Latest / Gorls Unplugged / There's BookTok drama again... Jessa Hastings tweets, tagging authors in reviews & more! 👀

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There's BookTok drama again... Jessa Hastings tweets, tagging authors in reviews & more! 👀 · Gorls Unplugged

• 0:00
  Hey guys, welcome back to Girls Unplugged.
• 0:02
  We have a very special episode for you today because actually
• 0:05
  TOR's going to be eating her socks today.
• 0:08
  I don't know if you joined us for a recent episode where she
• 0:11
  said if I didn't like soul searching, she was going to eat
• 0:14
  her socks, but spoiler alert, she might have to do that.
• 0:18
  As you might be able to tell, we are going to give you a reading
• 0:21
  update on a book we have liked, a book we haven't liked, but
• 0:24
  we're also going to talk about some book talk drama that's been
• 0:26
  unfolding. Fire is burning.
• 0:31
  Jessa Hastings is exploding God. And yeah, and we've also had
• 0:36
  some instances of creators tagging authors in negative
• 0:39
  reviews, so we're going to dive. All into that one.
• 0:43
  The worst one I think I've ever seen, actually.
• 0:44
  Yeah, Rage farming at its finest, it felt like.
• 0:47
  Yeah, let's get into it. And in case you're wondering,
• 0:50
  this outfit situation was not planned.
• 0:52
  Yeah, it was not, I swear to God, but it survived for dishing
• 0:57
  the tea and all this shit from the last.
• 0:59
  Few weeks, yeah. See, Tort always says we're
• 1:01
  opposite, but sometimes we actually do just do the same
• 1:05
  thing in a different font. Yeah.
• 1:08
  OK, so I like, Frontie said. I was adamant she was gonna love
• 1:12
  it because I loved it so much and she loves all of Lila's
• 1:16
  other books. So tell us why you didn't like
• 1:19
  Soul Searching. Please.
• 1:20
  Yeah, guys, I was just so bored all the way through.
• 1:25
  Like I was so bored. I was just waiting for something
• 1:28
  to happen and it just never really did.
• 1:31
  And I just couldn't stand the female main character which.
• 1:35
  Surprised me because I felt like she was very much like the Black
• 1:39
  Cat one in the second. Yeah.
• 1:41
  So I thought Francie's going to love the vibe of this girl, but
• 1:45
  obviously not. Yeah, so when it first started,
• 1:47
  I thought I was going to like her as well.
• 1:49
  I was like, oh, she's like, really creative.
• 1:50
  She's a bit alternative, like, yeah, like leader in Swift and
• 1:53
  saddles. So I was good, I thought as
• 1:55
  well, exactly the same as you. And honestly, there's the first
• 1:58
  maybe like 10%. I did think I was going to
• 2:00
  really enjoy the book. And then she just seemed to like
• 2:04
  whine constantly and I just didn't really think she had.
• 2:08
  To hate on a whiner. I didn't think she was that
• 2:10
  whiny, I just thought she was a little bit lost.
• 2:12
  Yeah, but I felt like she also didn't have enough reason to be
• 2:15
  like that. Lost like as in like Lila hadn't
• 2:18
  given her enough of a conflict or a plot.
• 2:21
  Yeah. Pay for And then I've seen a few
• 2:24
  people say that Brady is a super boring love interest and he's
• 2:29
  like a bit of a wet wipe. I mean.
• 2:31
  He was a bit of a wet wipe to be fair.
• 2:33
  I just really enjoyed it. I feel like I was more focused
• 2:36
  on like the spooky bits. I really enjoyed it.
• 2:38
  Like when? Sorry.
• 2:42
  I knew she was going to do this to me.
• 2:44
  This you said. There was a really scary scene.
• 2:48
  Scary. I didn't.
• 2:49
  I say I knew she was not lying because it's scary to her, but
• 2:53
  like, I knew I would not find it speaking.
• 2:55
  I actually messaged Amy after, like, what was the scary bit, by
• 3:00
  the way? I need to check the tool with
• 3:01
  the woman. Yeah.
• 3:03
  And she was like, oh, I think it's that bit.
• 3:04
  And I was like, I need to tell this girl she needs to get grip.
• 3:08
  Shut. My pants.
