It’s no surprise that one of the TikTok communities that grew during lockdown was BookTok.
BookTok parades around as a distinctive and captivating platform for bookish people (readers, writers, reviewers) to connect, discover new books and authors, as well as share their passion for books and reading.
A lot of people who end up on BookTok rediscover (or discover) their love of reading because they’re inundated in book content.
(I’m going to argue availability bias has something to do with it, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Yet. Let’s put a pin in this, and we’ll circle back later.)
A parallel to BookTok pulling in new readers are the kind of books that get talked a lot about on BookTok.
As much as I personally dislike Sarah J. Maas books for their toxicity, lack of plot, homogeny, and just plain terrible writing, I can’t fault them for inspiring a whole slew of new readers to pick up a book. I just hope they don’t stop at what’s big on BookTok and keep developing and challenging themselves as readers.
There is a genuine attempt on BookTok at creating discussion about books, their themes, stories and characters, but you’ll soon find out that’s not the bulk of what you’ll see on Booktok.
It’s not easy being a newcomer on BookTok.
I’m talking about the Zach controversy. This is only the newest issue BookTok (or a few overrepresented voices on BookTok) are triggered about.
Now, @zachtalksbooks is a newcomer to the community. But did I find out about him because he zoomed into my FYP with a book recap? No. I found out about him because one day there were a bunch of women with bookish accounts slamming him on my FYP.
This barrage of bitterness was mostly down to the fact that he came onto the platform and went viral, in part because people were hating on him.
And then the hate kept rolling in because he’s a man, he looks white to a lot of people (there’s a whole bone I have to pick with, Americans mostly, about what they tend to define as “white” but that’s another conversation) and he’s conventionally good looking.
After three days of listening to women dog on him, I finally went looking for Zach, and when I found him, the comment sections on the few videos he had on his profile repeatedly told him he looked like a book boyfriend.
As per his responses to those comments, he doesn’t know what that is. Yet. No worries, he’ll figure it out.
The crazy thing is, that only five days – five days – into Zach starting to share his reading journey, he found himself posting a response video to all the negativity he’d been getting from BookTok – and this negativity included some wildly baseless accusations about him.
C’mon guys, we can do better than that!
We’re supposed to be out here sharing our love of books and reading, not dogging on other people for becoming readers and getting excited about books. And jealousy is not a good colour on anybody.
I suppose the thing that’s like catnip to a toxic book community is a new reader.
Because it’s a chance for everyone to start pushing their own agenda aka their own favourite books – and this is regardless of whether that person was looking for book recs or not (aside from scrolling on BookTok).
An example of this is that Zach immediately became inspired to pick up some of the books that were making the rounds on BookTok, including Haunting Adeline.
As someone who stated that he was just getting back into reading, recommending one of the darkest of the dark romance books is not the best way to ease new readers into the hobby.
Haunting Adeline is a very specific book written for a very specific type of reader, and that reader isn’t someone who is just starting out with reading books. I know lighter readers who’ve read it and love it, and I know seasoned dark romance readers who couldn’t handle Haunting Adeline.
What I’ve seen of Zach’s reading updates, he seems to be enjoying Haunting Adeline, and that’s all fine. I’m a dark romance reader, I get it.
My point here is that, in my experience, (toxic) people tend to recommend books that they love with little to no consideration of whether the other person is going to vibe with the book.
And, yes, this has been one of my pet peeves since forever because I’ve read so many books, watched so many movies, and have eaten at so many restaurants that were “the best thing ever” only to realise that it’s hours of my life that I’ll never get back.
This has led me to become very sus of people recommending things to me, and I will always dig for a little more than “I loved it, you should try it”. I’m not asking for a whole review, I’m just looking for a little, “I liked it because…” so that I can better judge if I wanna try it on a day when I have a lot or a little spoons.
But I digress.
The irony here is that those who were dogging on Zach, started gaining a new level of reach with their bitterness. But we all know that negative headlines trend better and get more clicks than positive ones (said every tabloid ever).
But the difficulty with that is that the way you get your followers is how you have to keep them. Meaning that if your bookish content wasn’t getting the same level as your harping, it’s a zero sum game, unless you wanna keep up the harping rather than talk about books.
On a side note, I’ve seen it on YouTube as well, where BookTube creators end up making videos about books they don’t like, know they don’t like, but read and review because that’s what gets the views rolling in.
But we don’t need more drama.
BookTok is all smiles and sunshine so long as we’re all talking about the same few books that fit into an incredibly narrow range of books an authors. But as soon as you dare voice an opposing opinion, you’re buried in negative, hateful comments.
Over an opinion about a book, you guys!
When you get onto BookTok, you’ll see the same old books making the rounds again and again. And the creators talking about those books are often promoting discussions about copy-paste novels that quickly turn into toxic rabbit holes.
