This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s spring editorial intern Fainite Auguste. Find her on Instagram at @ceilingdancing. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
Why are people, specifically BookTok obsessed with minimizing audiobooks? Where does the fight for literary supremacy come from?
The Importance of Accessibility
Audiobooks are an amazing alternative to physical books or PDFS. It’s like a podcast! Audiobooks still give the information someone needs from the piece of literature and is equally as entertaining. It also allows someone to multitask while they read, people can cook, clean, commute, or write while listening. Other than audiobooks being convenient it is an important tool in many people’s lives.
People who are visually impaired or blind use assistive tech like text-to-speech to read books or just navigate everyday life. Certain fonts or weights of fonts also make it difficult to read texts. People on the blind spectrum also deserve to be entertained and hear voices that aren’t robotic or monotone. Voice actors add a refreshing and fun twist. I’ve listened to and finished several audiobooks in the past few years. I probably wouldn’t have if they didn’t exist. Books also cost a lot of money, a single book can range from thirteen to fifteen dollars. But a podcast subscription to something like Spotify or Audible gives people access to hundreds of books for less than the cost of a book.
As someone whose first language isn’t English, I’ve used text-to-speech too. It has helped me understand the several pages of required reading for my art history and humanities classes. Let’s be clear, doing this is in no way cheating. The analysis and understanding of a book is still yours.
The History of Exclusion in Literature
Before the printing press was invented most of England’s population didn’t know how to read. Only the nobility were educated since public schools were not normal in the 14th and 15th centuries. All books were hand-copied, and it was only the Bible. Even then, only priests owned Bibles. So, for years churchgoers couldn’t directly point to a passage because only priests had access to the Bible which was written in Latin. As you can imagine this caused many variations in religious beliefs.
The invention of the printing press directly affected our society. As printing became easier and faster a wider range of people learned to read. People’s thoughts and beliefs were quickly spreading. People began to question religion, the government, and societal structure in general. Without the ability to reprint, authors wouldn’t exist, civil rights movements wouldn’t have happened, and amendments of laws in the constitution.
However, the struggle for literacy did not end there. Due to redlining, Black and Brown students do not have the same education as upper-class white students.
The TikToker Oliverspeaks1 has spent the past few years teaching himself how to read. He’s in his mid-thirties. He’s been sharing his journey of learning how to read. Oliver reads out loud not because it helps his videos but because it helps him. Reading out loud makes it more accessible, you can sound things out. This comes naturally to us because people understand sound and language long before they understand written words.
Listening to an audiobook does the same thing. You learn how to annunciate, character’s names, or the location of a fictional place created by the author.
Removing the classist, racist, and abilist views from literature will allow everyone to read the way that they choose. Whether it means using text to speech, reading out loud, in your head, or audiobooks. You have the right to read and learn.
Do you listen to audiobooks? Or are you a physical reader? Has your mind changed about audiobooks since reading this article? Let us know!
Leave a Reply