• 3:10
  Literally I did, I said to God. And the bit where they were in
• 3:14
  the trash as well, that freaked me out.
• 3:16
  It was just like eerie vibes. I'm very easily spooked.
• 3:20
  Yeah, yeah, OK. I feel like fair if you're not,
• 3:23
  if you're not into spooky things, it probably is creepy.
• 3:26
  But I wanted more of that, actually.
• 3:28
  And I just, yeah, I just felt like nothing was really
• 3:31
  happening. I didn't hate it, I gave it.
• 3:33
  I think I gave it 3 or 3.5. It just wasn't.
• 3:36
  It just wasn't. Maybe because you.
• 3:38
  Just loved and to be fair I didn't like Dumb and Dusted when
• 3:40
  I first started. I'm typically like that with
• 3:43
  interconnected series. So are you going to read the
• 3:45
  next? One, yeah, I'll always give an
• 3:47
  author that I love a second chance.
• 3:49
  Yeah, I'm actually going to read Mate by Ali, even though I
• 3:52
  didn't like Bride for that reason.
• 3:54
  But yeah, it just wasn't my favorite by her.
• 3:56
  So get those socks off. I'm not eating them, they're
• 4:00
  filthy. My floors need cleaning so I
• 4:04
  actually DNF a beloved book. Top book last month.
• 4:09
  What was it? It was the Ever King by LJ
• 4:12
  Andrews. I will say at the minute it's a
• 4:15
  soft DNF because I did it on audio and I feel like I just
• 4:21
  wasn't gelling with the narrators.
• 4:23
  Right. The story in the plot wasn't
• 4:26
  bad, it just something about it wasn't grabbing me.
• 4:29
  So in my mind, my plan is you give it a couple of months, you
• 4:33
  give it a second chance reading it because it's so loved.
• 4:37
  And actually creators whose opinions I really trust when it
• 4:41
  comes to romancey books love it. So I'm like, I need to feel like
• 4:45
  I need to give it a second chance.
• 4:47
  We'll see. But it wasn't, it wasn't a vibe
• 4:52
  for me right now personally. Yeah, cuz I was gonna say I've
• 4:54
  got a few mutuals as well whose taste I really trust who have
• 4:59
  loved it because it's meant to be quite a dark romance, isn't
• 5:02
  it it? Is and it's Pirates and Faye and
• 5:06
  there's kind of this interesting magic situation going on, but
• 5:10
  something about it just wasn't doing it for me.
• 5:15
  And I don't know if it was the plot.
• 5:17
  I wasn't really invested in the kind of enemies to lovers
• 5:19
  romance that was building. There wasn't enough tension
• 5:22
  there for me. I don't know, it just wasn't.
• 5:27
  It wasn't doing it for me. Yeah, fair me with soul
• 5:29
  searching, you with the other kid.
• 5:31
  Sometimes things just don't work out.
• 5:33
  What about Has there been a book recently that you've loved?
• 5:36
  Yes, there have actually been a couple Human Rights, but, and I
• 5:43
  actually think I might have spoken about this, I think I
• 5:44
  might have started reading it in one of the last episodes we
• 5:47
  filmed. But I finished Human Rights,
• 5:49
  which is the last book in the HMRC series by Juno Dawson.
• 5:55
  And it was just, you know, like you read a first book and it's
• 5:59
  good and then you read a second book and you expect it to be not
• 6:01
  that good. But actually Shadow Cabinet was
• 6:03
  also amazing. And then the novella really let
• 6:06
  it down for me a little bit and I was really worried about how
• 6:09
  it was going to end, but it was actually fucking perfect.
• 6:13
  It delivered on tension like trauma relationships and it got
• 6:20
  so interesting and seep into this like weird magic system.
• 6:26
  I was like, this is just it was just so fucking good.
• 6:29
  It was the perfect end to a series.
• 6:31
  And I think everyone, I think it's so such a severely under
• 6:35
  height series. Yeah, I agree.
• 6:37
  I never see people talking about it really, but I also have had a
• 6:42
  couple recently actually, so I think I had started Alchemist
• 6:47
  like you had started human rights.
• 6:48
  Yes, yes. Yes, in the last episode that
• 6:50
  was one of them. But the one I'm actually going
• 6:52
  to talk about is Eldritch by Kerry Lake.
