Con: Where BookTok culture falls short

BookTok has become less of a reading community, and more of a temple for the masses to immortalize the latest and greatest hits. While the algorithm heightens the careers of many female authors, including Colleen Hoover, Leigh Bardugo, and Taylor Jenkins Reid, it does so at the expense of underrepresented creators. BookTok may promote literacy, especially among youth, but the underlying assumptions created by what is considered worthy to read exposes injustices within literature.

In recent years, the literature community has entered a new era, one of awareness and diversity. While its efforts to push back the mainstream narrative is second-rate at best, the campaign has launched the issue of diversity into the limelight. In numbers alone, BookTok appears to be an avenue for change. However, a brief look-through of the “iconic” BookTok reads quickly shows the opposite. Turns out, recommendation videos are overflowing with books either written by female white authors, or center around (often, not always) heterosexual white characters. And in exceptions, the characters still align with mainstream tastes.

The lack of diversity within BookTok reflects a lack of diversity in publishing at large. Book publishing has long served as gatekeepers to the world of literature. The “Big Five’’ publishers effectively hold all the cards in determining which books are amplified and which are shut out.

In recent years, TikTok and other social media platforms have become anchors in their own right. Historically, publishing has been disproportionately white. Through collaborations with the publishing industry, BookTok giants have agreed to sponsor the century-old racial disparity.

In September, publishing company Penguin House announced a collaboration with TikTok allowing users to access book links directly within the app. However, the links would only take the users to a Penguin House website.

Through flirting with the publishing industry, BookTok has abandoned its innocent beginnings as a hidden treasure. Instead, it has openly embraced commodification at the cost of diversity.

If accessibility is the heart of BookTok, representation is its saving grace. For the platform to truly be an inclusive community, it needs to promote all authors, not just white ones.

Moreover, the platform’s greatest strengths are also its Achilles’ heel. Under the pretense of a cozy reading corner, flocks of teenage girls – the community’s main demographic –enter the gates of BookTok on the daily, expecting to be swept by a curtain of wholesome and relatable content. Instead, they are met by a highly technical feedback loop commonly known as the algorithm.

While BookTok has outgrown its roots as a TikTok clique, it has yet to outgrow its roots in cancel culture.

As with a lot of social media, BookTok is subject to the whims of different fads and trends. It is impossible to swing between the extremes without receiving the whiplash of shame. The beauty of a literary community lies in the availability of different thoughts. But, by virtue of being founded on the shaky grounds of social media, BookTok falls victim to the equally shaky forces of cancel culture.

While the platform hosts the works of a variety of authors, the algorithm sucks the pool of diverse talents dry. In the end, only a handful of limited recommendations land on the reader’s for you page. Pressed for options, the reader is forced to like whatever they are presented with, even if they did not actually enjoy it.

The truth is, 10 second reviews and a sentence of commentary are not enough to determine whether a reader should divert their time into a book, but these resources are often all they have to make the call. By confining new readers to a selection of bestsellers, BookTok creates the illusion that certain books are off-limits.

While a one-size-fits all approach to book recommendations is appealing at first glance, it is unsustainable in the long haul. For BookTok to keep the audience that it attracts, the first item on its to-do list is diversification.