Well this is an interesting outreach predicament… I’ll admit, some cutesy animal talk makes me cringe, but it’s usefulness in scicomm CANNOT be denied. Making a topic silly or cute can make it accessible
https://twitter.com/WhySharksMatter/status/1403374133115826180
Particularly when you’re talking about snakes and spiders and other phobia-inducing animals that are (often) not looking for a fight and/or harmless, this cute-ification can help reduce the intimidation factor
This can (and has, to some extent) been applied to books, with frequent exclamations of "Absolute unit!" and "chonky," etc., and the professional pushback has been isolated
*its... ugh, thanks overzealous autocorrect
I wonder if this is because book history is SO academized? Like, anybody can say "wow that pupper is heckin' cute" but I don't think most non-specialists would feel confident enough to point at a book and say "that TOOLING tho"
I think there's still a sense that book history isn't "for" everyone (thanks in large part to financial, social, and educational barriers to entering the field, but I digress), and I do think that #librarytwitter book shitposts alleviate that a teeny bit
Like @eliza_audacis mentions, if people who are seen as authorities in the field can show that they hop from an academic to a casual tone about their subject, it makes it more accessible AND humanizes it. Books aren't just for dry nerds in ivory towers!
https://twitter.com/eliza_audacis/status/1403410510914195459?s=20
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