Ehret RoleAffectAdolescents 2018

The Role of Affect in Adolescents' Online Literacies: Participatory Pressures in BookTube
Culture
Author(s): Christian Ehret, Jacy Boegel and Roya Manuel-Nekouei
Source: Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Vol. 62, No. 2 (September/October 2018),
pp. 151-161
Published by: International Literacy Association and Wiley
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26632911
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FEATURE ARTICLE INTERNATIONAL
LITERA
ASSOCIAT
The Role of Affect in Adolescents'

Online Literacies: Participatory
Pressures in BookTube Culture
Christian Ehret, Jacy Boegel, Roya Manuel-Nekouei
How can literacy educators better prepare adolescents for the affective exp
and pressures of maintaining their shared reading lives in online participator
such as the YouTube community BookTube?
is often assumed in popular discourse (boyd, 2014) and

by their low barriers to entry, expression, and more fraught with pressures than portrayed in many
Online participatory cultures are characterized
civic engagement, as well as their strong sup accounts of participatory culture in literacy studies.
port for creating and sharing media through informal As former and current secondary teachers, our engage
mentorship (Jenkins, 2009). These characteristics ment with BookTube forced us to ask, How are literacy
have enabled the flourishing of online youth cultures, educators preparing youths, or not, for affective experi
wherein researchers have observed youths' literacies ences of maintaining shared reading lives in online par
with fanfiction (Lammers & Marsh, 2015), curation on ticipatory cultures, such as BookTube? How can a better
Tumblr (Wargo, 2017), and writing across multiple fan understanding of the role of affect in adolescents' online
based affinity spaces (Curwood, Magnifico & Lammers, literacies aid literacy educators in preparing youths for
2013). Yet, in generating and sustaining the norms and sustained, literate engagement beyond school?
shared styles for these cultures, adolescents also gener
ate status markers that are often far less obvious than
the shared interests and values that delimit participa Affect and Cultural Participation
tion in the culture. Ironically, the freedom of youth in BookT\ibe
generated online cultures, as well as the low barriers to
Our analysis is grounded in our shared inquiry around
entry, expression, and engagement, requires creating
affect and participation on a YouTube subculture,
and maintaining exclusionary practices that appear
BookTube. BookTubers' shared set of social practices
subtle from the outside. But inside youth cultures, these
for producing videos about books on their YouTube
practices feel intensely powerful for participants hop
ing to connect with new friends, fellow fans, and poten
tial mentors.
CHRISTIAN EHRET is an assistant professor in the
In this article, we describe the role of affect in mak: Department of Integrated Studies in Education at
ing media for a youth-driven online participatory cul McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada; email
christian. ehret@mcgill.ca.
ture and in pressuring particular production aesthetics.
JACY BOEGEL recently received her master's degree
We describe how aesthetic norms within this participa
from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at
tory culture create pressures around what style and the University of Toronto, Canada; email jacy.
content count, while simultaneously supporting cre boegeltamail.utoronto.ca.
ative practices that can help youths develop singular ROYA MANUEL-NEKOUEI recently received her
styles as media designers. Our analysis therefore illus master's degree from McGill University, Montreal,
trates youths' affective experiences of producing online QC, Canada; email roya.manuel-nekoueifamail.
mcgill.ca.
media as simultaneously fuller of life and emotion than
Journal of Adolescent b Adult Literacy Vol.62 No. 2 pp. 151-161 151 doi: 10.1002/jaal.881 © 2018 International Literacy Association
FEATURE ARTICLE
Channels are what distinguishes BookTube as Affect

