Reading is not only a solitary activity, but it’s also not a very popular one. People who read typically love to read and will make time to do it. But it can be hard to find those people in the real world. Even if you join a book club, you’ll find that most of the other group members will come to a meet up having never read the book.
Thanks to the Internet, we can find people who share even the most obscure hobbies and passions. And the reading community is no exception.
Readers of many backgrounds and with very personalized reading preferences have gone on to become content creators on YouTube and TikTok. Some will film themselves as they read in fields, coffee shops, or their own beds. Others will hold up some books that they recommend, books that they want to read, or a specific book that they’ve read and want to review. Some of them inject their sense of humor into their videos, some silly and others snarky and sarcastic, while others are earnest and good-natured.
Their camera equipment and editing skills vary, but ultimately, they draw you in with their content. Below are my thoughts on why I love cozy reading vlogs.
The tone of cozy reading vlogs
Cozy reading vlogs are sandwiched between loud, in your face, content creators who try to pull you in with overly-enthusiastic narration, soundbites, and other eye-catching tactics and the sleep-inducing, soft spoken or whispered ASMR videos. I like to put on a cozy reading vlog when I need to downshift my energy level but still want to feel alert and engaged.
Some vloggers are more energetic than others, and that’s a good thing because it personalizes each channel and keeps everyone from looking and sounding the same. Some channels set up a documentary-style complete with title cards, montages of readers making coffee or taking a walk through town. Others are bare bones conversation-style videos where they talk right to the viewer through the camera and get right to the point of that video’s topic.
Reading vlogs get you in the mood to read and romanticize the act of reading and all of its associations, like curling up on the couch with a blanket, and drinking tea and coffee. They make the mundane interesting, and they make readers feel like they’re a part of this romanticized culture.
Selling a personality
Like any successful person who has stood in front of a camera before them, these lifestyle vloggers have screen presence. They can reach a wide variety of viewers with their unique look, well-planned content, and professionally-shot videos. How much of their actual selves are they showing, we’ll never know. But they get to play some version of themselves, and that makes them feel genuine, human, and likable.
These creators, mostly women, settle on a particular style of dress, typically vintages dresses or comfortable-looking yet stylish sweaters or airy tops. They use a neutral color palette and decorate their homes with a clean, simple design. They often live in rural areas, even cottages out in the middle of nowhere or small towns that they can feature in montages as they peruse bookstores and coffee shops to add to their calming ambience.
Reviewing as they read
One of my favorite types of cozy reading vlogs is when a reader chooses a book and films themselves, usually in a time lapse style. In between, they check in with the audience and let us know how they’re feeling about a particular book so far. You can tell that these videos take a long time to prepare, create, and edit. They also tend to run long which I love when I’m looking for something to really deep dive on a concentrated topic.
I also love seeing where, when, and how vloggers read. Many of these readers annotate their books which must slow down the reading but also forces them to really reflect on the words. And it’s easy for them to come back to certain passages that they’ve marked and want to come back to later.
I tend to speed through every book that I read in order to jump into the next or to get the most out of my reading time or keep from getting bored with a particular story. While I haven’t gone as far as annotating a book since high school, it has definitely made me become more mindful of my reading time and what I’m absorbing from each particular story.
Incorporating other activities into their videos
Many of cozy reading vloggers love to showcase their other solitary and often quiet and creative hobbies such as knitting, painting, or baking. They film themselves doing these tasks in between reading.
Non-readers tend to think that readers never watch TV, they never go outside, and they never do anything else but read. But reading is a very concentrated activity. You can only do it in certain situations, and you can only be motivated to read for so long, and there are so many other things to do. Sometimes these activities are inspired by the books that they read. Or they are just activities that draw the personality types of people who like to read.
I also like when they go on walking tours through their towns or visiting local bookstores. Sometimes they even take their viewers on trips to other cities or towns where they explore the literary opportunities that those locations have to offer. These videos tend to double as travel vlogs, possibly inspiring us to visit these locations one day.
These videos often show these creators doing solitary activities, making it feel okay to do the same. You may not have thousands of people telling you that it’s okay to use your time with these non-productive or time-consuming tasks. But it might help you to give yourself permission to do so.
The changing seasons
Cozy reading vlogs portray a slower way of life. One way they do this is to show the changing seasons of the vlogger’s hometown. Even if they don’t live in a four-season climate, there are still changes that take place during different months of the year. And this also leads to great seasonal videos that help you to appreciate each time of year and the stories that are in season during that time of year.
These vlogs have really showed me how seasonal my own reading choices are. When I’m choosing a new book to read, I always stop to consider if this book is “in season.” I also seek out videos with recommendations for seasonal books at a particular time of the year. And vloggers are continually providing new recommendations year after year and season after season so that these recommendations are not hard to find.
Who I’m watching
Below are some of my favorite lifestyle and reading vloggers. I can’t imagine anyone being interested in watching me perform my daily tasks or hobbies as they do with these creators. But that’s the magic that they bring to the artform. They make the mundane interesting, and they create a calm, quiet corner of the internet from which to hide from the chaotic frenzy that surrounds it.
My recommendations
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I’d love to hear your cozy reading vlogger recommendations. Leave your answers in the comments below!
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Years ago a friend sent me a link with the email just saying, “I think you’ll like this.” It directed me to a “Hysterical Literature” video of a woman reading her favorite chapter from Jeanette Winterson’s “Oranges Aren’t The Only Fruit” and it was fascinating as both a statement on the ecstasy found in reading (especially with my deep love of Winterson’s writing) and in how it very simply and casually portrays a playfully erotic experience that expresses a much deeper meaning (as the title alludes to).
Here’s a Vanity Fair article about it if you’re curious to check it out: https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/07/hysterical-literature-clayton-cubitt-orgasm-while-reading
It’s one of the more unique series of videos about reading I’ve ever seen – and definitely the most provocative.
Thanks for sharing! I’ll check it out.