almost any aspect of culture during the last five years: photographs of urban art, portraits of young artists, electronic books edited by freelance writers and yes, too a love of reading translated into thousands of book photos by a new generation that promises to return to the world the passion for letters.
The most on the rise social network these days, Instagram, has become the perfect showcase for all those users and above all readers who increasingly share their literary challenges, joint readings and passion for books with greater assiduity.
These readers, the bookstagrammers, have become one of the highlights of the Buenos Aires Book Fair that is celebrated these days.
(New) literary cafes
On April 21, the Buenos Aires Book Fair (Argentina) began, an appointment that runs until May 9. An event that has served to highlight the latest proposals in the Latin American and international publishing market, at the same time that more than one event was dedicated to the presence of young people whose presence in the "real" world may not yet have much weight, but it does in social networks: the so-called bookstagrammers.
And we wonder, Who are the bookstagrammers? As their name suggests, these avid readers have turned the social network Instagram into their personal literary café thanks to the hashtag #bookstagrammmer, in addition to many other groups in which books are reviewed, new readings are recommended and, above all, the love for books is shared thanks to photography.
Snapshots of hundreds of books become a visual hurricane that not only turns the enjoyment of reading into something much more democratic and varied, but judging by this fever, the new generations seem to rescue a passion for literature that is beginning to become viral all over the net.
Among these users we find people like the 16-year-old Maximiliano Pizzotti (@thxboywthebooks), winner of the Best Bookstagrammer award last week at the aforementioned Buenos Aires fair. This young man has read 27 books so far this year and is an expert in this literary "posturing" judging by the presentations of his books on Instagram: Hard Rock Café plaques accompanying rock romance books, orange stuffed animals with books by the same shades and so on, confirming that the presence of the XXI century reader in the photographic social network is above all a visual experience that requires a certain art.
Instagram is not the only social network in which these addicts to read live, because to this we would have to add the presence of booktubers (the literary version of the youtubers, specialized in reading and reviewing books in a more acting way) or the bookbloggers, bloggers dedicated to book reviews on the Internet.
In these circles, new readers go beyond what is considered specialized criticism to break the rules, democratize the dissemination of a book and exercise their own version of word of mouth among the masses, which allows new authors to be better known and old classics are discovered by new generations.
The bookstagrammers they become the latest literary phenomenon in social networks thanks to the exposure, dissemination and creation of reading clubs on platforms such as Instagram in particular, and others such as YouTube or Google blogs.
And what would you be? Instagrammer, booktuber or bookblogger?
Hello again, namesake.
He had never heard of "bookstagrammers," "booktuber," and "bookbloggers." If I choose between the three options, I would be a "bookblogger".
I think it's great that new authors and new and old books are advertised through social media. Above all, for those people who start writing or have been around for some time and find it difficult or impossible to make themselves known through more or less important publishers. The problem I see is that a lot of cheap, bad literature is promoted, and that it is only evasion. The escape literature is fine, but if it is accompanied by a certain depth and if it leaves you a residue and even changes your vision of life.
A literary greeting from Oviedo, Alberto.