Readers seeking a deeper immersion in their books are turning to the multisensory experience of “ambiance videos.” Popular on BookTok, these are mood enhancing videos you can put on in the background while reading, to get into a story, curate a vibe, or when when the powers of human imagination just aren’t enough. These ambiances are are apparently all over YouTube, and are especially popular with fantasy and romantasy readers. According to Jenny Singer, who investigated the phenomenon at The Washington Post:
The videos, which readers project onto a wall or play on a computer or TV screen, convey a second kind of fantasy, one that doesn’t involve mythical creatures: the dream of accessing a reading room that is spacious, well-appointed and private. They feature idyllic window nooks, crackling fires, fat leather armchairs and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves like Tolkien’s. The videos don’t just create a vibe, they help readers to feel like they are a part of the story.
Some are going even further into the immersion with mood lighting, candles, thematically appropriate snacks, and more, trying to hit every sense possible while reading.
This whole trend is a little much for me, but I’ll file this under “not hurting anyone.” My first instinct was that this sounded too much like those brain rot, key-jangling TikToks that are a split screen of Minecraft and a Family Guy episode. And also if you can’t get into your book without audio-visual aid, maybe you need to find a more engaging book.
But the ambiance impulse seems less about attention degradation than creating a magic circle around reading and deepening a sense of fantasy and escape. Some readers told the Post that these videos dissolve the boundary between their world and the book’s world. But what was more interesting to me are those who aren’t fantasizing about being in a fictional world, but who are fantasizing about being a different reader, in a more secure nonfictional world.
It can be hard to focus on fiction while living in a precarious world of thrashing geriatric empires. If you’re trying to unwind with a book, but you’re sitting in the same chair you do everything in—where you work from home, where you eat lunch, where you call your parents, where you pay bills, where you crash out—why wouldn’t you want to cosplay as someone who owns a beautiful chair in a richly appointed library, with the luxury to only worry about the words in front of you?
