Love, Julienne — BookTok PH’s Favorite BookToker
Get to know BookTok PH’s favorite BookToker Julienne Alcos (Love, Julienne) as she shares her love for reading and creating bookish content.
From book budols to bookish humor, no wonder Julienne is everyone’s go-to BookToker. Her immense devotion to reading, artistic editing skills, and energetic appeal influenced many people to rekindle their love for books. Garnering 119,600 followers on TikTok and 11,500 followers on YouTube (as of this writing), Julienne continues to prove her impact on the BookTok PH community.
Love, Julienne — BookTok PH’s Favorite BookToker
Once upon a pandemic, BookTok rise to the occasion as a solace avenue for book lovers, readers, and fictional character enthusiasts. As a bookworm, myself, I also joined the supportive community for a while last year. Among those whom I have met from the community is BookTok’s resident sunshine, Julienne.
The 23-year-old Iskolar ng Bayan nursing student is known for her aesthetic and funny bookish videos and vlogs both on YouTube and TikTok. From casual engagements on social media, I finally took the chance to interview her as one of the top BookTokers in the Philippines.
Chapter 1: The bookworm awakening
Given the era of book-to-movie adaptations, I guess it is a collective experience to have a young adult phase back in 2014 or 2015. From pictures to words, we eventually evolve to love the hobby that we used to ironically dread growing up. And, this was the same for Julienne. While others’ bookworm awakening were romance novels such as John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars or Jenny Han’s To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, Julienne was rather into sci-fi and dystopian novels.
The first one is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins because [it’s] the first-ever book (without pictures lol) that I’ve finished, and The Legend trilogy by Marie Lu made me start collecting books back in 2015.
Since then, books became her safe place—her personal sanctuary from her monotonous reality. As she immersed herself in multiple stories, she gravitated toward other diverse genres. Moreover, like many bookworms, Julienne is also a mood reader with a whole stack of unread TBRs (To-Be-Read) in line.
@lovejulienne eto na ang bookshelf tour muwa part one syempre 😌🥳 #booktokph #booktok ♬ original sound – YT: Love, Julienne 📚 🎀
I read a variety of genres depending on my mood. I read nonfiction books when I encounter topics that I suddenly want to know more about. I especially love books that tackle creativity, health, skills, passion, and productivity. I also love romance fantasy books or any book with amazing world-building!
Chapter 2: The BookTok era
Inspired by international BookTubers Haley Pham and PeruseProject, Julienne started creating content in 2016. Although it was never as consistent due to nursing school, she still vowed to continue what she started. Then, she came across a corner of TikTok dedicated to bookworms like her.
I started creating BookTok videos just last year after my board exam. While reviewing for the boards, I’ve watched so many videos and I sort of promised myself that I would get back to reading once I’m done with all the studying! I figured out that joining the community is a great way to bring back my love for reading.
@lovejulienne
She did fall in love with reading again with back-to-back budols, reviews, and recommendations from BookTokers and BookTubers she followed.
I enjoy watching many PH BookTokers and I really recommend everyone reading this to support them too! I’ve been enjoying videos by dymarthereader, coconat.nat, kats.diary, bryanhoardbooks, and booksmagicdarkness. For international BookTokers, I love aymansbooks, kaven_books, and chamberofsecretbooks. A special shout out as well to my favorite PH booktubers, herbookishside and GeraldTheBookworm.
Although many complain about the lack of book recommendations on BookTok, Julienne believes otherwise.
This might be true if you’re only basing it on what the algorithm shows. But if you follow a lot of BookTokers and consistently watch their videos, they recommend books with so much variety. Most of the books I’ve read this year are recommendations from the people I follow.
I honestly could not agree more! Every bookworm has their own unique tastes and different perspective on books. It is just a matter of following more bookworms and knowing which one matches your preferences.
Chapter 3: The highs and lows of content creating
It took Julienne years of trial and error before she became confident with the content she produced. During her first few years, she tried to speak in full English. However, she eventually realized that she was much more comfortable using a mix of both Filipino and English.
I wanted to keep on making jokes and I realized that I can only do that when [it] feels like I’m just simply talking to a friend.
It consequently made a difference. As she became much more comfortable with her content, more and more people began to enjoy her videos. Thus, it shows how authenticity and persistence go a long way.
On the other hand, Julienne’s constant struggle is curating ways to make every video entertaining. But despite its difficulty, it is also one of the things she actually enjoys working on. With such a challenge, it encourages her to be more adventurous and creative with her videos. Furthermore, it allows her to discover more about herself, reaching her fullest potential as a content creator.
Chapter 4: Welcome to Julienne’s happy place
Julienne found a home in between pages of books. Aside from the opportunities it gave her as a BookToker and BookTuber, reading was also her solitude and coping mechanism throughout college.
It’s a spark of something different every time life gets repetitive. It also gave me a safe space or community wherein I can share and talk about what I love. Creating content about books gave me opportunities that I only dreamt of having.
Therefore, taking part in a collective with the same love for books is the reason why Julienne enjoys what she is doing. Seeing people read her recommended books provided her with so much joy and satisfaction. Among anything else, being able to inspire people to read again brought her a sense of accomplishment as a BookToker.
Quoting one of my favorite authors: ‘Share what you love, and the people who love the same things will find you’. I think there are no words to explain how grateful I am for the people who continuously support my videos. I will be forever grateful.
One of the best things about BookTok is the people that make up its community.
It is not just an untouchable world of bookish influencers who offers sponsored discounts and giveaways. It is more of a genuine community of book nerds who loves to gush about spicy books while looking out for each other the best way they can. Despite its ups and downs, BookTok PH opened its home for those who had to cope with the pandemic.
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