An inside look at the internet’s virtual book club

ZOE ZAPANTA / ASST. A&C EDITOR

The term “BookTok” is used to describe the book-reading community on TikTok, where people post videos  to recommend books and share their love of literature. This combination of social media and book reviews revolutionized people’s reading experience and how people are finding and making book recommendations.

BookTok started as a hashtag on TikTok by a group of book lovers, and it quickly became a massive trend, filled with people who are passionate about reading and sharing their experience. Now, it’s one of the world’s biggest social media communities for books. On TikTok, the app’s built-in analytics shows that the hashtag “BookTok” has 177.2B views. The community is so big that many large book retailers like Barnes & Noble have dedicated sections to the BookTok community in store and online. 

A book is considered “viral” on TikTok when multiple creators are amassing a lot of views talking about it.  Those influencers, called “BookTok-ers,” will make videos about book recommendations,  the different genres and tropes they like and other plot-related content. These videos end up going viral based on keywords that engage audiences and the way the video is framed. For example, sometimes the creator will start the video off by labeling it as a “storytime,” another popular trend on TikTok, to entice their audience. The “storytime” trend on TikTok features creators pretending to tell the plot of a book as if it is their own story, usually in a very dramatic way to keep their audience engaged, then at the end reveal it is a book. 

USD sophomore Katelyn Chu elaborated on how these techniques affect the audience and cause books to go viral. 

“Framing it like a storytime initially gets people interested, especially if it has to do with a keyword or popular trope amongst the younger generation,” Chu said. “As an example, romance has always been super popular. But with the new success of ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ TV show and its love triangle, a lot of people are talking about the books that it’s based off of…making the books even more popular.” BookTok’s virality continues to influence reading through marketing campaigns and changing peoples’ reading habits. According to Vox, influencers in the BookTok community with large followings can get paid by book publishers and authors to promote books by giving their reviews. 

In the article by Vox, BookTok influencer Cait Jacobs, who currently has 314.3k followers, talked about what these sponsorships look like. 

“When I’m accepting a sponsorship, they will often give me talking points, and I will always make sure that I’m never being told to lie about it. If I haven’t read a book, then I will say I haven’t read it yet,” Jacobs said. 

USD junior Andrea Miranda shared her thoughts on how BookTok influences how she and others choose their books to read. 

“I love BookTok, but I feel that sometimes people rely on it too much because so many books are trendy. I have read books from BookTok that I have loved, such as ‘Daisy Jones and the Six,’ but also some that I did not enjoy,” Miranda said. “So now I hesitate before buying a trending book and check the reviews on Goodreads.” Goodreads is an American social cataloging website and a subsidiary of Amazon that allows individuals to search its database of books, annotations, quotes, and reviews.

The virality of the books makes them seem more enticing to read, but if a book doesn’t go viral, it may not see the same success. USD junior Vanessa Mai talked about her thoughts on what that means for non-viral books. 

“It can be both a good and bad thing to have BookTok displays. It’s great that they’re marketing toward a specific population, since many of us have TikTok and I think it’s cool to see what’s currently trending,” Mai said. “However, I think it can also overlook other great books if people are solely focused on what’s currently ‘popular’ rather than the book [content] itself.” 

Booktok has changed people’s reading habits. People that haven’t read in some time, werepicking up books for fun again. 

USD senior Mia Tabladillo highlighted the books she found through Booktok. “I read ‘The Spanish Love Deception’ and ‘The Love Hypothesis,’ and those two books got me out of my reading slump,” Tabladillo said. 

BookTok is growing and changing how audiences interact with books through influencers, trending books and by creating a community for people to share and reignite their love for reading. As this unique community continues to thrive, BookTok stands as a testament to the love for reading evolving in this digital age.