Dear reader,
Anyone that has been here since this blog was called 'a fur of a polar bear' (?) could most likely take a stab in the dark and guess that I didn't, throughout all the raging storm of hype that is the TikTok era, downloaded the app. Why? Because I was alive when Dubsmash was at its peak and nothing could compete, because I was alive when Musicly was around and nothing could compete. So when TikTok emerged from the mysterious shadows of Musicly lawsuits, I ran as fast as I could in the opposite direction. Obviously, I could not predict an app that I never attempted to shield myself from (Instagram) introducing reels, and swamping me up in the carnage that is Booktok. Honestly, some bits I love; the insane fangirls screaming to Enchanted by Taylor Swift about Cardan from The Cruel Prince- A symptom of the Holy Black syndrome I never realised anyone else was profusely suffering from- amongst other things. But being the analytical genius, that I am- I started to notice some emerging trends that struck genuine fear in me for the future of contemporary literature.
If you've been on the reader scene for a while you most likely remember your Sticker-reader era. Those years when you were first introduced to reading through the random trip to the local bookstore with a family member who was most definitely paying. Completely aimlessly you flicked and pulled at perfect spines, eyeing covers and growing increasingly adrift. The new and release section caught your eye; a certain sticker plastered on a rather pink-polluted front cover reading 'Zoella book club' or 'as seen on TV' stared back at you. Armed with the pig-head bookmark that cost more that the book itself, and another sticker backed book because 'BUY ONE GET ONE HALF PRICE!' seamed all too good to be true, you walk out of the store feeling proud of a successful rinsing session of your clueless family member. Thus, it begins.
We all remember this stage in our reading lives as one of which we are not particularly proud of, however acknowledge it was essential in our steps to discovering this broad and magical world of literature. My worry is our new readers, the one's who discovered this world through their reel page, see such a small and honestly un-diverse expanse of the young adult world that, when the time comes, they will never progress past the sticker-backed book stage.
Not sure what I mean by this? I'll try and give an example. The entirety of the world right now is reading They Both Die In The End by Adam Silvera. I read the book back in 2019, pre-its blow up on TikTok this year and I found it a quick cutesy read- and that was about it. However because I had read it and put my review online for you lovely readers (don't look for this review because I destroyed it from the face of the earth when older me had to read it back) and you all expressed a similar feeling, however you also emailed in to say that even though I wasn't a huge lover of that particular read, Adam Silvera's co-write with author of Simon vs. the homo sapiens agenda, Becky Albertalli; What if it's us? was worth the read. As per usual, my readers came through and it was honestly one of the most wholesome romances I've ever read. The problem with Booktok is honestly there is no threads or progression past these initial suggestions, the books all go round on a circular loop of repetitive content and people love them because they've all read the 10 books that do the circuit, and can relate to a vast majority of the videos sent around. If your doubting the validity of this, take a look at the recommended books listed under they both die at the end on goodreads:
Recognise those? That's because they are EVERYWHERE.
So let's see what happens when I switch to the song of Achilles profile on goodreads.
Would you look at that. Tiktok books as far as the eye can see.
Trust me when I say the same 10 books are listed as a recommendation for every single one of these books. What do you notice about these recommendations for a start? That all are fabulous reads? Yes 100% true, I have read every single book on each rec list and have absolutely loved everyone of them. However, minus the link of LGBTQ+ representations in these books, that have absolutely nothing in common, except that they are all HUGE on TikTok right now. Why am I bothered? Because I believe this is the first step into making books into small snippets of songs that no one knows the name or artist of that we dance in front of cameras to. Books are becoming tied to their cover more than ever before, we acknowledged this is a problem previously and now it has grown to be the only identification tool used to by some readers, to discover new reads.
Not only are the same 10 books circulating round in an endless loop, but another thing I picked up on is that all these books are either relatively short or immensely long, for the sake of this post i'm dubbing this the 300 or thousand page ultimatum. It's either rapid fire 300 page reads or a 1200 page modern classic. TikTok appears to have illuminated the middle class citizens, of 500-600 page reads as they don't fit the quick read element of all other books on TikTok. On these platforms books are becoming increasingly more desirable if they fit within the relatively quick read category, or polarly opposite dubbed 'achievement' reads that are as long as the story of my life. Example; the Priory of the orange tree, an amazing beautiful read that people appear to be picking up more so for the impressive length than for any idea of plot I think slips nicely into this category, the question of whether readers are actually picking up these extra-long reads is the question.
Another critique I worry for, is that readers are evidently becoming less critical about their books, ratings for popular books are sky-rocketing, however the true enjoyment of these books I believe are not being accurately represented, because of this added pressure of liking the read just because of its huge popularity. This will thus lead to the over-hyping of books in the community and more people will be spending money on reads that may just not be worth the buy, whilst under-hyped excellent reads are being swept under the rug.
Admittedly I still think BookToks emergence has done more good for the community than bad; I've seen so many non-readers trying pleasurable reading for the first time, mostly wattpad paperbacks yes, but it's still young-people discovering books for the first time which I always love to see! My fear for all of these developments is that books will become titles, covers and aesthetics and lose all importance of plot and author. Stand-alone's will completely illuminate lengthy series and readers will never explore beyond the comfort zones or dig into more books by the authors they love, as they attempt to keep up with the trending books that will go round on for-you-pages.
In summary, I believe that booktok is a great place to start, some find that it motivates them to pick up a book that's been left untouched on a coffee table for months, or to find a place to start in a reading-world that is ultimately quite over-whelming when you meet it for the first time. My advice would be to not only rely on BookTok for recommendations, but to find youtubers and bloggers through platforms such as Twitter. If you still feel lost I have several posts that can help you navigate the online world of reading apart from reels and tiktoks, which I will link below!
Until next time,
Issy
x
Picture sourced from
2021 Summer Reading Guide: Booktok Edition – The Minnesota Daily (mndaily.com)