• 6:55
  This is the sequel. The sequel to Anathema.
• 6:58
  Yeah, some people say anathema, some say anathema.
• 7:01
  I don't know which one it is, but.
• 7:03
  That's like catabasis and. Catabasis, Yeah.
• 7:07
  Catabasis, as the Americans say. Yeah, I don't know what we're
• 7:10
  calling it, but for this I'm just going to call it Anathema.
• 7:13
  Anyway. It's the sequel to that, and
• 7:15
  Anathema I had a really like weird experience with in terms
• 7:20
  of the first half of the book. I wanted to DNF and then the
• 7:23
  second-half of the book I was obsessed.
• 7:27
  And it's a really long, chunky book.
• 7:29
  It's like 700 pages. So then when Eldritch came out,
• 7:33
  I was like, do you know what? Even though normally I kind of
• 7:36
  wait a while because I always have like a priority TBR, I need
• 7:40
  to get to 1st. This time I've gone straight on
• 7:42
  to it just because there's a lot of world building and stuff in
• 7:45
  it. So I was like, I want to keep it
• 7:46
  fresh in my mind. I'm obsessed.
• 7:48
  I think it's going to be 5 star. I'm 70% in.
• 7:51
  Never five stars. It's so rare.
• 7:54
  Yeah, I never five star. Well, actually I've had quite a
• 7:57
  lot this year. I've been really lucky.
• 7:59
  But anyway, I am definitely a harsher rater than Tor and I'm
• 8:03
  70% in every spare moment this week I have wanted to read it
• 8:08
  and just not had the opportunity.
• 8:10
  I'm going to finish it tonight, but yeah, I am I am I am I.
• 8:14
  AM. I read loads last night and now
• 8:16
  I've only got like 200 pages left I'm going to finish it.
• 8:20
  What I love most about this book so far is that it really reminds
• 8:25
  me of a cross between A Court of Mist and Fury and Bone Island,
• 8:31
  which is a book me and Tor both love.
• 8:33
  Yes, so it's so the. Whole series or just this
• 8:37
  current book that you're reading?
• 8:38
  More specifically, this chord OK.
• 8:40
  Fine. So it's got so much gothic vibes
• 8:42
  like Bone Island, but specifically like some of the
• 8:45
  body horror elements, you know, like Bone Island with stones.
• 8:49
  I won't give any clues. It's got a similar vibe to that,
• 8:53
  and their relationship has a similar vibe to that.
• 8:56
  The writing is very poetic, like Nicole's writing.
• 8:59
  Yeah, like lots of kind of moonlight metaphors and stuff
• 9:03
  like that. But then the love interest is
• 9:07
  very much giving, like re sand under the mountain.
• 9:12
  Yeah. And I I just think it has the
• 9:17
  perfect balance of fantasy and romance.
• 9:20
  OK, I love that because I I really am more of a romantic
• 9:26
  fantasy kind of person and then I am a fancy romance person.
• 9:29
  Like if it's not plot driven, it's very in a fantasy romance,
• 9:34
  romantic, fancy, whatever you want to call it.
• 9:36
  If it's not really plot forward with a great romance, it loses
• 9:41
  me. If it's too romance and spice
• 9:43
  heavy, I'm that I'm bored now. I'm exactly the same.
• 9:46
  And especially when it's a series and when those books are
• 9:50
  big. Yeah, and this is obviously
• 9:52
  that. So it needs to have a lot of
• 9:53
  plot, and it does. The only thing I will say for
• 9:56
  anyone, not just tall, is it's very dark.
• 9:58
  You definitely need to check trigger warnings because there's
• 10:00
  a lot of, like, kind of hammering stuff to read about.
• 10:04
  I personally think tall will be OK with it.
• 10:06
  But yeah, just for anyone at home, maybe check.
• 10:09
  I feel like it would be remiss of me.
• 10:11
  Actually, while you were talking, I realized the book
• 10:13
  that I read last month that I forgot to say about, and that is
• 10:16
  Metal Slinger. Oh, yes, yeah.
• 10:19
  I wasn't too sure in the beginning was I was voice, not
• 10:20
  years. I'm not really too sure what all
• 10:22
  the hype is about, but it takes a bit of time to like,
• 10:25
  understand really what's going on.
