Technofeudalism has made things infinitely worse when it demolished the fence that used to provide the liberal individual with a refuge from the market. Cloud capital has shattered the individual into fragments of data, an identity comprised of choices as expressed by clicks which its algorithms are able to manipulate. It has produced individuals who are not so much possessive as possessed, or rather persons incapable of being self-possessed. It has diminished our capacity to focus by co-opting our attention. We have not become weak willed. No, our focus has been stolen.

It hurts my heart to see this spelled out so plainly. I hate watching what social media conglomerates have done to people. The part about "be yourself and be good at it" was really jarring. As a specific example, it makes me think of when I see people asking "what's my aesthetic?" As if every piece of yourself needs to be able to be accompanied by a hashtag for branding purposes. You need to be identifiable, both to find an audience and to manufacture your online identity, and for the algorithm to sell you whatever it is you need to meet your aesthetic goals. It's like we always have to be on, always have to be performing for an audience that could be watching.

This also calls to mind a thread I saw in the PB club forum about struggling to focus. I saw a few others who described or empathized with the same experience I've had - that scrolling not only seems to diminish our attention spans, but when we do try to focus on something, our brains feel like mush after the fact. Even after physically leaving the technological "fiefdoms", I struggle to engage with other media or activities in a substantive and satisfactory way.

Can we please humor eachother for a moment and name some reasons we DNF'd books that are weird or funny? I found one of my old phones, and looking at the pictures on it I saw I photographed a bunch of book pages at some point. And then I remembered... my first DNF 😭

The outfits, man. THE OUTFITS. Do you remember when you would read X Reader fanfiction on Wattpad and the author would so kindly put a picture of the outfit in there, but it was the early 2010s and we were teens so it was the worst thing you ever saw when you think back on it? I kid you not when I say that the further I looked, the more i expected the pages to show a picture of sneakers and galaxy leggings with layers of the same top in different colors and an owl necklace for some reason. ✋️😩 So yes. I DNF'd that book for the outfits alone.

And now, my favourite two outfits I had the pleasure of reading about. Ahem;

She had her hair in a bun, and because she wanted to look nice for a date she put on red lipstick, a pair of rose shaped red earrings, a jean jacket over a red casual dress printed with palm leaves and red sandals paired with a blue purse to compliment the jean jacket.

Her showstopping outfit to a skatepark, which had the love interest whispering 'wow' and the rival staring in envy was made up of a purple beanie, a white T-shirt with black sleeves, black leggings with moons that ran down the sides and purple sneakers with black laces.

I am curious how you all use the Discover section of PB :) Personally my favorite part is the New Lists section. If I really like a list I save it, and I also follow the person who created it, and chat in the list forums. I definitely find the most new content (books, members) that way. I also like the lists by emoji, although the books under the daily emoji are also interesting. Most discussed/TBRed feels less intriguing because it largely seems to have the same set of books for long periods of time...

Having a hard time getting into this :/

Curious what everyone’s favorite book cover design from what they read this year.

I’m personally loving the cover design for Moderation by Elaine Castillo. Bonus is that it was a great read, too!

I’ve seen more people in the bookish community condemn pirating, but other medias like video games and tv/movies condone it. I think it’s because of how with books it’s more indie driven, and how these are people’s livelihoods. But with others, it’s ran by big corporations that will strike down anything with their media in it, making them inaccessible unless if you’re willing to shell out money. (If it’s a spectrum, a lot of books are indie, video games is in between, there are plenty indie but also triple A, and not much tv/movies, it’s snuffed down by said corpos). Also the fact that libraries exist, it’s basically a place with free books (and movies and shows and music and a bunch of other things.

I dont know, I thought it was interesting…? I want your opinions on this. I want to read more indie authors (I do have ku after all), but sometimes I may not have money. I have to specify: I haven’t pirated before. I don’t really do pirating but have stumbled upon sites.

Hello everyone,

What kind of pens / tabs/ highlighters are we all using to annotate? I have a miss match of some stuff but I definitely want to create a set that I know won't bleed through the paper and is easy to get a hold of, my favourite tabs have stopped being made so I need some new recommendations for stationery

TNR as in to NEVER read. This post was inspired by a random tiktok once again but it made me wonder which books you guys never want to read? And why? Maybe even for petty reasons? For me it's definitely any book by Colleen Hoover. Never read a book, never will - thanks to random internet people.

Opinion: I do not want or need a Christmas/Holiday series. I’ve read two in a row now that apparently are part of/are going to be a series, but I’m really just looking for quick, festive, standalone stories atm. so I have no plans on reading any further than the first. The problem is that when there’s more books they never wrap the endings up nicely so I’m always left wanting!

I'm curious to hear your thoughts, what are the books that everyone read and seem to love and when you started it - it turned out to be something totally not for you? or you just don't understand the appeal of it? or the other way around - what are the books you love despite other people not liking it? for me it's Babel by R.F.Kuang - everyone seems to love it, and as a linguist, i thought this book will be one of my favourites, but i dnf'ed it after around 1/5 it was just so bad, I didn't care about one thing happening there 😭😭😭

​Me: "I can only buy books that are currently on my TBR."

Also Me: /sees a book that looks great that isn't on my TBR.

Me again: /adds book to TBR.

Guess who: "Oh look! A book on my TBR, on sale!"

Anyone else relate to this? 😭😅