Booktok – Boon or Bane?

 

Booktok is a subcommunity on Tiktok, dedicated for books. Booktok has managed to do something that teachers were struggling to do for a very long time.

It has managed to get people to read.

Any book that goes viral on Booktok, is likely to get more readers than a book that doesn’t. If we were to go to any popular bookstore in Chennai such Higginbotham’s, Crosswords or Om Books, we would find that there are shelves dedicated for Booktok alone.

On these shelves, all the books that went viral on Booktok were arranged. These shelves are often positioned in such a way that it catches the visitor’s eye as soon as they enter. This is because Booktok books have a huge demand. The demand is so high that they are being pirated on a large scale by third parties.

The audience for these books are usually from the non-reader community. These books are their gateway to literature. Some popular authors in Booktok are Colleen Hoover, Ali Hazelwood etc.,

Their writing style is simple and the plot is not complicated. Their genre is romance and their characters aren’t complex either. Their books require minimal effort on the reader’s part which makes them quite popular amongst non-readers. Their books also embody the fantasy women readers desire in romance.

Some non-readers move on from these authors and find their way towards other genres. I personally know someone who started with Colleen Hoover and ended up with Shakespeare.

I agree, in one way, Booktok has been a blessing.

On the other hand, Booktok has brought down the standard for literature. For a veteran reader, a quick look is all it takes to know that the writing is subpar. They resemble a fanfiction more than a novel both in terms of plot and in terms of writing.

I would even say some fanfictions are written better than these published works.

Quality aside, these books pander to harmful tropes. In all of their books, the tropes used is the same; a surly billionaire with a tragic past falls in love with a fun-loving quirky girl who ‘brings out’ the best in him. This trope panders to gender stereotypes where it is the woman who is angelic, patient and caring even if the man is problematic. She takes responsibility and is apologetic on his behalf. His rude behaviour is written off as he has his ‘reasons’ to act the way he does. The girl, of course, is expected to be an angel even if she has a tragic past.

Another issue is the glorification of abuse within these books. The glorification of abuse has always been an issue in the genre of romance. Right from Richardson’s Pamela to Meyer’s Twilight, abuse from the male characters are depicted to be an act of love.

It might sound unfair to point fingers at Booktok when our ancestors did not do a good job but in this era, with the rapid growth of technology, we are mass consuming things.

Earlier, people used to read different books but now it is not the case. We all read in circles. We read the same books. The books that were heavily marketed and the ones that go viral are read by a lot of people. With a handful of exceptions, most don’t read outside of what is being advertised.

This is why it is most important to ask this question now: what are we reading?