a comand Adolescents'
munity (e.g., see Figure 1). For example, YouTubers
Online Literacies
participate in BookTube-specific practices by upload
Contrary
ing a variety of community-defined video types related to popular discourse about their literacies
(see Vasudevan
to their reading lives, including book reviews, com & Campano, 2009), U.S. young adults be
mentaries about readerly identity, responses tween
to the ages of 18 and 29 are more likely to have read
others'
videos, and issues intrinsic to BookTube culture (see a book last week or last year than those over the age of
Table 1). 30 (Zickuhr & Rainie, 2014). Less is known about how
Given the predominant age group, BookTubers' young adults develop their reading lives beyond formal
participatory practices warrant special attention from schooling. At the same time, literacy researchers have
literacy educators and researchers. Most BookTubers discovered much about how youths interact with online
we observed (n = 63) ranged from teens near or post media and how their media practices converge in the
high school graduation to older adolescents and young making of online participatory cultures (Alvermann
adults in their early to mid-20s. Youths at this age are 2016). Our contribution therefore focuses on how young
transitioning from compulsory schooling to university adults maintain the sociality of their reading lives be
or work, where their reading lives are less formally yond compulsory education though media production
structured and, consequently, possibly less shared as in an online participatory culture, and we develop con
a communal experience with peers. Outside of com ceptualizations of participatory culture, broadly, to bet
ter account for the role of affect.
pulsory schooling, youths become more responsible
for the maintenance of their reading lives together,
and this is consequential for educators wishing to
foster student identities as lifelong readers, writers, Affect Theory in Literacy Studies
and digital designers. Throughout our engagement Affect theorists have challenged intrapersonal and
with BookTube, we felt a relationship between this biologically determined theories of emotion, a cha
transitional time in their literacy lives and the felt lenge that grew from similar sociological critiques of
intensities of participation, specifically in perform biologically determined models as eliding the social and
ing connective humor and in pressures to perform for cultural construction of emotion (Gregg & Seigworth,
connection. 2010). Beyond a perspective on emotion as culturally
Figure 1
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Note. The color figure can be viewed in the online version of this article at http://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com.
Journal of Adolescent b Adult Literacy Vol. 62 No. 2 152 September/October 2018 literacyworldwide.org
FEATURE ARTICLE
Table 1
Common BookTube Videos
Type Characteristic(s)
Book review General review of a specific book
Book haul Show books (usually five or more) recently purchased, borrowed from the library, or acquired
through publisher sponsorship and events
To be read (TBR) List (and often a display of physical copies of) of books that the BookTuber plans to read
soon
Monthly wrap-up Summary of books read during the previous month, often with a minireview of each book
Bookshelf tour Tour of a personal book collection, often describing how the person's bookshelves are
organized (e.g., genre, color, author)
Tag A BookTuber responds to questions or completes challenges on a specific theme circulating

across BookTube and then tags other BookTubers to do the same. Examples of tags ar
"Unpopular Opinions" and "BookTube Newbie."
Discussion/response Discussion of specific themes across books or genres and/or response to discussion
made by other BookTubers
Collaboration BookTubers film videos with other BookTubers, often completing tags together or playing
book-related games.
BookTube issue Discussion of prevalent issues within the BookTube community (e.g., controversy
surrounding sponsorship)
constructed, literacy researchers interested in nondiscursive

