Since the dawn of social media, an unseen audience has permeated our thoughts. “Phone eats first” and curated Instagram feeds are common sentiments among Gen-Z. As a result, many products have capitalized on this desire to share (and sometimes “flex”) our interests digitally — especially in relation to media. Listening to music, watching movies, reading books, etc. have all once been independent, private activities. But now, we can quantify and amplify our opinions to strangers across the globe.
Below, I’ll be sharing my thoughts on a few of these “products”, and ultimately try to answer the following question: what are the consequences of increased tracking and sharing of our lives?
Goodreads current homepage
Okay yes Goodreads has been around forever (2006 actually), but I’d like to explore how — even through its questionable UI — it’s managed to prevail amongst modern competitors. If you aren’t familiar, Goodreads is a platform where you can review, rate, and get recommended books — with more emphasis on the first two.
Storygraph’s extensive analysis feature
Storygraph is a newer book tracking platform that emphasizes its modern UI and powerful recommendation system (aka Goodreads’ flaws). I tried out the app a couple years ago, and I actually found that these things mattered less to me. I felt like a lot of the more social aspects like public reviews were less visible on the platform since they prioritized your personal reading insights. Obviously, different readers will prioritize different things, but Goodreads more closely fit my needs. I’ll also preface that I haven’t used Storygraph since 2021, and it looks like they’ve since added more social features.
This ultimately shows that Goodreads filled such an incredibly strong need that what would normally turn away users — didn’t. And if you look closely, many modern media tracking apps utilize a similar review and rate system as their foundation.
My Letterboxd profile
Letterboxd is a social platform where you can publicly review and rate films. One of the app’s most iconic features is the “four favorites” you can display at the top of your profile as shown to the left. Letterboxd is one of the most popular media tracking apps, garnering almost 90k ratings on Apple’s App Store.
While the app is well-known within the film community (see their press here), there’s a debate on how valuable the app’s famous “one-line” reviews are to media critique and consumption as a whole. These “one-line” reviews are often created by younger users to joke about the movie in some context. However, users who prefer detailed insight and film analysis look down on these one-liners.
My thoughts? I’m in the middle — I don’t think the one-liners are bad for film (we connect with others through laughter after all), but I do find myself enjoying when users will post their in-depth takes on the movie. I take away a lot more from a movie when I take in more perspectives.
I’m an avid Letterboxd user (if you couldn’t tell), but I’ve found that the app’s standard five-star rating system has fundamentally changed how I interpret movies. When I’m in a theater, I subconsciously think about what score I’m going to give the movie I’m watching when the credits roll (this phenomenon has been meme-ed a lot by Letterboxd users). Even with books — halfway through I’m deciding between whether a book is a three or four-star read when I update my Goodreads.
It feels very reductive to be categorizing how much I “like” something into five distinct boxes. But at the same time, removing nuance ironically introduces greater cognitive load when faced with something that may fall between boxes. This is the problem that Beli tries to solve.