• 10:28
  But Oh my fucking God, it was amazing.
• 10:32
  The book was good, like steady pace all the way through.
• 10:34
  And then the ending was like holy motherfucking shit balls,
• 10:40
  this is wild. I need to read more of this.
• 10:43
  And then it got to the end and I was like.
• 10:45
  What the? Fuck what the fuck And then I
• 10:49
  got the 1st chapter of the next book and I was like I need that
• 10:55
  book now that is my. A big recommendation.
• 10:58
  I need to read that stat my. Friend, the audio was also
• 11:02
  really good. Well, you know me, I'm terrible
• 11:04
  with audio. My friend also read this before
• 11:07
  Tor and she said exactly the same thing.
• 11:09
  She was like, oh, the first half is like good, but it's like
• 11:12
  nothing groundbreaking. And then she was like, it's the
• 11:15
  ending you really need to wait for.
• 11:17
  And I was just like, so it is on my 25 actually for this year.
• 11:21
  Oh is it? So I'm desperately going to try
• 11:23
  and do it by the end of the year.
• 11:25
  You'd really enjoy it I've got. A week off at the end of
• 11:28
  November and I'm hoping to read so many books because I have no
• 11:30
  plans. Amazing love that.
• 11:32
  I feel like it would also be remiss of us to not mention,
• 11:35
  because we both love it, is that they have announced a date for
• 11:38
  the sequel to Nightshade in the last couple.
• 11:40
  Of weeks, yes. And we have a name.
• 11:42
  Did we? Yes.
• 11:43
  It's like Daybreak or something. We can't wait for that.
• 11:47
  I feel like that will be a definite like instant buddy
• 11:49
  read, yeah. It's either Dawn Break or
• 11:52
  Daybreak, but yeah, 100% that is.
• 11:54
  That's my favorite romance I've read this year, I think.
• 11:59
  Is it mine? I think it's probably up there.
• 12:01
  I can't. I've done very little romance.
• 12:03
  Have you? I think I did a lot at the start
• 12:05
  of the year, but it's kind of petered off now.
• 12:07
  But the only thing I can think of that would even slightly like
• 12:12
  challenge that would be the two Abby Jimenez romance books I
• 12:15
  read, which were yours truly and Just for the Summer.
• 12:19
  But yeah, anyway, from good stuff to not so great stuff,
• 12:25
  Yeah, the toxicity that continues from the once beloved
• 12:30
  Jessa Hastings is fucking wild. I feel like I need to mention
• 12:36
  that some episodes ago, like pre summer, I was like, I'm not
• 12:41
  quite so a book obsessed of hers as some of our bookish group
• 12:45
  are, but I really enjoyed Magnolia Park's always intended
• 12:48
  to go back to the series. But I used to really love the
• 12:51
  way that Jessa kind of responded to some of her followers in the
• 12:55
  sense that she didn't just bow down to anyone criticizing her
• 13:00
  and kind of had some bite back. Because I do think sometimes
• 13:04
  consumers of other people's art tend to feel this kind of right
• 13:08
  to how their books should be. And I don't think that that's
• 13:11
  OK. But she has some things have
• 13:17
  transpired over the last couple of weeks as.
• 13:21
  Well. Some tweets, wasn't it very
• 13:24
  recently that were racist, fat phobic, yeah, not great.
• 13:30
  So I think it's something we need to talk about.
• 13:33
  Yeah, I mean, like Tor said, I think we've actually mentioned
• 13:36
  both of us as well on one of these episodes earlier in the
• 13:39
  year that we were starting to get a bit funny about her
• 13:41
  because of her AI rant that she had was weird.
• 13:44
  Oh yeah, that was that was after the episode that I was like, I
• 13:47
  actually quite like the way that she is.
• 13:48
  And then she kind of defended the AI use of a creator.
• 13:52
  And then that's when I looked upon and said, why did I just
• 13:54
  say that on a podcast? Because now I think she's a
• 13:58
  something. Yeah, yeah, the AI stuff was
• 14:01
  just weird, Maybe the kind of thing where me and Tor would
• 14:06
  probably not be like cancelling someone per SE, but just kind of
• 14:10
  changed our personal opinion a little bit.