affect nature, is absolutely vital to processes of
theory have argued that there is an important distinc
literacy learning.
tion between affect and emotion (Leander & Ehret,
2018). Taking a poststructural perspective, these re
Affect and Literacies in Online
searchers have conceptualized affect as the registration
on the body of being moved, of being affected by some Participatory Cultures
thing, which may or may not be consciously named as This understanding of affect as existing outside of t
a specific emotion, such as joy, indignation, shame, or individual is essential for overcoming the problemat
astonishment (Massumi, 2002). assumption that emotional experience is somehow dif
This perspective has opened new questions about ferent or lessened in digital or technological realm
how flows of unspoken desire propel the making and such as YouTube and other social media platforms
reading of word and image, screen and page (Boldt, Because it is not located or represented in an imagin
Lewis, & Leander, 2015), and about how pedagogic re online digital space or sign, such as emoticons, affec
lationships emerge, strengthen, and energize through must be understood as a relational experience of m
unspoken experiences of being together, as in at church, ing and being moved while engaged with any form o
at a concert, or around the family dinner table (Ehret, text, digital or not. Technologies and digital signs ar
2018). These questions have included delving into how not inherently special with regard to affect but are s
the feeling of being together in shared experiences ig ply part of an emergent set of relationships among
nited new, unplanned desires for learning and mak kinds of people, materials, and settings that coprodu
ing texts in intellectual and visceral engagement with affect. Affect, in this sense, is what Simondon (2009
people, signs, material objects, events, and places (e.g., called transindividual: It is a felt force that at once con
Lenters, 2016). More than the feeling of being together, nects and differentiates individuals.
affect theory has opened literacy researchers to how Take BookTube, for instance. It is an online youth
feeling, as living bodies experience it, often escapes culture built and maintained through the media pro
attempts to represent it in language but, even in its ductions of passionate youth readers who are also
Journal of Adolescent & Adult literacy Vol. 62 No. 2 153 September/October 2018 literacyworldwide.org
FEATURE ARTICLE
passionate about connecting with others by sharing refining codes for reliability (St. Pierre & Jackson, 2014).
their reading experiences. What counts as a BookTube For example, we used #funnyforserious to describe the
video continues to be collectively defined and refined use of humor to target a serious subject, such as racial
over time. Yet, the sense of what counts as a BookTube or sexual discrimination, but this hashtag and our dis
video, the affect, is not in the videos themselves. Affect,
cussions also encompassed the feeling of videos' mul
in this instance, becomes known through the creative timodal expression, or tone. Thus, both the hashtags
tension between individual BookTubers' feelings ofand in the moments they marked became topics of future
dividuation, of differentiating themselves by creating a
discussions through which we focused our hashtagging
particular style or voice, and of simultaneously being a
process further. Through this process of encountering
videos, tagging, and debating how our felt experiences
recognizable part of the collective, of participating fully
in BookTube's participatory culture. This irreducible of the videos would forever escape our tagging—indeed,
tension is the affective force that sustains desires for language—we eventually realized that humor was inex
making videos and for belonging to BookTube, and ittricableis from participatory pressures. From this point
the tension in which we locate our following analysis. on, we tagged #pp and then #funnyfor[purpose] to help
us discuss how participatory pressures and humor are
This tension also creates the feeling of a culture, like
the shared sense of sitting around the family table that interrelated in BookTube culture.
is at once singular and common, and at the same time After six months of conversations and (re)viewing,
the feeling of pressures for content and production aes we met again to plan interviews with two BookTubers
thetics necessary to participate fully. These feelings arewhose channels we had hashtagged the most. We con
therefore imbricated in developing literacies within the ducted these interviews not to confirm the validity of
BookTube community and within participatory cultures. our emerging understanding of humor and pressure
in BookTube culture but to deepen our understand
ings and expand on them. Overall, the breadth of our
Affective Digital Encountering individual video-viewing experiences (n = 376) and
Following a postqualitative methodology (Lather & St.hashtagging, the depth of our shared reexperiencing of
Pierre, 2013), we did not enter into this research treating
tagged moments together, and our conversations with
YouTube videos—their sounds, images, textures, and di BookTubers warrant our claims about the affects of
alogue—"as brute data waiting to be coded, labeled with participating in BookTube culture. Our claims are valid
other brute words" (St. Pierre & Jackson, 2014, p. 715) not because they were rationalized through traditional
Rather, we began by following BookTubers who appealed qualitative processes grounded in logical empiricism
to us individually and then watching and rewatching vid but because they emerged from attention to our own
eos on their channels, getting a feel for the culture. Bybodies and experiences of affective life together in con
this, we mean that we watched videos attuned to how and versation and coviewing and in viewing by ourselves.
when they moved us in ways that registered viscerally, We certainly have not hashtagged all the possible
a process which we term affective digital encountering. feelings that saturate, sustain, and constrain BookTube
Through this process, we tried to be aware of and mark as a participatory culture. This should not be the goal of
these moments when, for instance, we felt awkward, am affective methodologies, nor is it even possible. Rather,
bivalent, or disconcerted, or we laughed or were jolted any poststructural analysis of affect, of a felt social
with aesthetic pleasure. We met regularly to talk about force or experience, must proceed through thinking,
our individual viewing experiences. These discussions experiencing, and feeling data through theories of af
fect and toward the production of new concepts (St.
honed our investigative focus as they began to coalesce
Pierre,
more and more around two feelings: pressure and humor. 2013), such as participatory pressures, or toward
Consequently, we decided to hashtag moments new attention to often overlooked experiences, such as
the humor that so often enlivens literacy experiences
when we felt the affects of pressure and humor, tagging
and hones the design of cultural critique. The quality
#pp for segments in a video when we felt participatory
pressures being expressed and #funnyfor[purpose] for of our experiences in this inquiry process, individually
segments through which we felt humor being used for and collectively, became our measure of validity. We
knew
a specific purpose (see Table 2). Hashtags seemed like that experiences of marking moments in videos,
a culturally appropriate note-taking tool between of re showing them to each other, laughing together, and
coming up with hashtags (and often laughing more),
searchers for affective digital encountering on YouTube.
Yet, we soon realized that our hashtags sparked new were becoming valid when we, and our BookTube par
dialogue distinct from the conventional process of
ticipants, all agreed that it felt right.
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy Vol.62 No. 2 154 September/October 2018 literacyworldwtde.org
FEATURE ARTICLE
Table 2
Example Hashtags and Subhashtags Used Across Emma's and Sara's Channels
Hashtag(s) Definition Example subhashtag and definition
#pp #consumer Pressure to purchase and #shoptillyoudrop: Discussion of buying

