Have you heard about BookTok? If you are not familiar with this term, let’s learn what It is. Basically, BookTok is a popular corner of TikTok, especially for readers where users share book reviews, recommendations, and discussions that influence users reading habits significantly. It played a huge role in making books accessible to readers and promoting underrated books. On the other hand, the down part is that users romanticize reading in an unrealistic way. This is how BookTok romanticizes reading habits-
Unrealistic Reading Speed: Many BookTok creators showcase unrealistic ways of reading books, like creating a trend of finishing 100 books in one month. This has a huge impact on readers because they feel pressure to finish books to follow the trend, which overshadows the fact that reading books is for enjoyment and learning. It may also create a guilty feeling for slow readers who are unable to follow the trend.
Highlighting “Book Hauls”: When BookTok creators showcase their book hauls, aesthetic bookshelves, and overgrowing books, it impacts the readers that they also need to buy a lot of books to stack their bookshelves aesthetically but not to read them and enjoy them. They kind of start to buy books as decoration pieces for their shelves.
Overshadow Personal Preferences: BookTok highlights viral books, bestsellers, and new books, titles like Colleen Hoover’s book and Alex Michaelides’s book. Reviews from the creators pressurize readers overshadowing their personal preferences like what genre they want to read, which are almost decided by the BookTok creators. Readers force themselves to follow new trends and also may create an illusion of liking universally loved books rather than what they want.
Picture-Perfect Environment: BookTok creators showcase their cozy eye-pleasing, picture-perfect place for reading which creates an unrealistic expectation on readers that also need that kind of aesthetically pleasing place to read which is not necessary. The book should be treated like a friend who heals your inner self for that you do not need those picture-perfect places.
Quantity over Quality Lifestyle: BookTok creators highlight the unrealistic lifestyle of reading one book a day which creates pressure on readers who are busy with their personal lives. Even this leads to readers’ quantity over quality lifestyle as a result they can not connect with the books and understand the deeper meaning of books. Readers should read books to connect books with their souls, not to just increase the number of finished books.
Excessive Focus on Intensive Emotion: BookTok’s recommendation focuses on melodramatic, romantic, and emotionally intensive scenes that may lead to higher reader expectations. They might not be interested in light, slow-spaced plots anymore. As a result, they might not explore all the genres as a reader. When their higher expectations do not match, they might drop reading that book.
BookTok is undeniably a new wave of excitement for readers but romanticizing it. Makes it harder for readers to focus on their personal preferences and not on unrealistic expectations. You can get help from BookTok for references but do not romanticize it by doing the things that are mentioned. You can get book recommendations from different genres. Enjoy reading and try to establish a deeper connection with books.
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Writer,
Fabiha Bushra
Intern
Content Writing Department,
YSSE.