• 14:13
  And then obviously with Never her book last year, she got a
• 14:18
  bit of criticism as well for some language, racial language
• 14:21
  in that, and she explained her use of that language.
• 14:25
  One of the words was like brownie, and she said she meant
• 14:29
  that in the kind of like mythology law term of brownie
• 14:31
  being like a small fairy. There was still one comment
• 14:35
  remaining, which was something like so tanned he looked dirty.
• 14:39
  I can't remember what she said, but she also had an explanation
• 14:41
  for that. So I didn't read that book and I
• 14:44
  was just kind of like OK, bit weird but we'll see how it goes
• 14:48
  sort of thing. AI thing happened again.
• 14:50
  I unfollowed her at that point actually.
• 14:52
  I think that might have been when I unfollowed her as well.
• 14:55
  Yeah. And then a few weeks ago, I
• 14:56
  think maybe like a month ago, these tweets got dragged up on
• 15:00
  threads. Somebody exposed them when
• 15:03
  somebody else was talking about Jessa and they are bad.
• 15:07
  They're. So.
• 15:07
  Bad. I don't even know if it's like
• 15:10
  stuff we can put on screen or repeat because some of it is
• 15:13
  just so bad. But there is one comment that's
• 15:16
  literally like essentially saying, are festivals an OK pass
• 15:21
  for bigger people to wear whatever they want?
• 15:23
  And then like, her friend had commented on it being like eel
• 15:26
  fatties in bikinis and she had replied like eel York.
• 15:30
  So that's gross. There was tons of stuff about
• 15:35
  black people and literally a Facebook state is where she
• 15:39
  referred to herself as racist. She called herself racist
• 15:43
  because she thinks that she sees Snoop Dogg and Kanye West in the
• 15:46
  grocery store all the time and it's never them insinuating
• 15:49
  black people at the same. And then there was another one
• 15:52
  about her granddad owning people of colour.
• 15:57
  And it's just like, now we've talked about this ourselves and
• 16:02
  these tweets were very old. They were 2012, some of them.
• 16:08
  But to me, like, yes, you might have done things you regret when
• 16:12
  you were younger. Yes, your beliefs can change.
• 16:15
  Yes, you can make up for things, but I just don't know that she
• 16:18
  has because she hasn't apologized.
• 16:20
  No, she. Hasn't and I think that's the
• 16:22
  worst thing. I think, I mean, not that she
• 16:25
  would have been a teenager then, but I think there are definitely
• 16:28
  there aren't specific things that I can think about as
• 16:30
  teenagers that I would have done that I would need to apologize
• 16:32
  for. But I'm sure if people dug
• 16:35
  through my MSN chats or whatever, people would be able
• 16:38
  to come up and say, why did you say that?
• 16:40
  And I'm like, I don't know, I was a teenager.
• 16:41
  I'm so sorry that I was so ignorant or do you know what I
• 16:44
  mean? I think people especially, you
• 16:46
  know, that's we're talking like like nearly 15 years ago, that
• 16:49
  those things, those tweets happened.
• 16:51
  Like a lot can change in that time and you can change as a
• 16:53
  human in that time. And I don't hold that against
• 16:58
  someone for saying something like that.
• 17:01
  If they could hold their hands up now and say I was a
• 17:04
  motherfucking moron. I'm so sorry.
• 17:07
  I said that it was completely inappropriate.
• 17:10
  I, you know, there is no excuse. All I want to do is, you know,
• 17:14
  apologize for being such a twat. Yeah, but she hasn't.
• 17:18
  And not only has she not apologized, she's actually
• 17:21
  deleting people's comments when they comment on her Instagram.
• 17:24
  Yeah, she's deleted so many people's comments and she's just
• 17:29
  going about her day like she's done nothing wrong.
• 17:31
  If that was me, I, I agree with you.
• 17:33
  I think she should have done a statement, an apology, and I
• 17:36
  probably would have donated money to a like charity that
• 17:39
  supports racial injustice or something as well to really show
• 17:41
  it. But what's also weird is that
• 17:44
  she self describes herself as biracial.
• 17:48
  This is really confusing. Come out with that when the
• 17:50
  never thing happens. Yes, and she also has like done
• 17:54
  a video before with her colleague that designed her
• 17:56
  books and they were dancing in that video.