consume products in relation to commodities (e.g., hardcover books, camera
building a Booktube channel equipment) for aesthetic purposes
#pp #aesthetic The pressure of having videos #Booktubeissues: Critique of the BookTube
and content that are visually community
attractive through video quality,
decor/items, and looks
#pp #popularopinion The pressure of agreeing with #coolgang: Pressure to conform

popular trends or opinions and
avoiding being a hater
#funnyforliterarycritique Critical response to a piece of #bookhatin: Negative book critique or option

literature, publishing, or anything
else related to books through
the use of humor
#funnyforfun Humor that's sole purpose is #storymod: Remix of a book's plot for humor
for entertainment, laughter, and
enjoyment
#funnyforpersuasion When humor is used to #realitygoggles: Self-deprecating humor that

convince viewers in either a also critiques participatory pressures
positive or negative way about
a piece of literature, a genre, or
BookTube community issues
Feeling BookTube Culture 537 videos with 5,611,530 views (as of publication).
Although Emma has produced hundreds of book re
In this section, we analyze examples of how participa
views, tag videos, book hauls, and more, she is unique
tory pressures are felt through producing content for
for her many videos that focus on issues specific to
BookTube and how those pressures potentially limit
BookTube culture, many segments of which we tagged
participation and also engender creativity and cul
as #pp »consumer, »self-perception, »aesthetic, and
tural critique, particularly through humor. Our analy
»popularopinion. Across these videos and our inter
sis focuses on two BookTubers, @emmmabooks and
view, Emma describes her sense of BookTube's collab
@sarawithoutanH, who encouraged us to use their
orative and inclusive culture, but she also describes
channel names. Through examples from their channels,
pressure from cultural expectations for video content
we analyze the role of affect in how they develop their
and production aesthetics. In videos such as "Let's
design literacies and their lives as readers after having
Talk About Book-Buying" (https://www.youtube.com/
completed formal education. Emma and Sarah are gen
watch?v=nmiaLJ8GpXI), Emma critiques the ubiqui
erally representative of others we analyzed whose chan
nels had similar numbers of subscribers and views. tous BookTube practice of buying and collecting books
for video design purposes that usually focus on cre
ating a bookshelf backdrop for videos (see Figure 2).
Participatory Pressures On her bookshelf backdrop, books are arranged by
on (pemmmabooks complementary colors and size or by how boxed sets
At the time of our study, Emma (YouTube handle
complement eccentric non-book-related decor. Emma
@emmmabooks) was a 20-year-old BookTuber. Since
describes this practice as a pressure in becoming a part
of BookTube:
2015, she has gained 89,000 subscribers and uploaded
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy Vol, 62 No. 2 155 September/October 2018 literacyworldwide.org
FEATURE ARTICLE
Figure 2
Title Images From "Bookshelf Tour" Uploads by (aemmmabooks
I feel like being a part of BookTube definitely makes you BookTube Channel—BookTubing 101" (https://www.
buy more books than you would have if you were not on youtube.com/watch?v=zooeRS4xOAU), Emma stresses
BookTube. We all want book collections the size of our fa
the importance of filming in good lighting, using a high
vorite BookTubers....A lot of people feel like you can't be
quality camera, and editing videos via digital video
successful on BookTube unless you have, like, this immense
collection of books. editing programs, such as Final Cut Pro. She says that
"[viewers] don't just look for content. They look for qual
ity as well," and that people with a lot of subscribers are
The "big-name BookTubers," as Emma describes
typically those who upload a steady stream of visually
them, inadvertently mobilize feelings of intimidation with
appealing videos.
shelves upon shelves of "beautiful books in [their] back
Participatory pressures to emulate big-name
grounds," or in the stacks of books representing their latest
BookTubers extend beyond aesthetics into con
#bookhaul. The participatory pressure to buy and arrange
tent, including opinions about books. In "Secret
aesthetically pleasing book displays is interrelated with the
Life of a YouTuber Tag" (https://www.youtube.com/
culturally formed design literacies of BookTubing. Yet, it
watch?v=WsNlhwicfgY), Emma expresses her concern
can also be an economic barrier to entry into the BookTube
about "seeing so many people who are just starting
community or at least to becoming a big-name BookTuber.
out on YouTube, and they're trying to be the other big
Emma also describes a pressure to create videos
BookTubers because they think that people will like
of high technical quality. In her video "How to Start a
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy Vol. 62 No. 2 156 September/October 2018 literacyworldwide.org
FEATURE ARTICLE
them that way." For Emma, "that way" refers to howyou

