Dakota Warren

[qwikti]

Sometimes I wonder how Donna Tartt feels about an entire generation making her book a hit again only for the point to fly completely over their heads.

It is to be expected when you write satire I guess, the thing is she wasn’t even subtle with it and made fun of the characters all throughout the book, I don’t understand how so many people idolize them. If these people were teenagers maybe, but now fully grown adults.

I know what you mean. At this point, Donna Tartt is best to remain a bit of a recluse so she doesn't have to ever deal with people like Dakota irl. Imagine seeing some 25-year-old saunter up to you in her best Camilla cosplay (bleached hair and all), wearing mary-janes, talking like a walking 'unhinged woman' soundbite machine. You'd have to have a very strong constitution not to shudder. It's sort of like the female equivalent of idiotic men who read American Psycho and actually want to become Patrick.

The satire going over people's heads is one of the most frustrating things. I genuinely love the book, but it's one of those things where if you admit to it publicly, you really can't be sure if people will put you in the same camp (God forbid) as the likes of Dakota, OR if they'll hear that you love it and be of the opposite group of people for whom the satire flew over the heads - because they assume you're a pretentious duck yourself. Best to keep my enjoyment of that novel online, lol.

I do wonder, what university did Dakota go to? I went to the kind of university (in the UK) where the kinds of 'rich and self-obsessed with their own supposed genius' people you see in The Secret History are rife, and lemme tell you, I can't imagine anyone going to a similar university and still seeing the book as something to emulate.

 

[mendelsz]

I know what you mean. At this point, Donna Tartt is best to remain a bit of a recluse so she doesn't have to ever deal with people like Dakota irl. Imagine seeing some 25-year-old saunter up to you in her best Camilla cosplay (bleached hair and all), wearing mary-janes, talking like a walking 'unhinged woman' soundbite machine. You'd have to have a very strong constitution not to shudder. It's sort of like the female equivalent of idiotic men who read American Psycho and actually want to become Patrick.

The satire going over people's heads is one of the most frustrating things. I genuinely love the book, but it's one of those things where if you admit to it publicly, you really can't be sure if people will put you in the same camp (God forbid) as the likes of Dakota, OR if they'll hear that you love it and be of the opposite group of people for whom the satire flew over the heads - because they assume you're a pretentious duck yourself. Best to keep my enjoyment of that novel online, lol.

I do wonder, what university did Dakota go to? I went to the kind of university (in the UK) where the kinds of 'rich and self-obsessed with their own supposed genius' people you see in The Secret History are rife, and lemme tell you, I can't imagine anyone going to a similar university and still seeing the book as something to emulate.

I think she’s enrolled in an online degree since she started uni during the pandemic and moved to London while still doing her course, I don’t even know if she finished it yet. That could be the reason why she still in such a juvenile mindset, being on a campus and dealing with pretentious students and professors alike will turn you off romanticizing academia and these books completely.

 

[Larancia]

I think she’s enrolled in an online degree

That is the least "dark academia-esque" thing she could have done. So you say, she doesnt even have access to a uni library?

 

[bookishfrieze00]

Her book recommendations really look like those of a teenage girl who just discovered classic books.

How are you a writer who has (does she yet?) a degree in literature and the most you can come up with for gothic fiction is Frankenstein, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Angela Carter, Edgar Allan Poe, Carmilla and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?

Those are a given when you’re talking about the genre and do not need to be recommended, much less from someone who makes a living out of books. Come on, she could, at the very least, sprinkle some Matthew Lewis and Charlotte Dacre in there.

View attachment 2526381

has anyone else noticed how insanely white her book recommendations are or is it just me? This isn't something I typically notice or point out but after looking through a few of her book recommendation videos it seems more and more like a very glaring omission to barely include any authors of colour...How are you going to have gothic horror recommendations "to rule them all" but no Toni Morrison or Octavia Butler? (Beloved is one of the BEST "horror" books I have ever read and I honestly believe no list on gothic horror is complete without it).

She does understand that classic literature isn't just white authors right.......right?........

 

[mendelsz]

has anyone else noticed how insanely white her book recommendations are or is it just me? This isn't something I typically notice or point out but after looking through a few of her book recommendation videos it seems more and more like a very glaring omission to barely include any authors of colour...How are you going to have gothic horror recommendations "to rule them all" but no Toni Morrison or Octavia Butler? (Beloved is one of the BEST "horror" books I have ever read and I honestly believe no list on gothic horror is complete without it).

