#anatomyofabooknerd “How to be a booknerd 101” through hashtag Humor

Hi friends,

Today’s post is inspired by my creation of bookstagrams. I was ready to upload a picture after having written the caption. When I was choosing my hashtags it struck me that we could learn a lot about us, booknerds, just looking at the hashtags we use!

More, I was thinking that often, we are seen like strange animals by non booklovers and they often just …don’t get it! Maybe we frighten some with our feverish looks while going out of a bookshop when the coveted book has finally been released and we hold it in our hands?

Or we are met with pitiyng glances from well wishers when we decline an invite to a rave party because reading is so much fun! Right?

Or fitness junkies just think we have noodles for arms and don’t realize that reading big books like The Priory of the orange Tree or The Pillars of the Earth while in bed makes for formidable armwork.

Hence I wanted to dedicate this post to all non booklovers to help them understand the unique and odd tribe of booklovers!

To help these nubes grasp all our complexities, I decided to use a proven scientific method: hashtags!

The most revealing hashtag used on bookstagrams will decipher our way of life. And as I am a very organized person, I regrouped these by categories.

What does being a booklover entail?

1 Addiction

Sorry to rob you of your pink glasses as far as book lovers are concerned but we are not flawless! Forget the walk the line type of girl and the A student.

The ugly truth is that book lovers are junkies!

The proof lies in these hastags: #bookaddict #bookjunkie #sniffingbooks #bookaholic #addictedtobooks etc.

2 Ruination

You probably thought that hobbies like golf, horse riding etc were the most expensive hobbies/passions?

Try again! I am laughing sardonically now!

I told you we are addicts. That means that we never have enough books! We buy them by truckloads! Even if we have tons to read on our shelves already.

Just read these hashtags to get it! #booksbooksbooks #toomanybooks #bookhoarder  #bookban (that last one is when your credit card got rejected everywhere and your soulmate threatens you with bodily harm if you don’t stop buying books)

3 Collection

As booknerds we collect books and everything bookish! From special editions to fanart of our favorite characters we may have the same book twice, three or four times depending of the cover and the addiction!

Expect to be overflowed with books, bookish candles, book sleeves, pins, fanart ….

The best hashtags to describe all this are: #bookishcandles #bookmark #booksleeve #fanart #coverwhore #prettybooks #bookcollector #bookaesthetic

4 Renovation

As we accumulate books, we never have enough place to store them! Don’t ask us to declutter the place we won’t throw our babies to the bin! If we are in a desperate situation, we might agree to find a loving home for some of them.

That means that if you date or live with a booknerd, you’ll have to buy or build new shelves, repurpose a garden shack into a library or build a new room to your house! The temporary solution might be to have book cart to put some order to the big mess left by piles of books everywhere! in fact, we are secretly dreaming of living in libraries or becoming librarians! With some comfy place to read.

These hashtags are living proof #bookcart #bookpile #bookstack #homelibrary #bibliophile #booktower #bibliophileheart #booknook

5 Community

The community of book lovers is generally speaking an amazing tribe! We understand each other, gush on the same books and characters, hope for books made into movies, celebrate releases etc

You can feel that kinship and soulspirit through #bookcommunity #bookblogger #bookstagrammer #bookloversunite etc

And you also have some other odd traits like:

#bookdragon that means “don’t touch my book!!!” or “don’t interrupt my reading” or ..

#booknerdigans meaning that the most introvert person might do foolish things like show her face on camera for the love of books

#pursuepretty because like a proud mama, we want to display our babies under a flattering light. Hence bookstagrams

#bookworms because we love diving into books and eating these stories!

I think I have barely scrapped the surface of the wonderful world of booknerds but I hope that you now have a better understanding of our world and our behavior.

If you want to date or befriend one, now you’ve been warned!

Thanks for reading!

Sophie

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