shefeel the need to [participate in]." She also reflects on
often senses new BookTubers affecting personas individuating
that in her year-end trending tag video, "2016
Bookish
do not quite fit or that "feel awkward." Also, it refers to BookTube Resolutions" (https://www.youtube.
the pressure to avoid being a #booksnob, or someone ap
com/watch?v=7AhNQe_Rc2g), when she aspires:
pearing to look down on young adult literature (YA Lit).
Both are propensities that Emma senses in BookTube I want to improve the quality of the content that I'm going to
newbies, who may produce content that they are not post on BookTube....I feel like I'm just producing the same
passionate about simply because it is what seems likecontent
a over and over and over again, and there's nothing
norm in BookTube culture and will therefore get more that's really setting me apart, or there's nothing really cre
ative that I'm completely proud of.
views. In our interview, Emma admitted to this her
self, describing how she plays up certain aspects of her
personality to make her videos more enjoyable for her
Attuning to these transindividual affects in the
audience. At the same time, and with seeming contraprocesses of designing videos is essential to feeling the
culture
diction, she expressed that ultimately BookTube is a and producing videos that feel like they fit
platform for her "authentic self" and that she doesthenot
culture. Building literacies through BookTubing is
not
have a "BookTube persona" that is wildly different from
only a matter of developing discrete discursive prac
her "true personality." tices but also a matter of forming a sense of what feels
Emma's keen attention to, and literate designingright, or how discursive practices combine to express
the feeling of the quality of a whole. This is another ex
for, fitting into the BookTube community while main
ample of the transindividual and transtextual forces of
taining individuality is typical in online, offline, and
hybrid cultures. Yet, this felt tension in the experience that, through the felt sense of connecting and dif
affect
ferentiating
of cultural design practice is especially intense on new through activity, create a continuous feel
ing
media platforms, such as YouTube, and online partici of participating in a culture.
patory cultures, such as BookTube, where participants
are potentially global in number (Emma's total views
are in the millions, which is not uncommon for longHumor and Participatory Pressures
on
time BookTubers). This is one reason why attention to (asarawithoutanH
the transindividual role of affect is integral to under
Sara, too, seems to have effectively balanced her chan
standing design literacies in participatory cultures
nel through commoning and variation within BookTube
such as BookTube. The tension between "commoning culture. At the time of our study, Sara (YouTube handle
and variation" (Ingold, 2017, p. 5) in design choices is
@sarawithoutanH) was a 25-year-old BookTuber. Since
2015,
an affective force that sustains desires for belonging inshe has gained 16,000 subscribers and uploaded
the BookTube community as a reader and video maker 216 videos with 777,393 views (as of publication). In our
while also continuously individuating as a reader and
interview, Sara also described learning to use design
video maker in and outside of BookTube. Feeling the
features and tools common to professional video pro
participatory pressures to common and vary are as nec
duction in general, such as more aesthetically appealing
essary to becoming a full participant in a culture as they
backdrops and lighting kits, and postproduction editing
are to keeping the culture itself alive and evolving.
techniques. We saw her using these techniques to mobi
In "How to Start a BookTube Channel—BookTubing lize humorous affects much more often than Emma and
101," Emma gives some advice to prospective many Book of the other BookTubers we viewed.
Tubers that illustrates this paradoxically produc
For example, Sara often generates humor through
tive force of participatory pressures. She advises
designed exaggeration. In "25 Things I Learned in
new BookTubers to review popular books and 25to Years
do | GRWM" (get ready with me; https://www.
popular tags to gain views and subscribers, fitting the
youtube.com/watch?v=q7YLYj_ZKYM), Sara begins a
"BookTube mold." Yet, in the same video, she also reflection
main on turning 25 with a seven-second slow zoom
tains that new BookTubers must create original content
interlay, which becomes an extreme close-up of her face
that is "unique and creative" to appeal to more viewers
in a washed-out vintage matte effect. The interlay's over
and get noticed among the multitudes of BookTube all vid
affect exaggerates her feigned melancholy for getting
eos. In our interview, Emma described feeling this"so pres
old," a sentiment amplified further by audio from a
sure herself: "I'll admit, I hâve felt the pressure to2016
make Katy Perry meme: "You see someone that you know,
more of those [popular/trending] videos....There'sand defi
they ask you how you are, and you just have to say
nitely certain trends that go across the community that
that you're fine, when you're not really fine, but you just
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy Vol 62 No, 2 157 September/October 2018 literacyworld
FEATURE ARTICLE
can't get into it because they would never understand."