• 17:58
  And I remember she captioned it something like clearly my
• 18:01
  twerking skills, my melanin didn't pass them on.
• 18:05
  Like insinuating that she should be a good dancer because she's
• 18:08
  part black or is black. So this is where it's really
• 18:12
  strange because I'm like, is she or is she lying?
• 18:16
  And she's not because I, I just can't imagine me as a mixed race
• 18:21
  person ever being racist to other people of the same
• 18:25
  heritage as me. Not that I would be racist to
• 18:28
  people of any heritage, but do you know what I mean?
• 18:30
  It's really strange. It's very odd.
• 18:33
  I just think her behaviour in general is very questionable and
• 18:38
  I personally will never be buying another one of her books.
• 18:44
  I do plan to get rid of all of her books in my next hand hall.
• 18:47
  The only problem that I have is that my first initial Magnolia
• 18:51
  Parks book is heavily tabbed and annotated.
• 18:54
  But yeah, I don't intend in supporting her going forward.
• 18:58
  Yeah, exactly the same from me. I also have a problem that my
• 19:01
  first book is literally signed by her and personalized.
• 19:06
  So that may just have to go to the charity shop or Yep, I don't
• 19:10
  really want to support her anymore.
• 19:11
  And I also think actually that it's also not very good that the
• 19:15
  publishers have not acknowledged it and apologized.
• 19:18
  I completely agree. I think in some ways I almost
• 19:24
  think that that is worse. Yeah.
• 19:27
  But I think the problem is with publishing houses now is that
• 19:31
  especially these big authors, they know that she brings in a
• 19:35
  lot of money every time she releases.
• 19:38
  People flocked to it and they're not going to get rid of their
• 19:42
  money makers, aren't they? No, exactly so.
• 19:45
  Same reason why Bloomsbury never going to drop JK.
• 19:48
  Yeah, do you know what I mean? It's just never going to happen.
• 19:51
  No, 100%, which I guess it's a business at the end of the day.
• 19:55
  We shouldn't be expecting them to be so ethical because
• 19:58
  businesses never are. But it's just, yeah, slightly
• 20:00
  disappointing. It is, but also you think to
• 20:03
  yourself, well, why does this publishing house or this author
• 20:08
  get boycotted by the people of Book Talk and Bookstagram?
• 20:12
  But in this situation, they're not Because I also think that's
• 20:16
  wild. I think creators and consumers
• 20:21
  have a responsibility to not be consuming these books and buying
• 20:29
  the books. Like you are literally putting
• 20:32
  money in the hands of someone who does not deserve it.
• 20:37
  It's like with the Harry Potter thing.
• 20:39
  I will not buy anything. Harry Potter, JK Rowling,
• 20:44
  whatever, I will still, you know, the books that I already
• 20:48
  have or the films I will watch personally.
• 20:52
  Won't put it out there to the universe, you know?
• 20:54
  Yeah, because there's no need to support.
• 20:56
  It no, it's just small fry. Like it's so easy to just not do
• 20:59
  an ad or not buy a product from someone that is not very great.
• 21:03
  So I just think it's just such an easy transition to make and
• 21:07
  people just don't do it. And I just don't know why.
• 21:10
  But I actually had someone comment on my video about Jessa
• 21:13
  Hastings last night saying like, this is ridiculous.
• 21:16
  The tweets are so old, like you're trying to ruin someone's
• 21:19
  life, et cetera, et cetera. I sent a big long rant. 1st.
• 21:24
  First of all, like you can't police how people of colour feel
• 21:28
  about racism. That she wasn't a person of
• 21:30
  colour. Secondly I wasn't trying to ruin
• 21:33
  her life. I literally said she should just
• 21:35
  do a statement and apologize at the very least.
• 21:38
  So it's just like, I think that's the bare minimum, but yet
• 21:41
  people still think that that's too much.
• 21:43
  It's crazy. Don't you sometimes wonder, like
• 21:46
  what it would be to sit down in a room with some of these
• 21:49
  morons? And these people have voted.
• 21:52
  More on watching this come and sit in a room with us.
• 21:56
  But it's just like these are the types of people that then go and
• 22:01
  leave negative reviews on authors as well.