She does understand that classic literature isn't just white authors right.......right?........

She recommended Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin in a video about… queer lit – *gasp*. Her recs are as basic as it gets. I love Giovanni's Room and it’s one of my favorite books but if you're making a living in the literary world it feels kinda lazy to stick with the same old famous titles and not explore more.

It's like she's playing the market, knowing her audience prefers to look literary without diving into the deep cuts. Or maybe she genuinely thinks she's a total rebel just because she's not pushing Colleen Hoover's books. Idk which is worse.

 

[liorer]

She recommended Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin in a video about… queer lit – *gasp*. Her recs are as basic as it gets. I love Giovanni's Room and it’s one of my favorite books but if you're making a living in the literary world it feels kinda lazy to stick with the same old famous titles and not explore more.

It's like she's playing the market, knowing her audience prefers to look literary without diving into the deep cuts. Or maybe she genuinely thinks she's a total rebel just because she's not pushing Colleen Hoover's books. Idk which is worse.

Dakota does not read much at all. I could write 10 paragraphs about how she doesn’t read but suffice to say usually when she describes books she’s “read” there is no analysis—instead she reads the blurb, gives a totally unrepresentative summary, recites buzzwords e.g. unhinged woman, or generalizes about the literature of an entire region (e.g. “this is Latin American literature so you know it’s going to be dark and erotic and twisted.” “This is Russian literature so you know it’s going to be bleak and depressing.” Like tf? The only book you’ve read is Frankenstein. What are you talking about.)

Other than that it’s evidence enough that when she went away with notorious non-reader Jack Edwards even he commented that every time Dakota tried to read she literally fell asleep.

She’s not playing the market, she simply just doesn’t read enough to provide any more than the most basic recommendations. There’s a reason she doesn’t have a goodreads linked when practically every other booktuber does.

this last video was particularly obnoxious because she’s like “I recommend books over and over to drive it home!” No, it’s because you read a Poe story in high school and that’s sustaining your recommendations to this day.

 

[Larancia]

Or maybe she genuinely thinks she's a total rebel just because she's not pushing Colleen Hoover's books. Idk which is worse.

I think she is a slow reader OR she doesnt read very often.

If she were flying through bunch of books, i doubt her goodreads/storygraph account wouldnt be public.

She’s not playing the market, she simply just doesn’t read enough to provide any more than the most basic recommendations.

(You said the same but im still sending mine because its exciting to get this notification while typing my similar idea haha)

 

[Peony14]

has anyone else noticed how insanely white her book recommendations are or is it just me? This isn't something I typically notice or point out but after looking through a few of her book recommendation videos it seems more and more like a very glaring omission to barely include any authors of colour...How are you going to have gothic horror recommendations "to rule them all" but no Toni Morrison or Octavia Butler? (Beloved is one of the BEST "horror" books I have ever read and I honestly believe no list on gothic horror is complete without it).

She does understand that classic literature isn't just white authors right.......right?........

To be honest I never noticed that and honestly don’t really pay things like this any attention (I also find it kind of odd when people point out things like that as a whole). I think her book recommendations as a whole are just a bit boring and basic, especially for a literature student/writer/poet

 

[bookishfrieze00]

this last video was particularly obnoxious because she’s like “I recommend books over and over to drive it home!” No, it’s because you read a Poe story in high school and that’s sustaining your recommendations to this day.

also because she wants to make as much money as possible pumping out the same "books for [insert buzzword adjective here] girls" videos and tiktoks over and over and over. She recommends the same basic books because she cares more about her aesthetic than the literature itself imo.

Also about finding it odd when people point out having mainly white authors, I can understand why as it seems nitpicky or overly reading into something. But my intention was simply to say it shows a lack of care on her part by not even attempting to recommend anything other than high school English class readings. The concept of 'dark academia' as a whole is notoriously racist by nature and her recommendations, whilst she probably doesn't consciously exclude authors of colour, follows that same tradition without interest in expanding her horizons into non-white classical literature (which there is a lot of!!!!!!). It's the same with her 'queer lit' video which had no novels about lesbian or sapphic relationships. While it is a small criticism and I can understand the natural recoil to it, I think it's indicative of her lack of deeper engagement with literature as a whole and overall valuing aesthetic over content.