or marathoning a seven-book series....The goal is to fo
Practices such as overlaying the audio from this memecus on your neglected series."
on an interlayed slow zoom indicate how Sara expresses A few days into the first readathon, Sara posted a
humor in a practice of commoning, referencing viral video
in to encourage participants, or to keep them "in
ternet humor, and variation, redesigning the meme theasmood to keep slaying books." In "Slay That Series
a part of developing her singular voice and sense of hu | Scream Parody" (https://www.youtube.com/
Trailer
mor in the BookTube community. watch?v=7LZyhYNoLPA), Sara and a peer created a
We see this as an example of what Sara herself de film trailer aping the 1997 horror movie Scream
parody
scribes as "the pressure to be funny" that comes from(see Figure 3). Like the movie, the video begins when a
character receives a call that she soon realizes is coming
wanting to be different, from the need to vary from the
from a killer inside her house. But rather than a human
culture to be a more integral part of it. She describes
this pressure as something that inspired her rather serial killer, in Sara's video, the call comes from a hard
than something she felt she needed to do to just "fit in" young adult series book. "Some series are playing
cover
or be popular in the BookTube community. Shea deadly cre game," she says ominously in the voice-over, "se
ates videos that she feels people will like based on ries
what with one too many novels....Now they've taken their
love of sequels one book too far." Scenes in the video use
makes her laugh, and she describes wanting to see more
comedy across BookTube. In this way, the pressuremodernto horror conventions, such as shaky first-person
differentiate connects to Sara's sense of identity inshots
rela from the perspective of the killer (in this case, a
tion to humor, a side of herself that she feels is a hardback
true copy of the YA Lit series novel In the Afterlight
representation of what she values. by Alexandra Bracken) chasing a soon-to-be victim. Other
scenes employ comedic intertextual references to cult
Developing her identify as a "funny person" through
BookTubing has also widened Sara's repertoire of comégenre movies in dialogue and in style, including I Know
die design moves. This is partly due to the often impro
What You Did Last Summer and The Blair Witch Project.
visational experience of shooting YouTube videos and to In her parody, Sara mobilizes comedic affects not
the difficulty of gauging responses from YouTube's di in playful critique of overserialization in the YA Lit
only
publishing business but also in support of her reada
verse, global audience. Never being sure of how people
will react to each video can make planning a gamble, thon
she participants' reading of those very YA Lit series.
Her humor is cleverly #funnyforserious, varying from
told us. Sara describes her design strategy as therefore
BookTube and commodity cultures and at the same
including a mix of planned jokes, editing to add humor
(e.g., adding the Katy Perry meme audio), pop culture commoning through the participatory pressures of
time
BookTube to gain viewers with readathons, a good rea
references, and a generally fun, improvisational person
ality. Unsurprisingly, we tagged many segments ofson herfor which is the completion of "neglected series." As
videos #funnyforfun, such as "Atomic Fireball Chubby the trailer's concluding text overlay says, "Don't DNF [did
Bunny [ BookTubeathon Day 6" (https://www.youtube. not finish], Don't open a Standalone, Don't put down that
com/watch?v=Bygg8IkiWCo), in which she fillsfinale,
her Slay that series before it slays you." Here again, the
tension of commoning and variation, and of participatory
mouth with the spicy candy one at a time while talking
through her review of the young adult novel Angelfall pressures,
by aid in the creative production of a video and
Susan Ee (see Figure 3). of cultural critique. But more, the video is emblematic of
At the same time, these videos are firmly located how such tensions are a part of mobilizing the feeling of
within BookTube culture. For instance, the cultural BookTube cultüre and of online reading communities,
practice of hosting a readathon usually involves two wherein media production supports a common interest
or more BookTubers participating in an online event, among an audience of online friends and strangers.
wherein they agree to read a specific number of books In this readathon, Sara and her friends' mobilizing
over a set number of days, usually a week. With another of BookTube culture through affect spread across so
BookTuber, @ReadLikeWildfire, Sara has hosted a se cial media. For instance, Sara and her main collabora
ries of "chill and pressure-free" readathons that they tor recruited a "Twitter squad" of at least eight other
