9 . When I was 12 years old, I spent most of my free time reading. But sadly, not everyone around me enjoyed reading as much as I did, and not being able to talk about my favorite hobby with my friends made my reading a lonely experience.

In my senior year of high school, I came across a channel, “Clau Reads Books” run by Claudia Ramirez Lomeli, who makes book-related content in Spanish, and was introduced to the book world of social media. I could finally hear someone else’s reaction to the stories I like. I love her videos because we prefer the same kind of books. Eventually, I followed her on another social networking site, and I learned about the community on it where users blog about their favorite books. I really wanted to be part of this space and seeing others being so interactive and supportive made it seem like an acceptable community. However, I doubted my ability to express my thoughts well because I was unfamiliar with creating content to engage other readers.

Therefore, I started reading blogs on how to start a new account for guidance and after weeks of researching, I learned about the necessary social media skills. I had to spend time designing small sets and finding natural lighting and household items for photo shoots, and learn how to write engaging reviews while using hashtags (主题标签) in posts to attract other users.

My first post was a photo of my favorite book, Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick, with my hand’s shadow cast on a page. I also took pictures of several of my favorite sentences from the book and included a few hashtags to increase interaction. Attracting people with similar interest was hard at first. But gradually, it became kid’s stuff. The community quickly became a good place for me to talk about my favorite books with people having the same interest.