Peón’s passion for reading began to take shape when she was a teenager. Three years ago, she decided to start making videos comparing books to their film adaptations and uploading them to her YouTube channel. Gradually, her content shifted toward original book-related material, such as reviews, critiques, and interviews with authors. From there, she became what is now known in the digital world as a booktuber.
She currently has about 1,700 subscribers, which, for the Booktuber community in Uruguay, “is a considerable number,” explains Peón, a 26-year-old systems engineering student at Universidad ORT Uruguay. He usually uploads one video a week and, as he says, spends less time on it than other booktubers because he works in the morning and studies at night. Filming takes him an hour, editing three or four, and then more time to share the content.
Support from the Ministry of Education and Culture
This hobby has led her to give talks at fairs and institutions of all kinds—including educational ones—to tell people what booktubers do. “We tell them we’re YouTubers who talk about books, and people are surprised,” says Peón.
There are about a dozen booktubers in Uruguay. In other countries, such as Mexico and Spain, this type of content is more widespread, and thousands of people subscribe to these channels.
Recently, the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC) partnered with several Booktubers, including Peón, to support the National Reading Plan. The goal was to give talks and workshops at various high schools to encourage young people to read and, at the same time, help them learn more about the practice.
In fact, through that connection with the MEC, Peón and other booktubers represented Montevideo at the Buenos Aires International Book Fair.
Logic versus creativity
Contrary to what one might think, the young woman says that programming and books, in a way, are closely related. “When I took the course on Agile Software Engineering, I learned that traditional programming isn’t the only approach out there. That’s when I realized that writing a novel and writing code aren’t actually all that different,” says the young student.
If we draw a parallel between a programmer and a writer, the student explains that the traditional programmer—who handles the pre-existing, most meticulously planned code—would be like the “map writer,” that is, someone who plans out the entire story before writing it. Then there’s the “compass writer,” who sits down and writes whatever comes to mind. “In programming, that would be the person who makes adjustments or changes based on problems that arise. It’s more dynamic,” explains Peón.
Professional Communication
According to the systems engineering student, programming isn’t just about logic; it also has a creative side, since you need to use your imagination to think of different approaches or possibilities. She explains that, sometimes, the best programmers are those who play instruments or engage in artistic or creative activities, because they develop another facet of their skills. “I found it interesting to discover that there is a similarity between writing a novel and programming, because, at first glance, if you look at both from the outside, the first thing you think is that they have nothing to do with each other,” she says.
She says that her degree also gave her other essential tools to help her grow as a booktuber. “One of the courses I remember most was Professional Communication, which taught you, among other things, how to prepare to speak in public on a specific topic, defend a position, and debate or argue a point. I learned a lot about public speaking and how to avoid filler words, and that helped me a lot. I took that course before starting the channel, and I always try to remember that advice whenever I give a talk or when I’m speaking in a video. I try to keep all those tipsin mind, ”she concludes.