named "Slay That Series." The goal for participants in BookTubers from Australia, the United States, and
"Slay That Series" readathons, who included social me England to host scheduled "Twitter sprints," using
dia followers or anyone viewing their videos, was to fin the account @SlayThatSeries and the hashtag #slay
ish as many book series as possible in eight days. The thatseries. The Twitter sprints included opportuni
rules that the hosts shared on YouTube stated that this ties to talk about books with these special guests and
"means reading the last book in three different trilogies to receive encouragement in 20-minute sprints, or
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy Vol.62 No. 2 158 September/October 2018 literacyworldwide.org
FEATURE ARTICLE
Figure 3
Images From "BookTubeathon" and "Slay That Series" Uploads by (asarawithoutanH
sustained periods of reading between periods of book literacy learning (Jenkins, Ito, & boyd, 2016)
chatting on the #slaythatseries tag. The mobilizations in the digital age, participatory culture has b
of affect toward reading, toward critique, and toward more vital and more fraught for literacy edu
a sense of belonging together through this new media and researchers. It is vital for addressing the
ecology are an example of how BookTubers create a ticipation gap, or "the unequal access to the o
shared sense of itself. That is, these mobilizations of af tunities, experiences, skills, and knowledge th
fect are an example of how the feeling of BookTube cul prepare youths for full participation in the w
ture is produced, maintained, and shared. Affect is not tomorrow" (Jenkins, 2009, p. xii). Also, particip
in any one video, tweet, social media site, or participant culture is fraught because corporate interests
but rather in their emergent relations to one another petuate the exploitation of youths through free
and the feeling produced through those relations. built into the social expectations of participator
culture online (Driscoll & Gregg, 2011). As Emm
Sara's experiences show, new media platforms su
YouTube can support participation in a readin
Implications for Multiliteracies munity after formal education. Yet, these are sp
Research and Education which youths are also performing free labor, he
Even before the digital era, the notion of participa eager to have their books reviewed
publishers
tory culture was essential for understanding youth
dorsed by popular BookTubers. Indeed, this issue
FEATURE ARTICLE
sparked conversations within the BookTube commu and varies. BookTube's integral role in Emma's reading
nity about publishers' practices of offering financial life beyond her formal education illustrates how miti
sponsorships and advanced reader copies in return for gating participation gaps requires mentoring students
BookTubers' reviews. in how to productively navigate the felt pressures of on
Our point here is not to open a new, general discus line communities.
sion about such common, corporate interest in young Our affective encounters with BookTubers and
people's online literacies, although it remains an BookTube
im culture have forced us to reconsider our own
portant area for continued research. Rather, we tendencies
are as secondary literacy educators to overem
concerned specifically with how young people such phasize
as rational elements of design literacies that rely
Emma and Sara mobilize to generate a sense of belongon common community-specific discourses, such as
ing online and how this may relate to how youths re
overlays and interlays in video production. But as Sara
and Emma have shown us, making media online is as
spond to corporate interests in participatory cultures.
As we have shown, understanding the production of an intuitive, felt experience of belonging through
much
a sense of belonging online requires feeling particireading and media making as it is a rational activity of
intentional design. Researchers and educators cannot
patory pressures for both commoning and variation
within a community of practice, such as BookTube.
ignore, therefore, the crucial role of improvisation, style,
humor—including the pressures to generate style and
For youths, feeling a sense of belonging online requires
design literacies that are attuned to participatory humor as if by improv—and other, often overlooked af
pressures and channeling them toward productive fective dimensions of texts and text making that can be
individuation, such as Sara's stylized humor. Could knocked as "soft" skills or ancillary to the "real" work of
a pedagogy of design literacies overfocused on com text making and cultural production. As we have shown,
moning, on fitting a predefined discursive mold, sosuchto "soft" skills are vital to youths' participation in on
