The bookface challenge, like any other meme or trendy challenge, had to start from somewhere. Although the origins of this tradition are yet to be confirmed, some librarians and bookstore workers link it to the viral success of "Sleeveface" — the photo meme created by Carl Morris, a D.J. in Wales, which has people using old vinyls instead of books to creatively hide their faces.
And while the best entries in both challenges require careful planning and staging, it's not particularly surprising that the bookface challenge grew to be more popular over the years. Sleeveface limits itself to retro vinyls, whereas bookface challenger participants can use any book from the shelf. And just looking at the estimated numbers — the eye-watering 170,000,000 books that can make any die-hard reader spiral into an anxiety attack — with more and more books being released each year, we expect #bookface to stand the test of time for many years to come.
The "Librairie Mollat", the first independent bookstore in France and one of the first to establish its name for #bookface entries, has carved itself quite some reputation. Not because it boasts over 300,000 titles and sells 1,940,000 volumes every year (to put this eye-watering number into perspective, this would mean the entire population of Nebraska would get a single book per person). But because of the collective's aspiring dedication to this fun and crafty tradition.
The last time you heard this name on Bored Panda, "Librairie Mollat" had a mere 21k followers on their social media — which was almost 8 times less than one of France's most prominent bookstore's, "Shakespeare and Company", follower base. However, as the years went by, the Mollat's follower count grew fourfold and the bookstore is now a couple of thousand away from getting to the big 100k — a rarity between independent organizations.
What's the secret? David Pigeret, the person responsible for the most bookface entries you see on this page, says this challenge certainly played its role in growing the company's social media presence.
"Thanks to these bookfaces linked by sites like Bored Panda or Kullt, our Instagram account had a worldwide buzz. It went very quickly from 18,000 to over 50,000 followers, and today we have almost 100,000 followers," Pigeret cheerfully explained.
David, who's been with the "Mollat" family since 2004, taking care of the Fine Arts, Tourism/Sport departments, as well as bookstore's social media presence on Instagram, explains that the store first discovered the art of bookfaceing in 2013. "We started having fun by making [what's now known as] bookfaces in 2013. And we still continue this tradition by posting a new bookface every Monday on our Instagram account," he said. The latest entry in his collection is a woman blending in with Frédérique Deghelt's celebrated novel 'Sankhara'.
Speaking about the process of pulling off a perfect bookface, David shares that the only three instruments you really need are: a model, any kind of camera (even if it's an iPad) and a bit of patience. No Photoshop or retouching. Perfect!
Being the go-to guy for a bookface, we were curious to find out what is his most cherished photo to date. David reveals it is a woman in a floral shirt with one of her blue eyes covered (photo below) — as per 2013's 'Two She-bears' novel written by one of Israel's most celebrated novelists, Meir Shavel. David explains it "was the most complex [bookface] to achieve because of its many connection points."
