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April 15th, 2009

6:06 PM

I'm bored with the romance community

  • I wish there are more actual book discussions by people who have read the book. It seems like everyone's more interested nowadays in talking about issues, industry drama, how so-and-so can do better than that, thisFail, thatGate, and getting the last word over everything. I miss the old Web 1.0 days when there are always book discussions on the latest releases. I can find that mostly on the AAR review forum nowadays, and that forum isn't as active as I'd have liked. Even if there are reviews in romance blogs, more often than not the comments are of the "I love your reviews! Another brilliant review! You've made me want to pick the book up!" gushing or "You are mean girls! Rot in hell! My mother will sue you!" types.
  • The book reviews that generate the most discussion tend to be those of Friends of the Blog Owners type or the generally accepted favorite of the blog community. It will be nice if books written by authors with no ties to the blog owners generate as much discussion, but it does seem sometimes that blog communities tend to be as cliquish and more insular in their own way as a long-time forum community can be. I mean, I'm not the only one wishing that people are talking more about books other than those by Kresley Cole, that Smart Bitches, Sherry Thomas, Patricia Briggs, and other authors who are smart enough to play the Blog PR game, right? That will make the community more lively. (I'm aware that negative reviews of ANY book generates discussion, but since most of them are by people who have never read the book complimenting the snark or trying to upstage the reviewer, that don't count as "book discussion" to me.)
  • A little more levity. By that, I don't mean cutting sarcasm aimed at belittling the opponent in the latest WhateverFail drama. I am talking about people relaxing, laughing at themselves, and what not instead of trying so hard to scan every word in a blog with a comb to find reasons to be offended. To find reasons to starts an Us Against Them war. I'm tired of seeing a light-hearted blog entry with the comment section filled with people arguing in TL;DR manner over semantics, people being pedantic, and people taking things so personally that they imagine everything is a personal attack on them. Sometimes an off-color joke is just that - a joke. Seriously! It is as if the Livejournal wank atmopshere has blanketed the romance community and it is not going away anytime soon, the same atmosphere where it's funny only if it's at the enemy's expense.
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