this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2026
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Microblog Memes

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A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.

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[–] BluePea@piefed.social 3 points 2 hours ago

YOU AWFUL PSYCHO, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, THEY WERE SO YOUNG !!!?

[–] k0e3@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 hours ago

My grandfather used to do this but for every chapter because his wrists were too weak to hold on to a full sized book for too long.

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 19 points 20 hours ago
[–] Donkter@lemmy.world 8 points 18 hours ago

I love destroying the books I read. I buy ancient paperbacks used and choose not to care about their well-being, storing them in my pocket until the wheels fall off. When I read Dracula my book had no front or back cover and I kept the last 15 or so pages tucked in loose in the middle of the book because they would fall off every time I cracked it open.

[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 33 points 1 day ago

In all honesty, in no way sarcastically, I consider this a war crime.

[–] BaraCoded@literature.cafe 53 points 1 day ago (21 children)

Author here, I don't give a fuck, as long as the book was bought/is read. Stop fetishizing books or start fucking them. 

I do wonder why this person wouldn't just use a e-ink reader, though.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 1 points 33 minutes ago

E-ink readers are too hard to cut.

[–] bilouba@jlai.lu 6 points 22 hours ago (4 children)

To answer your question, I think that it's about value.

A book can be read by multiple people over time, so it can have a bigger lifespan and usage than a single lifetime. By destroying it, you cut that potential. For example, with what OP did, you might loose a part of these books, which make them worthless.

Beyond that, you have made a destructive modification on an object. Usually, there is only two outcome possible after this. Either you made it better in some way (like people who mod they cars or, to stay on topic, people who draw on the paper edge of a book) or you decreased the value of the object (if you were to resell it, this book has now very little value, except if it gain some notoriety for some reason).

I don't think we should strive and encourage the destruction of value or voluntary spoilage. This mostly struck a nerve as most of what we do is fight entropy (and that requires energy).

We are surrounded by products and we may sometimes loose the context of how something is made and what it took, especially when we are living in a consumerist society. Also many "made thing" are close to worthless and sometimes absurd ("who would need that?"). This and trends like fast fashion accelerate this feeling of spoiling on a mass scale, making this voluntary acts of destruction even more irritating.

One last point, book burning and destruction is usually done to erase culture and people, so it's related to very bad events and it feels deeply wrongs.

But, of course, if OP is honest about doing that to be able to read something that he would not read without (99% sure it's for the même), and the books modified in questions are not prescious or rare then I agree that it is not a big deal. In the end this is done for the laughs, it will not trigger a big trend and cause the destruction of precious books. But I just wanted to explain the triggered side and try to answer your question hoping it was honest.

PS: I not a native English speaker and you are an author so please forgive me for my spelling mistakes, I hope you and other still get my point across. Thanks

[–] BaraCoded@literature.cafe 5 points 22 hours ago (4 children)

I am not a native english speaker too, it's okay. I understand how it can be triggering for people who make a living out of it (book stores, librarians), but when that same interest becomes a gatekeeping fetish or a reason to take a shit on other medias (which rely on writers too! And a fucking lot of other art forms!) or other ways to come to reading, then I loose my shit. Especially when the focus is the medium and not the content. So many books are just printed shit. So many books are just outrageous propaganda, or a manifesto of their author's utter mediocrity. It's outrageous to put books on a pedestal just for the sake of it.

And english speakers are lucky, because they have a somewhat sane approach to reading. In France, it's a clusterfuck. Books are only a fetish that is seized and gatekept by the collaborationist bourgoisie, and now the biggest publishers have been bought by a fascist billionaire, who's using that very same bourgeois book fetishism to push his nazi agenda to the mass, by giving much more visibility to little nazi fucks. And because books are respected just for the sake of it, then the nazi propaganda is accepted as is! What a fucking scandal!

[–] JigglySackles@lemmy.world 4 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

That sounds maddening as hell. That seems like self publishing would be the primary viable option. I'm so tired of Nazis ruining everything.

[–] bilouba@jlai.lu 3 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

It's crazy that this ideology is still so alluring when you have the weight of (relatively recent) history to show where it leads. We don't really have the excuse of elevated levels of lead in the air to justify this hatred and violence...

[–] JigglySackles@lemmy.world 2 points 16 hours ago

Agreed. It baffles me that anyone can look at history and think that what's happening now can be anything close to good. It's sheer malice from any reasonable perspective.

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[–] Decq@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

I feel like there is a lack of understanding how or what about e-ink. My partner only grasped the concept that it's not an emmisive display after the 5th time explaining. And some friends still don't seem to understand the difference between an e-reader and tablet. (they are extremely tech-illiterate)

If I extrapolate this, there have to be a lot of people who don't want an e-reader because 'they don't want to look at a screen'.

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 5 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Just it's a slow screen that's better for reading in the sun.

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[–] Dry_Monk@lemmy.world 28 points 1 day ago

"yeah, I just finished Infinite. It was pretty good, abrupt ending though. I hear Jest picks up right where it left off."

[–] Glytch@lemmy.world 26 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Skip jail. Straight to a firing squad of librarians.

[–] TomArrr@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago

Easy to spot, they're the only firing squad with silencers

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[–] brownsugga@lemmy.world 8 points 22 hours ago

I shred my books to save time reading

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I cut mine cross-wise to save space. There is a lot of authors who make no sense.

[–] tamal3@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

Possibilities...

[–] Xylian@lemmy.world 6 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

I shred the binding side with a saw, so I can scan the book with my Fujitsu scanner. Easy way to digitalize a entire book.

[–] wavebeam@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago

This guy works at Anthropic

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 6 points 20 hours ago

You could just go to IRCHighway, though.

[–] Underwaterbob@sh.itjust.works 6 points 21 hours ago

They do this for you in Korea. A lot of long novels are released chopped up into ~200 page chunks.

[–] Astertheprince@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 22 hours ago

I don't even like it when they destroy books to scan them by cutting off their spines. I prefer when they use scanning methods that preserve the books as well as possible. This feels just straight up evil.

[–] TargaryenTKE@lemmy.world 6 points 21 hours ago

I've done this for coloring books before, but only to make the sheets more accessible. I have never once complained about the transportation issues of a book. Git gud scrub

[–] dwemthy@lemmy.world 5 points 21 hours ago

Oh shit, I left the half with the end notes at home!

[–] KarlHungus42@lemmy.world 5 points 22 hours ago

Insanity. Also doesn't work with IJ unless you ignore the end notes.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 5 points 22 hours ago

Just read books on your phone, or a tablet. You can carry an entire library with you.

As someone who would never, ever do this to one of my beloved collection: Go for it. Watever keeps you enjoying them. As others have said, we're not talking hundred year old first edition hardcovers here. You can still tape them up and pass them on, unlike those philistines who take one on a hike and rip out the pages they've read to use for campfire tinder.

[–] robyn@lemmy.org 3 points 20 hours ago

This is the book version of ed gein

[–] MithranArkanere@lemmy.world 3 points 21 hours ago

Just get a freaking backpack.

[–] charonn0@startrek.website 22 points 1 day ago

You should cut diagonally. If it makes a sandwich better, imagine what it can do for a novel.

[–] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 200 points 1 day ago
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