“Booktok” Authors have taken over, and not for the better.
Image by pvproductions on Freepik
With the ongoing rise of the social media platform TikTok, it is no surprise that the bookish communities already existing on the platforms YouTube and Instagram would find another platform to share their recommendations, current character obsessions, new book boyfriends, and criticisms. Booktok has become a significant community within the app, with the hashtag gaining over 190 billion views.
This community of book lovers shares a wide variety of content, including but not limited to TBR lists, aesthetic videos, reading vlogs, and criticism, with a heavy focus on the romance genre, particularly SMUT. Booktok's heavy fixation on SMUT carries the algorithm, with books that fall within the genre requirements (of crude sex and steamy tension) being the most widely recommended.
(super cute) video from @kelsvaughne
Subsets of the community do focus more on other genres like fantasy, young adult, political fiction, and science fiction. While these genres do get attention, romance gains the most engagement.
The eruption of content revolving around the consumption of books has led to a significant increase in readers. The increase is no doubt due to the romanticization of not just reading but shelf setups, elaborate cover art, and annotation. To put it simply, the aesthetic of reading looks good in videos, which is attractive to any content creator.
The issue with Booktok lies with how TikTok algorithms work. Hashtags are consistently recycled and gain more and more attention as people use them. This can lead to self-published authors and indie writers like Chloe Gong gaining a footing in the industry.
“It’s changed how I perceive the platform. It gets overwhelming – you become an entity, almost.”
While this does aid young authors with exposure, it saturates the platform with extensive distinction for specific books and authors. Booktok content creators are justified in supporting certain pieces of literature, but more often than not, what garners the most attention is not what's classified as "good books".
Books that are widely recommended are often met with dramatic responses, with creators actively videoing themselves having extreme reactions to the books they are consuming (the book being read is usually classed as a romance). Dramatic reactions such as these are attractive and leave people with an interest in the books that are featured in these types of videos. To gain a reaction of an extreme nature, authors usually have to include the trauma inflicted on characters, plot twists, or character death. A reader's interest is often piqued by shock factors and trauma in fiction that are poorly written or have overtly simplistic plot lines. This of course is what sells on TikTok.
In the end, we are left with a community of primarily new readers who are marketing and recommending books based on shock factors and trauma. While it is natural for new readers to lean into a more simple book, and completely okay to want to read those novels especially when starting. Several individuals have criticized Booktok for romanticizing and marketing books that include problematic and adult themes, including abuse.
Collen Hover who has had a long but problematic career is among the list of authors who are dominating the romance genre, selling over twenty million books and the hashtag #collenhover gaining 4.5 billion views. Hover is among the list of Booktok authors facing an increase in criticism for the content of their books. With many commenters and creators emphasizing the problematic messages about the nature of a healthy relationship and unnecessary amounts of physical and sexual abuse in her novels.
Regardless of these allegations hover went on to say in an interview with HearosnHearts, "I feel like my readers range between the ages fifteen and eighty-"
It has become incredibly common for books like "November 9" a novel by Hover, that includes stalking, fetishization, emotional abuse, physical abuse, and in the unrevised version a sexual assault scene, to be recommended to young and impressionable readers.
video from @newlynova on TikTok
When books like "November 9" are dominating spaces, with cultlike followings there is less room for conversations to be had about problematic content.
Caleb Joseph a popular YouTuber described how he felt reading "November 9" in a Youtube video describing his relationship with Hover,
“I’d felt betrayed by the people who recommended me this book and I felt eager to sort of toss the book to the side and not read it anymore”
he then went on to say,
“All of these weird uncomfortable things were not only not addressed but they where also made worse by the end of the book leaving 16 year old me to sit there in my trauma.”
The criticism of Hover and other authors like her has become more frequent over the last couple of months. Will these concerns cause a shift in Booktok's agenda? Or will young adults be left to find out for themselves what these "romance" novels are really about?
