Love it or hate it, TikTok has been a highly influential sphere in the world of social media, leading to immense shifts in how we think of and digest content. One of the largest communities within TikTok has been BookTok, with #BookTok amassing a whopping 61 billion uses throughout the platform. However, the community has long been criticised for being a largely homogenous and shallow setting for books and their readers. Nevertheless, it is important to recognise the platform as highly influential, changing the domain of book publishing. 

In most bookstores you go to nowadays, there will be a collection of books on display, featuring some Sarah J. Maas and Matt Haig, as well as several cartoonish, discreet covers hiding somewhat scandalous smut. You will also find several catch-all books following the latest trope-based trends, with enemies-to-lovers as number one. These books are being marketed as ‘the latest #BookTok faves,’ but they can also simply be referred to as popular fiction. 

Some of the major criticisms that BookTok faces include a lack of diversity in books and authors and a ‘fast food’-like production and promotion of unexceptional novels. There is validity to both concerns, however it’s also worth noting other elements of the equation.  

BookTok is known to circulate the same authors repeatedly, often through publishing houses’ influences, resulting in a lack of nuance and novelty. Not to mention a bias within the algorithm muffling certain themes and communities. However, TikTok largely bases its algorithm on viewers’ preferences and so creators started to use hashtags like #diversifyyourfeed to bridge this gap and establish a stream full of marginalised voices and stories. Such hashtags are important in curating a more deliberate use of social media and to break away from this homogeneity.  

Meanwhile, fast-paced (over)production has ignited a concern over a quality-decrease, whereby the standard of writing is set aside for digestibility, subsequently popularising mediocre books instead. Arguably though, this collection of ‘junk literature’ has always existed and was never really intended to be complex and literarily insightful, but rather something to take on holiday as an ‘easy and fun read.’ 

These criticisms aside, BookTok has also led to the ‘hotgirlification’ of reading, whereby more and more young people are reading, most prominently young women, who aren’t allowed to enjoy activities without overt critique and mockery. So, it is no wonder that the likes of GQ would refer to BookTok users as ‘performative reading,’ as they perceive BookTok’s audiences to be more concerned with the consumption of book-related content than with the act of reading itself. However, nobody would ever tell a football fan that they are a performative fan of football because they watch football more than they actually play. BookTok and its recommendations may be generally perceived as mediocre popular fiction, however, it has given a platform for people to enjoy and share their favourite books and excerpts. Moreover, the community has enough space for ‘the real literary gems,’ you might just have to scroll past a few Colleen Hoover recommendations first. 

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