Why Is the Online Book Community Becoming So Hostile?

When did talking about books become harder than reading them? 

Every day it feels like certain parts of the book community are becoming hostile. Everytime I open up social media there is something. From Haunting Adeline adaptation crisis to the 3 stars reviews debate. I thought things had peaked last year when Ali Hazelwood was bullied off social media because of her opinions of Peeta from the Hunger Games but it seems like nothing was learned.  It’s becoming a real negative space and it’s exhausting. Thoughtful conversations seemed to have vanished. What happened to healthy debate?

I miss the days of bookstagram where we just vibed about the books we loved and hyped up great authors. I’m not saying they were perfect, of course there were still debates and discourse but the intensity seemed less and it felt like people were more open to nuanced conversations. . Now a review gets buried by discourse posts and hate. Two Things have really stuck out recently, number one the  plain meanness that seems to dominate. I came across this post yesterday on threads: 

“Authors, if someone isn’t asking for a book recs, please refrain from dropping your book in the comments. It does not make me want to read your book”

Uhh ok sorry these people are just trying to get their work out there. The comments were just as nasty. Sure you can not like these comments from authors, but that last sentence is unnecessarily mean. Then there is the creator who is threatening others because they don’t like the books that they are reading. What the hell is actually going on here? Why are people so comfortable behaving this way? 

The second thing I want to touch on is Ai accusations. For the love of everything, unless you have actual hard proof that someone has used Ai in their writing, stop making unfounded accusations that are at the core based on a feeling about what they have read or random similarities that you have found. A book having similar names to another does not mean ai was used.

I’m so frustrated by this because some of these accusations come across as engagement bait, there is no genuine evidence given. I came across a reel yesterday accusing Lauren Roberts*  of using Ai to write Reckless** and the reasons were shaky at best, but it was the comment section that made my heart sink a little because most of them were just jumping in and agreeing, only few comments were thoughtful and actually looked at the evidence provided. Some of these comments were hard to read and very much felt like bullying. Accusations  like this destroy an author’s reputation. 

Stop just stop, unproven accusations can cause real harm too, and we shouldn’t pretend that harm doesn’t matter.  Yes, AI transparency matters, but evidence also matters. Both can be true at the same time. 

The thing that nobody is asking, what responsibility does a creator have when they publicly accuse someone of unethical behaviour? 

From the outside it feels like people are too busy reacting and not thinking enough. I stopped posting my opinions so much on instagram lately, because having a different opinion on something now feels like a crime. To be clear this is not about shutting down conversations or debates, I like to have a chat as long as it stays constructive and healthy but in my recent experience this has not been the case.

* yes I’m aware of all the controversy around this author, I’m not defending her, this is just an example, and to be clear, I am not endorsing or supporting authors who use ai, I’m just concerned about how people are being falsely accused

**I did think about sharing the link, but I actually don’t want to give this person anymore engagement.