Basically, what I was trying to say is simply that as someone who reads a lot, you naturally seek out different, interesting stories of various lives and experiences. Her valuation of shallow aesthetic semblance over meaningful engagement, as well as a lack of effort or preparation, reveals itself in the homogeneity of her videos. She doesn't want to read (aka post photos of her reading) books that don't fit with her one-note performance online.

 

[Dzemper]

omg, I love this thread, I have been following Dakota for some time now and I was always wondering how people can't see how shallow she is.
She is a pretty girl and that helps a lot on social media but man her ‘art’ is mediocre and her style is basically cosplay of Sabrina Spellman.
How can someone call her original or interesting? What is wrong with people on the internet being delusional? Are her followers 12-year-olds with no sense of reality? She can clown around but I'm sure that sooner or later she is gonna get a book deal because she can sell her book with the help of the TikTok audience.
I was amazed at how many people would show up for her book promotion, basically, all girls who want to be her

 

[liorer]

Dakota has created some art/writing submission page. The idea is she writes a prompt, people create “art” responding to that prompt, then she “curates” the submissions and puts them on the website to quote “give back” to her audience for making her dreams come true.

The girl is absolutely daft. She said she is going to be getting THOUSANDS OF *MONTHLY* SUBMISSIONS and posted an Instagram story a couple days ago (wish I took a screenshot) asking for advice on how to deal with the immense volume of work she is set to receive. She used the word thousands two times in the post.

Only someone with a delusionally elevated view of themself (and failure to comprehend internet engagement) would think that a project they have just announced and barely promoted will be overrun with people trying to submit new work they specially created for it.

 

[qwikti]

Dakota has created some art/writing submission page. The idea is she writes a prompt, people create “art” responding to that prompt, then she “curates” the submissions and puts them on the website to quote “give back” to her audience for making her dreams come true.

The girl is absolutely daft. She said she is going to be getting THOUSANDS OF *MONTHLY* SUBMISSIONS and posted an Instagram story a couple days ago (wish I took a screenshot) asking for advice on how to deal with the immense volume of work she is set to receive. She used the word thousands two times in the post.

Only someone with a delusionally elevated view of themself (and failure to comprehend internet engagement) would think that a project they have just announced and barely promoted will be overrun with people trying to submit new work they specially created for it.

980 of those submissions - Plz Darota, show bobs and vagene, plz i leaved a dm for u

 

[mendelsz]

980 of those submissions - Plz Darota, show bobs and vagene, plz i leaved a dm for u

The other 20 are edgy rupi kaur wannabes such as herself who don’t know how to stop with the blood and wine references and think they’re god’s gift to literature. I doubt anyone that’s worth their salt will be submitting anything at all.

 

[Peony14]

I think this idea is in theory quite nice since it allows people to benefit from her plattform to get their work out there. But realistically I´m not too sure how this will work. I can imagine she´ll curate it in a way in which she only publishes submissions that fit her aesthetic (but I don´t want to assume too much)

 

[Mr.Mistoffelees]

What the hell is that new video??

The opening shot is nightmare-inducing.

 

[Peony14]

What the hell is that new video??

The opening shot is nightmare-inducing.

It´s so awkward

 

[slamvs27]

With the title “why reading is sexy” is she selling the books or herself?

 

[mendelsz]

What the hell is that new video??

The opening shot is nightmare-inducing.

I was watching the video and she picked up a Spanish book (from a Spanish author, not just the language) and called it Latin American literature. All of the “reading in translation” fuss that some booktubers (mainly Jack) put up bothers me so much because, besides it only being a thing in english speaking countries- the rest of the world simply reads books outside of their first language without making it seem like a big deal- they also lump everything on a big “translation” pile as if those books are remotely connected by anything outside of being written in english.

These people have no knowledge of simple concepts such as an entire continent not being only one thing, each country has its own literary themes and works or that placing a country in an entirely different continent just because of the shared language makes no sense.

Afterwards she did some default statement about Latin American literature citing surrealism and stopped herself because she didn’t want to “grossly generalize” while talking about a book that’s written by an European author and set in Europe lol. It’s not even like she saw the Spanish names and reviews and assumed it was a Latin American book, she said she googled it and found out it was from Spain.

 

[mendelsz]

Dakota @ the booker prize ceremony. Her red carpet fits are truly something.

 

[Larancia]

Dakota @ the booker prize ceremony. Her red carpet fits are truly something. View attachment 2594270

Her outfits make her body seem weirdly proportioned