🌶TRUTH OR DAB 🌶| 7th Booktube Birthday Q&A & Giveaway! [CC]

Today in celebration of my BookTube birthday I am doing Truth or Dab. This is from the show, Hot Ones. This is an interview style show where they interview celebrities or influencers while they have the hottest hot sauce of their lives. So I bought The Last Dab.

00:48 - So they have a segment on YouTube called Truth or Dab and there’s even a whole game and basically, you have six questions you’re asked. You’re allowed to skip three questions but if you don’t want to answer the question you have to do The Last Dab sauce which I have and it is so hot. The heat level is 10 out of 10 and it has The Apollo Pepper which is one of the hottest peppers. So I have a variation of hot sauces here and I asked you for questions and I have 16.

I’m going to use a number generator to pick the question and go from there. So thank you if you have submitted a question.

01:26 - Like this video and hit subscribe. One like equals one prayer for me (laughter) Let’s get started. I am very nervous but I’ve been wanting to do a video like this forever.

01:37 - I ended up getting Sauce Bae which is a Habanero sauce which I really like because I was going to do where I had you “Roast My Faves” and I did Hot Ones but I just never ended up doing it.

01:50 - So here I’m actually doing my Hot Ones video that I want to do.

01:53 - So pick a number from 1 to 16. The answer is 10. So, question 10.

02:00 - Question 10 is, “Did you know what you wanted to do as a career since you were a child?”  No. (Laughing) I have gone through a lot of things that I wanted to do I have my bachelor’s in Media Studies and Production and I do social media marketing and it’s always hard to describe to people because I like marketing? I have experience in it and so I mainly say I’m Marketing. My degree focused on media business such as how Netflix and Spotify work things like that.

Really learning about how media business works but I’m more of a marketing person and I’ve learned skills for marketing and that is the job I’m trying to get. Hasn’t worked out for me yet but we’re hoping! Um and I did not know I wanted to be a marketer until I was doing social media marketing for a self-published author and I just loved it. I loved being a publicist and I just loved marketing for this author. So when I was a kid I know I wanted to be a vet and then I didn’t want to do that anymore and then I wanted to be a teacher.

I went to community college was going to be a teacher that didn’t happen. On the 19th, I’ll be 27 and I graduated college at 26. If you’d like me to do a video on that let me know I think it’s important to talk about being older and graduating college because it was definitely something that I felt very insecure about. So let me know in the comments and thank you for that question!  I’m just going to start with the wings. So question one down.

03:32 - What if I just don’t get any bad ones and then I don’t have to do this? That would be awesome actually.

03:50 - Mmm! These are kind of crispy. Whoa, this one’s hot.

03:55 - This is Extra Hot sauce. So it’s like my own variation of Hot Ones today.

04:03 - I have my Flyers cup filled with milk for when I have the hottest sauce but I really don’t mind spice so I think that this is going to be fine. But this one was pretty hot but it’s kind of fine like I can um deal with it.

04:18 - Pick a number from 1 to 15. Siri: The answer is four. Okay, question four.

04:25 - Okay so I’m going to do one (laughter) because there’s a couple here but I like - I like a variation of questions so um there’s one I think I could answer even though it says totally okay if you don’t answer this,  but what character do you feel best represents your experiences with gender? And honestly, that is why I do like Stay Gold.

04:47 - I think that Stay Gold is the first book that I ever really found myself in and just felt super represented. I tend to enjoy books that do show the trauma of trans people and that’s definitely something I have to work on myself but just reading a character who was going through the same things of misgendering or their parents being like, “oh, this isn’t real” um and just not accepting them is just something that I could just really relate to and I just found myself through Pony but also really found myself reading Dean in Between Perfect and Real and he came out as a lesbian and then he understood that he’s not and that is another experience that I’ve been through and I think that these stories are very important but I am learning to read more trans joy because I feel like I don’t have much in my life?  I have a lot of insecurities with being trans and reading trans joy is hard for me.

To me I don’t feel the trans joy in my own life, so I have a hard time relating to stories about trans joy, if that makes sense? There’s a lot of stories I’ve loved about trans joy and they’re definitely helping me figure out what brings me joy in my trans body.

06:06 - I’m also going to answer the other question which is:  What do you love the most about YouTube and what’s an unexpected struggle that comes with it? And this is like a perfect timing question because I’ve talked about this in my video at the beginning of the year when I talked about why I almost quit BookTube so I will link that up here if you haven’t seen it. I love YouTube because I love making videos like this like I have so much fun doing this I have so much fun just putting ideas together.

06:35 - Honestly, I have so much fun on Patreon because I can just produce fun things that people will enjoy or just tell me oh this is so comforting, I really enjoyed it. I think the one unexpected struggle is that I expect a lot of videos like these like a lot of my creative videos to blow up and i’m like I just want 10,000 subscribers and I don’t understand. I’m like somebody help me because I want to be successful with this channel. It’s been seven years and it can be frustrating at times when I make the same videos as bigger creators maybe before they’ve made them, and I don’t get as many views and I try and not think about views but at the same time views are something you have to think about when you’re trying to have a successful channel.

