Admit it, Booktok Is Toxic And Making You Dumber

If you’re a reader on the internet, you probably are familiar with TikTok’s book community. It’s unavaouidable, especially ecause every online and physical book store is now dedicating most of their sales and marketing to BookTok books. We have already discussed some of our problems with BookTok in the past, but it bears repeating: BookTok is toxic, BookTok is damaging to reading as a whole, and readers should move away from this platform now.

When I use the term “toxic”, I am referring to something that is incredibly harmful. BookTok is toxic, as not only is it bad but it spreads harm to all those that interact with it. This is worth noting because the userbase of BookTok includes young children, who are affected by the messages contained within the community. But even adults can be severely affected as well by BookTok’s toxicity.

BookTok focuses on the aesthetic of reading instead of actual reading

Book social media communities as a whole tend to prefer pretty visual content. But even so, BookTube and Bookstagram still have the ability to foster discussions and interactions that encourage you to actually read. For example, Booktubers will often do in-depth critical reviews of novels, many over 30min long, which encourage the viewers to think critically about their book consumption. Bookstagramers can fill out long captions of analysis, engage in back and forth banter in the comments, and use the picture medium itself to express ideas.

BookTok, with its short video length and user interface that is not designed for walls of text, is not designed for critical discussion or analysis. Instead, the content on BookTok is highly surface level. Users will intercut aesthetic shots of bookshelves with music, or show off large hauls and unhauls of books. The acculumulation and display of books is often a major feature.

Those who are very intent on talking about a book can still make discussion content on BookTok. Don’t expect views or reactions though, unless your critique is a bite-sized “hot take” that lacks nuance and complexity. The BookTok algorithm is different to the other social media algorithms: it values short, instant content with immediate visual appeal. This means that if you use BookTok as a community to discuss ideas and books you will not find it. Instead, you will be shown an endless feed of vapid, empty content that doesn’t encourage you to read.

Remember, BookTok is toxic ****because TikTok as an app, does not want you to read. They want you to stay on the app as long as possible. So you may feel like a reader because you are part of a community of readers, consuming easy and enjoyable content all day long. But then are you a reader, or someone who likes the visual appeal of books and reading?

BookTok pushes the same few books and tropes

BookTok has been the publishing industry’s best friend for the past few years. Yes, there are some success stories, like the notable Colleen Hoover. However, BookTok constantly pushes the same few books, the same few plots, and the same few ideas.

It is thanks to BookTok that “spicy” romance has become a dominant force. Romance and erotica have always been dominant genres. But, BookTok has given “spicy” books a continued high presence to the point that they are now mainstream and the dominant reading culture. This goes beyond a single-series temporary craze, like the Fifty Shades of Grey novels. We are now seeing wave after wave of these particular kind of romance, often with whimsical cartoon covers that deceptively hide their explicit nature.

The author does not have a problem with explicit content, per se. It is the dominance of a particular subgenre of book above all else. Would a non-spicy, sweet romance become a BookTok hit? It is less likely.

Or maybe it would…if it was a friends to lovers slow burn romance.

It’s not just genres that are becoming an unstoppable force. It is also the rise of “tropes”, which include common character types and plot lines. Tropes exist because writers naturally write according to common patterns and ideas, and this preceeded BookTok. But BookTok is toxic because it has popularised and mainstreamed the rise of trope-speak. Now readers are introduced to tropes as a main way to think about reading. This limits your thinking. After all, if you read an enemies to lovers mafia dark romance, and you realise this is a trope, you are now classifying your future reading into whether it fits the same narrow box.

Music fans often mock fans of heavy metal music for having civil wars over which sub-sub-subgenre of metal is best. Or a purist will snob and say “this band is actually not sludgy doom metal because the guitars are not sludgy enough”. How about just listening to music? How about just reading and enjoying (or not enjoying) a book? Why must we categorise our entertainment like this?

By BookTok infecting the reader with the same plot lines, and indoctrinating them in trope-speak, it limits your reading enjoyment by encouraging you to keep reading the same thing and never explore something new. Instead, just read (and buy) whatever the algorithm sells you.

BookTok does not care about non-fiction

There are always going to be readers who prefer fiction. That is fine and acceptable. But there are also plenty of non-fiction readers in the world. And BookTok does not care. You will notice that none of the BookTok hits are nonfiction. If a non-fiction work does get talked about on BookTok, is is likely because the book gained relevance outside TikTok and it has spilled over into the community. One example would be the cultural monolith that is Atomic Habits by James Clear.

But even popular non-fiction authors are not guaranteed BookTok success. For example, you have likely seen the work of Johann Hari. He is most known for the books Stolen Focus and Lost Connections, which have both been bestsellers that tackle relevant topics in modern society (depression and attention spans respectively). As of writing this post he is promoting his latest book, an investigation on Ozempic. But if you look to his TikTok account now, he is struggling to break even 300 views per video.

But why does this mean BookTok is toxic? It goes back to the two previous points. BookTok focuses on short, flashy content and wants to keep feeding you the same stories and tropes. Non-fiction does not fit in this plan.

In general, BookTok does not want to expose you to ideas or longform discussion. It does not fit the algorithm in a pretty and flashy way. It does not keep you hooked on the app. The whole point of non-fiction as a category is to learn, to dig into a topic in depth. But BookTok is not for any of that. BookTok is toxic to your mind and to deep thinking.

So BookTok does not support or promote non-fiction meaningfully. This means a majority of the books released today re being completely ignored by the BookTok algorithim, and you do not get to see them.

This prevents you from being exposed to new ideas, new teachings and discussions about the important matters in our society. This does not just downgrade your reading experience, it actively makes you ignorant about the world around you without you even having a say in it.

The Conclusion: BookTok Makes You A Worse Reader

BookTok is toxic because it narrows down your reading experience. By only showing you the pretty content, the approved and marketed fiction works, and ignoring other content tt reduces your options. Using language and algorithms, it only shows you more of the stuff you already like, and nothing new. It suppresses longform discussion and non-fiction works.

All of this makes reading worse, and you a worse reader.

What is the point of reading if you only ever experience the same few stories and the same few ideas, ad nauseum, forever? Where is the growth and development? Where is the internal conflict of seeing new perspectives? Where is the eye-opening discovery of a story you have never even concieved of before?

BookTok has none of this. BookTok does not care about anything of this. More specifically, TikTok as any app and ByteDance as a company do not care about any of this. And they have have crafted an app so meticulously to serve their own interest of keeping you on the app, that they have made the most effective walled garden of reading ever made.

At least with other social networks, you still have a chance of getting some diversity. For example, here with us at Crokes. But with BookTok there is no hope, because BookTok is toxic. It is the most contained, controlled and toxic of online book communities. Get out while you still can, before it rots your brain completely.

BookTok focuses on the aesthetic of reading instead of actual reading

BookTok pushes the same few books and tropes

BookTok does not care about non-fiction

The Conclusion: BookTok Makes You A Worse Reader

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