'BookTok' blamed for end of the world as TikTok gets into reading

BookTok is having a greater effect on people than we may have initially thought with a staggering 206 billion views under the hashtag alone.

With reading books said to be at an all-time low (Cole et al., 2022), TikTok has revived people's interest across a range of genres, creating somewhat of a reading renaissance.

Now, for most people, this is a positive move as books are known to stimulate the mind, help reduce stress, improve reading and communication skills and generally broaden people's perspectives.

However, it has seemingly brought out book snobs in the process with one X/Twitter user sharing a snap of a bookstore category called 'TikTok made me buy it'.

He proceeded to call it "the end of the world."

It didn't take long for people to hit back, with one sarcastically responding: "Oh no, people buying book recommendations from their peers, what a travesty."

Another humoured: "Old man yells at social media platform for introducing new books for people to read. Anyways, news at 11."

A third tweeted: "Who cares if they are recommended from TikTok, picked up at the library, or snuck into the cart at the drugstore."

Meanwhile, another user added: "People discovering books from other readers online and then bookstores making it easy to find those books when they’re flooded with customers looking for them? The horror!!!!!"

As we well know, TikTok has become the go-to destination for... pretty much everything. They've even created space for reading fans to share their monthly favourites and reviews on classics and more modern releases.

We have to thank the likes of BookTokkers Ayman Chaudhary (@aymansbooks), Jaysen Headley (@ezeekat) and Jack Edwards (@jack_edwards) who have really paved the way to make reading cool again.

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