To me I don’t see views as a bad thing in regards of being like, “Oh, don’t worry about the views!” I think it’s a good thing because I want to see the growth of my channel and I have a goal of hitting 5,000 subscribers for this year like I just want to hit it before I quit BookTube?  Like that is my goal I want it so badly and I am trying everything.

07:48 - So if anyone has tips on growing my channel my DM’s are always open on Twitter or Instagram and I would love to talk. So far so good! Not a question that I don’t wanna answer.

07:58 - Um we have three questions already. Pick a number from one to sixteen. Siri: The answer is three. Okay. Three.

08:05 - We just had question four. Here’s a whole paragraph.

08:08 - I so appreciate all of these questions! Um there’s a lot for me to pick from um but I think I’m going to pick,  What is the weirdest thing you’ve used as a bookmark? um it says,  “Bear from Et Tu, Brody mentioned they used a hot dog as a bookmark before. Weirdest thing you’ve used as a bookmark?”  And I actually answered this question for an interview once and mine is a remote.

08:31 - (Crickets chirping) (Laughter) Comment down below if you’ve ever used a remote as a bookmark!!  Sometimes I’m watching hockey and I don’t have a bookmark.

08:42 - So I just put a remote there! It works! Don’t knock it till you try it.

08:47 - They also asked what is your favorite memory in the last seven years of being on BookTube?  I have to say Book Battles. Kales from Kales Korner did Book Battles a couple years ago and it was so fun and I loved when we had like a game show element on BookTube. It is so fun and inspired me to do like my mini game show kind of things where I had BookTube Trivia which was really fun and I thought that was such a fun time. Even though I lost Book Battles, it was still a fun time!  So far no bad questions.

Pick a number from 1 to 16. Siri: The answer is 6.

09:24 - So, I guess we’re at 5 questions already? Maybe I’ll extend it to 8.

09:29 - What is an unpopular book that everyone hates but you love? [Nervous laughter] Listen. I’m gonna have to open the sauce for this. I’m gonna have to open the sauce for this? (Laughing) Oh, geez.

09:42 - I spoke too soon. I have to do like such a small dab of this because it is so hot.

09:49 - [More nervous laughter] I am so nervous. I’m so scared it’s gonna just like pour out really quick.

09:55 - Alright. I feel like that’s even too much.

10:05 - Oh my god. I’m so scared. [Nervous laughter] Okay, everyone hit subscribe and like this video right now. Okay [laughing nervously] I’m so nervous I just don’t want to like bite right into the hot sauce. But, I guess I am? Oh my god. I can only I can already feel it.

10:27 - [Train whistle] Oh my god. It’s like on my tongue. It’s on my tongue! Oh my god. That is like the worst taste ever.

10:48 - Oh my god. My tongue is on fire. That’s —that’s definitely 10 out of 10. My tongue is tingling.

10:59 - [Sipping ] Okay, it’s gone. I think it’s gone.

11:06 - I’m just gonna do another question and we’ll be done with this because I think I only have like one question left but my tongue is hurting. Oh, my tongue hurts.

11:17 - Pick a number from one to sixteen. Siri: That would be thirteen. Thirteen. Lucky thirteen! Okay.

11:22 - Okay! Oh geez. This hurts! Favorite Booktube related memory? I already answered that [laughing painfully] ♪ They ask you how you are, and you just have to say that  you’re fine when you’re not really fine but you ♪ It’s just my tongue is tingling. I’m just putting more hot sauce probably is not helping my case at all.

11:41 - Pick a number from one to sixteen. Siri: It’s sixteen. Didn’t I already do sixteen? I can’t remember.

11:49 - This one is for your cat. How you got your name? I have two cats so they’re currently sleeping right now but This hurts. It doesn’t hurt that bad but it’s like just my tongue is tingling still. When I watched Cody Ko and Noel Miller do this why Noel like just drowned the milk. I totally understand it now! But I think that this would be a great time for a commercial break! [Static noise] Hey! Do you like fairy tale retellings? [Instrumental music playing] …Yeah.

What if I told you, you could win a whole trilogy of fairy tale retellings? No way! They’re all nerdy and set around a convention.

12:39 - Well, how would I get them? I’m glad you asked! Let me tell you! [Static noise] Hi, for my 7th BookTube birthday, I am giving away one of my favorite series. The Once Upon a Con series by Ashley Poston.

12:52 - Thank you to Quirk Books for sending these to me to give away to one of you! This series got me into reading retellings. I read Geekerella for a retellings readathon and I remember reading it in one day. It was so good and then I continued to read the series because  Quirk Books was so kind to send them to me and now I am paying it forward and giving them away to you. If you want to win this trilogy, here are the rules! You must be 18 or over or have a parent/guardian’s consent.

