The Culture of “BookTok” and Cultivating Community
Graphic courtesy of Bergen Flom.
For an individual activity like reading, the community surrounding it on TikTok is incredibly tight knit.
Books changed Selene Velez’s life. More specifically, talking about books changed Selene Velez’s life. The now 19-year-old went from having her senior prom, graduation, and every final high school milestone canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic to getting to interview famous authors like Malinda Lo and Chloe Gong — all because of BookTok. As her moniker, @moongirlreads_, implies, she reads frequently and posts about it on the social media platform TikTok.
“BookTok,” as it’s affectionately referred to, is the community of creators, viewers, writers, and readers who talk about books on TikTok.
Though people have always conversed about books and reading online, BookTok rose to prominence around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. Popular BookTok creators like @aymansbooks, @abbysbooks, @moongirlreads_ and @thecalvinbooks have follower counts in the hundred thousands and make a variety of videos like book reviews, comedy content about reading, recommendations, and more.
Books that previously wouldn’t have garnered large audiences now have millions of readers because they went viral on the social media app. The culture of the BookTok community is an especially unique microcosm of TikTok in that books are inherently personal, while BookTok culture fosters community.
“I think the overall culture is just people that have surprisingly found their community,” Calvin Blind, 17-year-old creator @thecalvinbooks, said.
“Everybody that’s on BookTok probably didn’t think that people like them existed that read as much as I do.”
Blind started his TikTok page on March 24, 2021 and has since gained over 395,000 followers and 21.7 million likes. As a high school student, he says it's shocking to hear about teachers talk about his TikTok videos in their work room, but it’s amazing to find peers at school who are also avid readers.
The online BookTok community translating into real-world friendships is a common theme.
When BookTok was in its earlier stages, the genre of books the community was largely focused on was fantasy. Series like “The Cruel Prince” by Holly Black, “Shadow and Bone” by Leigh Bardugo, and “From Blood and Ash” by Jennifer L. Armentrout were some of the novels that swept away BookTok readers. Now, in the current iteration of BookTok, the focus has heavily shifted to romance and adult fiction novels.
“There’s been a tremendous change in BookTok,” Ayman Chaudhary, 21-year-old creator @aymansbooks, said. “And even when everyone was talking about fantasy, everyone was still hyper fixating on the romance aspects of all of these books. Whereas now it’s more contemporary and it’s more simple, but romance has always been a placeholder and foundation in all the stages of BookTok.”
Chaudhary started her page in August 2020 and now has over 690,000 followers and 57.8 million likes. She’s happy that it seems that people are taking the book community more seriously nowadays because of BookTok’s impact, and personally enjoys making comedy content about the books she’s currently reading the most. Right now, they are typically in the romance genre.
The romance-centered books that go viral on TikTok appear to have no pattern. They are diverse in author identity, plot, main characters, time period and everything in between.
What makes a book go viral on TikTok seems to be elusive.
Some of the contemporary romance novels that have gone viral on the app are “Beach Read” by Emily Henry, “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” by Taylor Jenkins Reid, “Red, White & Royal Blue” by Casey McQuiston, and “The Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller. While the settings of the books range from ancient Greek mythology to 1950s Hollywood, the heart of each of them is romance.
But no matter the genre that the community is focused on, the way people approach analyzing books on TikTok is different from how people analyze other forms of media like TV shows or movies.
“When an individual reads a book, they’re directing their own movie,” Blind said. “And they can interpret it in a million different ways.”
“And I think that’s why recommending books is so much trickier than recommending T.V. shows. There are so many different types of writing styles and tastes.”
The paradigm of having vast individual preferences in books while many novels gaining popularity online is unique to BookTok. One person may have loved “They Both Die at the End” by Adam Silvera, and another may have not. But the fact that the common link between those two people is that the videos their TikTok algorithm pushes recommended they read that book is a uniquely 21st century experience.
“I think quarantine was the first time I actually had time to read and let myself enjoy reading in like three years,” Velez said. “So it was definitely very interesting to find a community and connect with them. It’s also just crazy to see all these ways that reading can touch people and having all these opportunities of getting to work with publishers and talking to authors.”
Reading has had the power to bring people together since the birth of the modern printing press, and now TikTok possesses the ability to bond even more people over literature.
“I read ‘They Both Die At The End’ and had no one to talk to about it, so I thought I may as well start an account to see if people would talk to me about it,” Dais Grace, creator @libraryofdais on TikTok, said in a message. “I feel as though because of BookTok people are reading more now and consume literature with more alacrity.
“Reading when I was in high school wasn’t a ‘cool’ thing, but now I feel as though that stereotype isn’t as prevalent.”
“I definitely think Booktok is the cause of that shift which makes me extremely happy.”
Grace currently has over 23,500 followers and 1.9 million likes. She thinks that, though the overall culture of BookTok is welcoming, she wishes people were more respectful of the type of books some people read and didn’t feel superior for reading specific genres.
While any community will have people with a variety of opinions on the topic at hand, BookTok specifically is interesting to look at with the types of people that are drawn to discussing literature.
“I think that BookTok is filled with people who are educated; people who are well read,” Blind said. “Being a reader in general, I feel like, makes you a more well rounded individual. And obviously that comes with having different ideas and different things you want to express. So when it comes to BookTok, people will disagree on certain topics.”
Everything evolves eventually, though. The future culture of BookTok is unknown, but each creator has their own hopes for it.
“I hate to say it, but I wouldn’t mind if more men started creating,” Velez said.
“When you read, that’s the only time you’ll ever get to experience another person’s point of view. So I’d like to see more male people reading and expanding their viewpoints just because… A lot of men don’t think misogyny exists. And I’m just like, ‘Please read.’”
In Chaudhary’s point of view, she hopes that the evolution of the BookTok culture includes more awareness. She wants people to realize that you don’t lose anything by not promoting an author that has been horrible to a marginalized community. “In fact,” Chaudhary said, “you are a better person for not promoting harmful people.”