• 22:03
  Yeah, so this is the second part of our book, top drama from the
• 22:06
  last couple of weeks you may or may not have seen.
• 22:11
  I saw it through the video that you sent me, Kevin Norman, is
• 22:15
  that his name? He did a big rant about this and
• 22:18
  clipped part of this person's. I can't even call it a review.
• 22:24
  It was just like a yeah, it was just like a really angry video
• 22:28
  it. Was mean bullying, author
• 22:32
  bashing at its literal finest, and she.
• 22:35
  Awful. She wasn't even talk.
• 22:37
  This girl, I don't know who actually who she was.
• 22:39
  I've never seen her before. No, I've never seen her.
• 22:41
  A big creator. As far as I'm aware, she wasn't
• 22:45
  even talking about the book, she was literally talking directly
• 22:48
  to the author. Like you're stupid why would you
• 22:50
  do this, etcetera etcetera. Just kept calling her names.
• 22:54
  It was nasty. It was really nasty.
• 22:56
  Really nasty and. She attacked her.
• 23:00
  Yeah, that was the worst thing about it.
• 23:03
  I don't get me wrong, I don't think that anyone should get
• 23:05
  online and so badly bash a book or an author specifically for
• 23:09
  what they've written. But to physically tag the author
• 23:12
  in it, you know, I'd love to see you love go up to this person in
• 23:17
  the street and say this stuff to her face because you wouldn't.
• 23:20
  And if you would. You need help.
• 23:25
  You really, yeah, you do need help.
• 23:27
  But it comes back to this same age-old question.
• 23:30
  Why do people feel it appropriate to tag authors in
• 23:34
  their bad reviews? I personally am a believer that
• 23:37
  negative reviews are required. They are needed.
• 23:40
  If everyone only ever did positive reviews and everything,
• 23:43
  you'd never really know what to read.
• 23:46
  As a consumer of like book top content, you really wouldn't.
• 23:50
  But to be so nasty and tag the author is just file.
• 23:56
  I just think as well, like if you're going to negatively
• 23:58
  review, you need to actually do an in depth analysis of what you
• 24:02
  didn't like and highlight those plot elements, those character
• 24:06
  developments, the things that don't make a good story to you.
• 24:09
  But she didn't do that. It was just like I didn't like
• 24:13
  this one small thing. I could predict everything that
• 24:16
  happened in this book. Yeah, so you're stupid and why
• 24:19
  did you do this and XYZ? And it was just like the most
• 24:23
  shallow, unhelpful review anyway.
• 24:25
  It wasn't a review. It was just, like we said, an
• 24:27
  attack. But yeah, I just think people
• 24:30
  have this weird perception of online spaces.
• 24:35
  Maybe it's a certain age group that have only ever known online
• 24:38
  spaces. Maybe that just feel like they
• 24:42
  have this barrier and that actually nothing they do online
• 24:45
  has consequences or won't actually impact anyone, which is
• 24:48
  obviously not the case. And I just think people need to,
• 24:53
  I mean, we talked about this before as well.
• 24:54
  Your digital footprint. Footprint is forever, whether
• 24:57
  you think it or not. Somebody's screenshot that
• 25:00
  video, somebody's recorded it. I mean, clearly, like even, you
• 25:03
  know, it's and I think this frustrates me even more.
• 25:07
  I really think that as a consumer of content, you have a
• 25:11
  responsibility. And I think we spoke about this
• 25:13
  before with the off campus drama.
• 25:15
  Stop letting people rage bait you because you're actually just
• 25:19
  giving them a bigger platform to spout their hatred, which is
• 25:24
  just so unnecessary. If you see a video like that and
• 25:27
  you're following that person, stop watching the video and just
• 25:30
  go and follow them and leave it. Don't send it to your friends,
• 25:34
  don't stitch it because you're literally just helping the
• 25:38
  problem grow. Yeah.
• 25:40
  And I also think we need to just be more mindful of who we're
• 25:42
  actually following. So if like if you see a creator
• 25:46
  that's consistently involved in drama or problems, why are you
• 25:50
  following them? You might think you like them
• 25:53
  because they have a sense of humour or something, but the
• 25:55
  reality is these are 62nd. You know up to 5 minute videos
• 25:59
  you only see a very small part of the day.