Romance, YA (young adult) and realistic fiction seem to be the du jour genres on BookTok.
If you don’t like these books, finding people who talk about other books is going to be a challenge. They’re there, they’re just not promoted by the algorithm because their reviews and opinions don’t incite an avalanche of engagement (i.e. comments, views, shares, stitches etc.).
But the books that tend to get the time of day on BookTok are only a niche section of literature. There is so much more out there. Yet we don’t see anyone recommending books outside of the BookTok “approved” genres.
It’s incredibly frustrating.
Not in the least because BookTok hosts a lot of beginner readers, who’re just venturing into books, and presenting them with this incredibly narrow selection is detrimental to their hobby.
When new readers come into a space looking for books, they hope to find diversity in terms of the types of books and authors being recommended, so they can find what they like.
But as an aspiring reader on BookTok, you’ll rarely see accounts or books from minorities unless you get lost and accidentally stumble onto a minority booktoker promoting something different than the mainstream.
And when you, as a new reader, see bigger accounts raving about a narrow selection of novels you can feel really out of the loop, and even guilty that you don’t like or haven’t read them. And you can end up feeling really alone.
There are also a lot of elitist opinions about books and reading making the rounds on BookTok. One such argument is that audibooks don’t count as “real reading”.
Being so triggered by someone else’s opinion about a book you love that you start bullying has also been a problem, and not just between readers.
Authors going after reviewers for reviews the author didn’t appreciate has spawned several series of BookTok videos where creators recount how authors are behaving badly (and not in the Men Behaving Badly, fun kind of way.)
This being triggered by each and every little detail, has gone so far as to scare off aspiring writers because everything’s “problematic”. These baby writers come to BookTok with high hopes of finding community and sharing their love for stories, books and reading, but instead see how vicious this sliver of the internet is and just back away.
Cancel culture is rampant on BookTok and it’s exhausting.
Literature is a cornerstone of intellectualism, but diversity of thought is not something that is encouraged or appreciated. And the sense of entitlement is mind-boggling.
I can’t count how many videos I’ve seen where someone says that you shouldn’t read an author because they’re problematic, that an author used a word in a book and that caused the reviewer to DNF it (and so everyone else should too), or that because the reviewer loves the book they refuse to hear anything that they could interpret as negative or critical to even be said about the book.
Yet if I turn around and say I didn’t enjoy, like, or appreciate a BookTok darling book, I’m in the wrong for having a dissenting opinion.
Or, gods forbid, if I try to apply some critical thinking to one of those books and point out things like poor writing, shaky plot, toxic behaviour of characters, or inconsistencies with internal logic, suddenly I’m “taking it too seriously” because “it’s not that deep” and “you should just read for fun”.
BookTok feels elitist and exclusive.
And creators often recommend the most racist, misogynistic, poorly constructed books and proceed to proclaim them one of the “greatest” books ever. (Meaning you can’t say a damn thing about it or have a differing opinion.)
The thing that really bothers me, is the romanticising of toxic relationship dynamics.
As romance is one of the biggest genres on BookTok, relationships are a big point of discussion. There are so many videos romanticising toxic novels and enthusiastically promoting and recommending them despite the books being centred around severely toxic relationships and dynamics.
Ones, I might add, that rarely if ever become better or more self-aware.
Many of them echo Stockholm syndrome, and at best often set the bar really, really low for what a you should look for and accept as normal from a romantic partner. And, as we know, romance always comes with the promise of the HEA, no matter how badly one character treats the other.
But before you go off, allow me to counter my own argument: as an adult, I can tell the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships. Things that I’ll happily gobble up in a book from someone for entertainment, isn’t necessarily what I’d accept in real life.
However, the way discussion of problematic issues is discouraged, I think that these books can really shape the minds of young readers (in a society where the bare minimum is husband material).
In a world so full of all kinds of information, media literacy is more important than ever, and we cannot foster good media literacy without discussion.
And not discussing the problematic and toxic things can lead to a sense of normalcy, leading people to believe that the red flags are nothing to worry about. Not to mention, that framing toxic or abusive tropes as normal isn’t pleasant to those who’ve personally experienced them.
Should these books be available to read? Yes, for those who want to. Should they be accepted as a benchmark for normal? No. They’re books. Fiction. Written for entertainment and as such, full of constructed narratives and exaggerations.
Promoting these books isn’t the problem. Promoting only these books is.
By expanding the genres, books, authors and creators that we talk about and engage with, will ensure we welcome a more diverse set of people into the community.
Getting varied recommendations from diverse people is as good as it gets, and I encourage anyone on BookTok to look at who they’re listening to. If you look around and only see more of the same, strike out and find something that looks, feels, and sounds different to add to your feed.
Mindfully consuming content will make sure that you’re not just reading books because you feel pressure to do so, but are reading for enjoyment – which is kind of the whole point, anyway.
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