line cultures and are therefore essential for multilitera
speak, motivate youths toward seeking more corpo
rate sponsorship? Could a commoning design peda
cies educators, who work to provide equitable access to
participation
gogy open the door for more corporate co-opting of in contemporary digital cultures, such as
BookTube.
youth labor through the exploitation of participatory
pressures? Affect is not inherently positive or negative but
In the example of Sara's readathon, participatoryrather mobilized toward more or less positive or neg
pressures are complicatedly mobilized through, for ative activity. Theorizing the autonomy of affect as a
example, neoliberal affects of YA Lit series buying,social
a force is therefore necessary to thinking about
sense of belonging in an online reading community, and
and feeling how pressures open and constrain po
individual BookTubers' commoning (through reada tentials for literacy learning and the role that affect
thons) and variation (through comedic stylizations plays
of in how media spreads, is believed and taken up,
the readathon practice). Yet, these politics are not invis
ible to the BookTubers, who critique YA Lit overserial TAKE ACTION!
ization. How Sara and Emma come to recognize these
1. Ask students to explore BookTube channels, or
affects, and mobilize affect in response, is therefore in
tegral to their reading lives and how their reading livesartifacts from other online digital cultures, and
develop in silliness, critique, and a sense of belonging consider questions such as these: What makes a
YouTube video a BookTube video? How do you gain
online. How might researchers develop deeper under
subscribers to your channel? How do you gain
standings of how youths mobilize affect in critiquesviewers of your videos?
of neoliberalism, and of how neoliberal affects impact
2. Teach students to view artifacts of digital culture like
their reading, media making, and online lives? How
a digital writer would to identify common design
might educators prepare students not only for the pres
discourses. Also, ask students to pay close attention
sures of production in online communities but also for
to how BookTubers and digital designers develop
how such pressures might be felt toward creative and their own distinct voices and styles through humor
productive contributions? Together with researchers, and other aesthetic choices.
educators especially may consider how Emma's expe
3. Create online book communities with your classes,
rience of participatory pressures throughout her in
volvement in BookTube culture evince how addressing guiding students in both developing community
norms and expanding those norms through creative
participation gaps with digital media also requires sup flourishes.
porting youths in creative participation that commons
FEATURE ARTICLE
Lather,
or produces new desires to produce. Resisting P., & St. Pierre, E.A. (2013). Post-qualitative research.
being
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education,
drawn toward a sense of belonging to online cultures
26(6), 629-633. https://d0i.0rg/10.1080/09518398.2013.788752
designed against our best interests requires more af & Ehret, C. (Eds.). (2018). Affect in literacy teach
Leander, K.M.,
fectively attuned literacies, just as more affectively
ing and learning: Pedagogies, politics, and coming to know.
attuned literacies may produce a sense of belong New York, NY: Routledge.
ing to online cultures designed for a lifelong love K.
Lenters, of(2016). Riding the lines and overwriting in the mar
gins: Affect and multimodal literacy practices. Journal of
reading.
Literacy Research, 48(3), 280-316. https://doi.org/10.1177/
1086296X16658982
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The Role of Affect in Adolescents' Online Literacies: Participatory Pressures in BookTube

The Role of Affect in Adolescents'

is often assumed in popular discourse (boyd, 2014) and

Channels are what distinguishes BookTube as Affect

HOME VIDEOS PLAYLISTS COMMUNITY CHANNELS ABOUT

[If* ' ' gjk - * - ' ' ' ; BookUon

Uploads PLAY ALL

Book review General review of a specific book

Tag A BookTuber responds to questions or completes challenges on a specific theme circulating

constructed, literacy researchers interested in nondiscursive

#pp #consumer Pressure to purchase and #shoptillyoudrop: Discussion of buying

#pp #popularopinion The pressure of agreeing with #coolgang: Pressure to conform

#funnyforliterarycritique Critical response to a piece of #bookhatin: Negative book critique or option

#funnyforpersuasion When humor is used to #realitygoggles: Self-deprecating humor that

them that way." For Emma, "that way" refers to howyou

can't get into it because they would never understand."

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