• 26:00
  So why are you being parasocial? You don't actually know them.
• 26:04
  So if someone is consistently getting in drama or problems,
• 26:08
  there is an issue. What's that saying If someone
• 26:11
  shows you who they are the first time, believe them?
• 26:14
  Yeah. And I think that that stands
• 26:16
  true even from a TikTok video, like if if you are seeing
• 26:21
  someone be nasty in a video like that or just saying things that
• 26:26
  are highly inappropriate, even if they seem like they're
• 26:28
  joking. Are those, are those the types
• 26:30
  of people you'd actually want to be friends with in real life?
• 26:32
  Like, doesn't matter how good their book reviews are or how
• 26:35
  good their recommendations are. There are hundreds, thousands,
• 26:40
  10s of thousands other creators out there that you can get the
• 26:42
  same book recommendations from. 100% agree.
• 26:46
  Do you think that authors should ever respond to these types of
• 26:52
  negative reviews? I think that's online.
• 26:55
  I think that's personal choice. I think that depends on how the
• 26:58
  person feels that they want to handle it or they can cope with
• 27:01
  it. So like Victoria Aviard, you
• 27:04
  know, the author of Red Queen, she gets a lot of comments about
• 27:08
  how it's similar to powerless and obviously or that.
• 27:11
  How her book is literally a rewrite of Powerless.
• 27:13
  Yeah, which is obviously bullshit because it came out 10
• 27:16
  years prior. Yeah, and she responds to those
• 27:19
  comments. Yeah, and I understand why she
• 27:21
  does. That 100%.
• 27:22
  Because she needs to set the record straight and explain to
• 27:25
  people. People still not know?
• 27:26
  Seriously, this has been the same argument for like 3 years.
• 27:29
  Yeah, and I feel so bad for her that she still has to do that.
• 27:33
  So I understand why she might, you know, respond to comments,
• 27:37
  but I also equally understand why someone would just think it
• 27:40
  best to block and move on. I think it's personal.
• 27:42
  It's personal preference, isn't it?
• 27:43
  I mean like even with as creators you tend to delete
• 27:47
  block people with comments. Yeah, that are it depends on the
• 27:54
  comment. Like if someone is saying
• 27:56
  something that I just think you're being a twat, I will
• 27:58
  respond to it and sometimes I'll even respond in the video.
• 28:02
  But if something is just so far out there, I will just instantly
• 28:06
  delete and block some like I do not need this energy in my
• 28:10
  sphere. Yeah, I don't have that.
• 28:14
  I will just always do a video and respond.
• 28:17
  My willpower is nil. So I mean, I don't always
• 28:22
  recommend doing that as well because there's been quite a few
• 28:24
  times where like my videos have been suppressed after I've
• 28:28
  responded to a negative comment. Really.
• 28:30
  It actually happened to me like last week, like after I
• 28:32
  responded to that guy who was like, you're not disabled, you
• 28:34
  have books in the background. I my videos were like tanked.
• 28:40
  Oh yeah, that's so weird. Weird so I don't know if I
• 28:44
  recommend it, but it brings me great joy at the time.
• 28:49
  So I think what it really boils down to the lesson of the day is
• 28:53
  use your online platforms responsibly.
• 28:55
  Whether you've got 5 followers or 5 million, it all has an
• 29:00
  impact on other people, other people's feelings, especially
• 29:05
  bigger creators where you are called an influencer for a
• 29:08
  reason. Like you are influencing other
• 29:11
  people to act the same, respond the same, and that's not OK.
• 29:15
  There is enough bad shit and hatred happening in the world
• 29:20
  that we live in right now. Like you don't need to be adding
• 29:22
  to it. Just be positive.
• 29:25
  Nice. Think before you speak.
• 29:27
  Yeah, I shouldn't have to be speaking to some of these people
• 29:29
  like they're my 3 year old. Fortunately, we do have to.
• 29:34
  So crazy. Yeah, but thanks so much for
• 29:37
  joining us today guys, and watching.
• 29:39
  Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube, follow us on Spotify,
• 29:43
  and we also have TikTok and Instagram.
• 29:45
  And we'll see you in another two weeks for another video.
• 29:49
  Bye.