Unfortunately, I have to make this a U. S. only giveaway but you can enter the Read O Rama giveaway in June which is international. It’s a $15 book of your choice from Amazon or The Book Depository depending on where you live. So, we are doing an international giveaway. This one I just had to make U. S. only because I cannot cover the cost of shipping. I really apologize. And last, because this is my seventh BookTube birthday leave a comment telling me either a book that you read because of me, a video you love of mine, or simply why you keep coming around and watching my channel.

And in your comment leave a place where I can contact you either your email or somewhere on social media that you check frequently so you’ll know that you won. This giveaway will end on May 31st and I’ll be using a randomizer to choose the winner. All the information will be in my description. Good luck and thank you for seven years on BookTube! Along with the books you will also receive two short stories. Once a Princess reintroduces your favorite princess from The Princess and the Fangirl and illustrates what comes after.

Trust me, it’s cute! And Once at Midnight follows along Elle and Darien from Geekerella when they go on their first date. Paparazzi, fans and all.

14:42 - Now, go back to me probably suffering. [Beep] I hope you enjoyed that commercial! My tongue is still tingling and I just don’t really have a story on how I got my cat’s names? We really just look up like on Google and I named Luna and then we were like oh we’re getting this black cat Leo, Leo and Luna. That’s a good name. I named Luna after just like the moon Luna so that is how she got her name not from the character that a lot of people named their animals after.

I’m going to end off on this happy question. It says, “Happy BookTube Birthday! I wanted to ask a happy question but instead, I would just want to know if you get as annoyed as I do about the same pointless discourse that happens on the community um especially audiobooks don’t count as reading, that bi people aren’t queer enough - I don’t agree with these at all. When we could really be making the BookTube space better for BIPOC creators”.

15:48 - I agree 100%! I am someone who has bad reading comprehension. I have my whole life and it was never treated.

15:57 - I never got the resources in school for my bad reading comprehension, and it really screwed me over in college and I love audiobooks because sometimes I cannot just read a full book.

16:11 - Audiobooks are very beneficial for me and I could do like a whole video about how it’s ridiculous that we have to pay for audiobooks because they are uh accommodating source. I used to love when we would listen to books in school because it would just help me so much better, and I was a poor reader and that is the result of my bad reading comprehension not being treated. So, when people say “oh, audiobooks aren’t reading!” First of all you’re being very ableist because there are many people that need it.

There are a lot of blind people that use audiobooks as a resource there’s also people with ADHD who use them. I think that they’re a great source and I love them and I think the same could go for graphic novels because I love them because I get better reading comprehension out of that.

16:59 - And it’s quick and honestly, if you would have given me one in school it probably would have made me a better reader or just made me like reading more because I say well if we give children picture books to help them start reading then what’s the difference? Because there’s really not one. It’s basically the same. The happy question is, “Can you recommend a book that you don’t talk about enough?”. Before I answer that question, the tinkling is going down.

[Laughing] This is great timing for this question because I just filmed a book recommendations video and I was putting all of the books together and I was like, “Oh, I feel like I recommend the same books all the time!” and that’s mainly because I’m like, “Oh, well I haven’t read this book in like x many years and I don’t know if it still holds up today?”  A book I don’t recommend enough is Girls on The Verge. I think that was such a great book it is about a girl who is living in Texas and her and her friends go on a road trip to help her get an abortion and it talks about how hard it is for her to get an abortion and I thought it was so good! I’m going to say True Letters from a Fictional Life by Kenneth Logan.

I read this when Becky Albertalli totally recommended it and it is about a boy living in Vermont. I call it the gay version of To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. He’s writing these letters about his fictional life as if he was out. He’s currently dating a girl and he gets drunk a lot. So trigger warning for alcohol and alcoholism and it is about him writing letters as if he were out and they get taken one day and he is outed but it does have such a nice m/m romance! I feel like that’s a book I need to reread but I loved it so much and I do want to see if it will hold up in 2021.

So maybe I’ll get around to it this year? Who knows. My tongue is still tingling like that was a lot.

18:58 - The Sound of Us by Julie Hammerle is another one that I think of it’s about a fat girl who has social anxiety and it’s her at an opera camp. I think it’s so good. I recommended it in my “Books Set at Camp” video, and I think it’s very underrated. But other than that like I feel like I just recommend the same books all the time.

19:18 - Thank you all for watching and thank you for seven years on BookTube and if you watch to the end of this video. You are a real one! My goal for the year is to hit monetization. I have not been monetized for two years. If you support me on Patreon it means the world to me. I get to do videos like this and get to buy things for my channel. I really appreciate everyone over there. If you want to become a Paperback Pal, you can pledge one dollar to see fun videos like this.

I have reading vlogs, my childhood books required reads, and I also have some bloopers and just fun videos up there, if you want to see more from me. Thank you to everyone who asked a question and thank you for your continuous support of my channel over the last seven years. I really appreciate it!  I hope you’re all having a great day and staying safe, and I will see you all next time. Bye! [Music playing].