Fans flock to Goodreads, Letterboxd for cataloging and connection

Samantha Baugus is an avid reader. This year alone she’s read 108 books, ranging from science fiction and horror to non-fiction and poetry. A part of the reading process Baugus enjoys is logging and reviewing the books she completes. For more than 10 years, she’s utilized the platform Goodreads to do just that.

Launched in 2007, Goodreads is a social cataloging platform, now owned by Amazon. Users can search nearly any published book title, log and review books they’ve read, connect with friends, and create “shelves” for books they’d like to read in the future. Baugus has used Goodreads off and on since about 2014. In 2023, she was one of more than 150 million users of the platform, according to data published by Penguin Random House.

Goodreads is one of several media-tracking platforms. The StoryGraph is another, newer platform for tracking books. Letterboxd, launched in 2011, is for tracking movies, and Discogs, launched in 2000, is used for tracking vinyl records. There are countless other platforms, accessible on desktops and smartphones, that allow consumers to search, track and review their favorite (or least favorite) pieces of media. And they’ve been growing in popularity since the pandemic.

From 2011 to 2019, the number of registered Goodreads users grew from five to 90 million, according to Statista. And then that number rose to more than 150 million by 2023. In just four years, between 2020 and 2024, Letterboxd’s membership climbed from 2 million to 12 million, according to GQ Magazine.

Consumers like tracking their consumables. But why?

Holly Holladay, an associate professor of media, journalism, and film at Missouri State University, has been a Goodreads user since 2019. She mostly uses the platform to track what books she’s read, rather than leaving ratings and reviews. Speaking to the News-Leader, Holladay laughed about having a “Goodreads finger,” meaning the first thing she does after completing a book is log it on the platform.

The desire to catalog and have the ability to look back on “your history” are why Holladay believes media-tracking platforms are so popular.

“I think there is something to be said about the way it functions, especially for ‘collectors.’ It’s a way to sort of collect and catalog and look back on your history to remember what you liked it and didn’t,” Holladay said.

In this way, these platforms are like a digital diary.

“It’s like a snippet of who we are,” Holladay continued. “The media we consume obviously says something about who we are as people, and it’s neat to look back on that.”

For Baugus, Goodreads serves as a beacon in the oversaturated media darkness.

“It makes it way easier to find other things that you would like because there’s so much out there,” Baugus said. “Instead of having written notes or a document on your computer, you (can), if you (are) in the bookstore, scroll through on your phone and be like, ‘Oh yeah, these are the books I (am) looking to buy.’”

And like other, more traditional social media, media-tracking platforms allow users to connect with others who share similar interests.

Blake Tucker has been a Letterboxd user since 2019. He uses the platform daily, logging movies two or three times a week. For the 33-year-old, the platform drums up a sense of nostalgia, reminding him of message boards from the ’90s.

“There were message boards for certain topics, different niche groups and this (Letterboxd) feels like that but on a much larger scale, out in the open and very welcoming and fun,” Tucker said.

Mainstream social media platforms tend to facilitate one-sided relationships between common users and creators/celebrities, but media-tracking apps have been known to do the opposite.

Directors Martin Scorsese and Sean Baker, actress Ayo Edebiri, and actor Kyle MacLachlan are just a few A-list celebrities who utilize Letterboxd.

In addition to bigger names like Scorsese, Tucker enjoys following film critics.

“There are a lot of different critics I like to follow,” Tucker told the News-Leader in May. “Especially with Cannes (Film Festival) going on right now, they are kind of posting their first responses to stuff that is coming out that isn’t widely being seen yet, movies like Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis,’ which is getting a lot of buzz. I’ve been very interested in that, so being able to follow critics through there (Letterboxd accounts) to see firsthand … what they’re rating it and if it will be worth my time to go seek it out and see it.”

When it comes to Goodreads, countless authors use the platform to access reader reviews or even use the platform for personal use.

Holladay represents this dynamic on a local level. In 2023, she released “Parks and Recreation,” an academic media analysis of the television sitcom. The book is available for readers to rate, review, and add to their “shelves” on Goodreads and The Storygraph. As of Tuesday, the book had 11 ratings for an average 4.45/5-star rating and four written reviews on Goodreads.

Due to the book’s academic nature, Holladay said she understands why not many people have logged the book as “read” on Goodreads.

“Most people who have read it know me and are like, ‘Five stars,’ but then there’s this little three-star review and they didn’t say anything,” Holladay said. “I don’t even look at that as a negative.”

This less than satisfactory review doesn’t phase Holladay but rather serves as a reminder of the platform’s expansive user base.

Baugus, however, is familiar with several authors who have taken advantage of their positions as authors on Goodreads.

“What’s been happening … is that someone will leave a review, particularly a negative review of a book. They’ll give it one star. And then the author will show up and start spewing hate at this person for leaving a negative review,” Baugus said. “That is very inappropriate for a number of reasons. Primary among them is creating, for some people, a sense of almost fear for posting an honest review because they know authors are lurking in these comment sections, reading reviews. The author, if they are not emotionally ready to handle negative criticism, should probably not read reviews.”

Goodreads users have conversed about this issue on the platform’s open forums for years. Goodreads does allow users to report reviews and comments that are against the platform’s policies.

Over the 10-plus years she has used Goodreads, Baugus said she has taken breaks from the platform. For the most part, Goodreads’ interface has remained the same since its establishment, which Baugus and many other users dislike.

About three or four years ago, she stopped using the mobile app because it was, according to her, “unusable.” Though she has redownloaded the app again, Goodreads continues to have issues with slow speeds, glitches, and crashes.

In more recent years, Baugus has transitioned to using The StoryGraph more, but she continues to use both platforms.

For years, Goodreads has facilitated an annual reading challenge. Users can set a goal for how many books they’d like to read in a year then, when they log completed books, these are automatically added to their reading challenge countdown. When looking over their challenge, users can see if they are “on track,” “ahead,” or “behind” by so many books.

Holladay said she puts a lot of pressure on herself to reach the reading challenge goals she sets. In 2023, she missed her goal by only two books, but it had an impact.

“I put so much pressure to make that damn goal,” Holladay said. “When I would see that little, ‘three books behind,’ it would really stress me out. There’s nothing bad about reading. There’s literally nothing bad. I think it’s a net positive overall, but the only con I can see is that internal pressure. I legit felt like a failure because I read 48 books instead of 50.”

To overcome this pressure to complete a “successful” reading challenge goal, Holladay said one of her friends set her reading challenge goal to just one book. But it appears Holladay still enjoys the challenge. As of Tuesday, her Goodreads Reading Challenge for 2024 was 52 books.

Source: Penguin Random House, Statista, GQ Magazine