is the way we talk about reading online problematic?

on anti-intellectualism, the aesthetics of reading & the fear to critique

[I realise I’m publishing this post days before the Tiktok ban in the USA takes effect, meaning that Booktok as we know it may come to an end. But I still think it’s an important discussion to have, especially as many of the issues outlined in this post have started to appear on other social media platforms, and may continue to as people migrate over from Tiktok.]

A few months ago, a TikTok creator posted a video discussing her concerns about the rise of anti-intellectualism on Booktok. In the video, the creator discussed how they had noticed the wider societal shift towards anti-intellectualism manifesting in the Booktok community, where books are increasingly being recommended through popular tropes, rather than on the narrative or literary themes of the works themselves.

This anti-intellectualism debate had been occurring in online book circles for a long time prior to this, with many noticing this declining emphasis on critical engagement with literature in favour of flocking towards more easily digestible, trope-driven books. There is evidence of this within the publishing industry today. When promoting books on social media, many publishers/authors will post a graphic listing the different tropes the book contains, rather than the actual synopsis. Or how ‘as seen on booktok’ tables in bookstores are full of barely-distinguishable cartoonish covers, all with similar stories that seem to have been written with a trope checklist in mind. Or the fact that some authors have readily admitted to writing their stories around tropes.

A #Booktok display, now a common fixture in many bookshops.

Albeit not a new discussion, this particular video went viral. It unleashed the wrath of many other bookish content creators and members of the online book community, and the original creator received many hate comments and angry response videos. Undoubtedly, a lot of these reactions were borne from defensiveness. The unwillingness, or incapability, to be objective led many to feel that people critiquing something they like is a personal attack against them, a reaction that in effect proved the points being made in the original video.

It may also have been due to a misunderstanding of what anti-intellectualism is. To define it very simplistically, anti-intellectualism is the opposition or hostility towards intellectuals or to an intellectual view or approach.

In the context of the online book community and this particular discourse, an example of anti-intellectualism would be refusing to engage in critical discussions about a book because you ‘only read for fun’, or by deeming the analysis of literature unnecessary because ‘it’s not that deep’. People complaining that a book has too many words, that they refuse to read books with no romance, that they can’t read books written in the third person, that those who dare to criticise or post a negative review of a book online are being ‘haters’. If you’ve spent any time on Booktok, you would have seen comments expressing these exact sentiments.

Online book communities from BookTwitter to Booktok to Bookstagram have been the subject of much criticism over the years, largely in how they have seemingly been contributing to anti-intellectualism through exacerbating the ‘tropification’ of literature and turning reading into an aesthetic. With their growing prominence, a lot of journalists have written about these communities to varying degrees of controversy and backlash. One such article was a piece in GQ magazine about the performative dimension of Booktok, where reading had been turned into a ‘lifestyle aesthetic’ where one places more importance on being seen as a ‘reader’ than actually reading books:

“have a look at the TikTok in which someone has wrapped every unread book they own (over 300!) in brown paper. Or the dude who says that one of his tips for learning to read more is to “romanticise reading” by finding a cute outfit to read in. Or the person who has made miniature versions of every book they read in 2022 and displays them in a frame. Or the person who has “re-tabbed” their books because the tabs stick out too much and they want the colour match the tabs to the books’ covers. With all of this effort being put into being seen as a reader, one wonders how any of them have the time to read.”

I have tried to discuss these observations on my platforms too, along with many other creators, but more often than not you are met with a negative response: scolded for being ‘elitist’, told you are just being a ‘hater’, and that you should just ‘let people enjoy things’. Needless to say, these discussions are hardly every productive.

Although the anti-intellectualism debate makes the rounds on Booktok every few months, on this occasion people seemed to agree to disagree, moved on, and the controversy died down.

That is, until the results of the 2024 US election where Donald Trump was elected as President of the United States for the second time. In the aftermath, some creators took to Booktok to complain about some comments they’d been receiving and videos they’d seen, stating that they don’t want Booktok to become ‘political’. As if the act of reading can simply ‘become’ something it has always inherently been. Reading is political, that’s just an objective fact.

The irony that these people were shutting down debates about anti-intellectualism just to come back a few months later and complain that they didn’t want Booktok to be political didn’t seem to register. They didn’t seem to realise that now they were just proving the point they had been trying to argue against.

An example of Booktok videos & comments post the 2024 USA election results.

Maybe it’s due to a misunderstanding of what politics is - when you utter the word politics to some people, they conjure up an image of political parties and rallies and speeches and the Houses of Parliament or the White House. But politics isn’t just a monolithic entity that can be separated from the rest of society, it’s an intrinsic part of our everyday life. Being a person who is ‘not involved in politics’ is an impossibility. The way you live, where you live, the rights afforded to you, who you choose to love or marry, who you support, the kind of future you want, the fact that you were taught to read - this is all political. To be apolitical is a privilege, and it’s a privilege very few can afford.

Societally, concern about the ‘death of the critic’ has been widespread for some time now. Instead of intellectual, thoughtful analysis, many cultural commentators have noted that there has been a shift towards ‘shallow commentary optimised for engagement rather than substance.’ This shift is particularly evident when scrolling through Booktok videos or particularly when perusing the comment sections. I’ve seen many tweets and videos stating that instead of leaving negative reviews or ‘bashing’ a book online, it’s better to declare the book wasn’t for you and move on. Of course I don’t believe that authors whose books you didn’t like or those who did enjoy that particular book deserve to be harassed in their comments - my point is that it’s a slippery slope.

Singer Charli XCX wearing a ‘they don’t build statues of critics’ graphic T-shirt

No art is above critique, and just because you critique something, doesn’t mean you like it any less (critique ≠ negativity). In my review of Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, I criticised his misogynistic portrayal of women in the novel, while also stating that it is one of my favourite books. It seems that some believe that if they absorb any criticism about what they consume, it will ruin their enjoyment of it, but this doesn’t have to be the case. Appreciating art and being able to discuss its flaws are not mutually exclusive. Enjoyment and critical analysis can coexist.

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This discourse around Booktok and anti-intellectualism is not a purely black and white issue for me. As someone who has been part of Booktok since its early days, I often bristle at some of the criticisms levelled against it. Though I do agree with some of them, I also take issue with the tendency to tar everyone on the platform with the same ‘booktok’ brush, assuming that such a large online community (to date the #booktok hashtag has over 200 billion views) is one monolithic entity, without diversity or capacity for nuance.

When it comes to Booktok, some people seem to forget how social media algorithms operate - to get the kind of content you want, you have to do a bit of work to curate your feed. As someone who doesn’t read fantasy and rarely reads romance, I have sought out a network of diverse creators with reading tastes similar to my own, so now my feed is populated with book recommendations I am actually interested in and can trust. But it’s a case of ‘he who shouts the loudest’, and many Booktok tables in bookstores still don’t represent the diverse reading tastes on the app, making it seem like everyone really does just pass around the same 10 books.

Since creating my Booktok account, in fact since creating all of my book-related social accounts, I’ve fostered a community of followers and friends that I’m proud of and who I genuinely enjoy chatting to on a regular basis. If the Tiktok ban in the US is actioned, I will deeply miss that section of the Booktok community (and will be worrying about what it means for the viability of Booktok too).

Of course everyone has the right to read whatever they like, and there is room for people who want to read for fun and people who want to read critically (although you can do both simultaneously). I’m in no way saying that people are ‘anti-intellectual’ just because they enjoy a trope-filled, easy read. Nor am I saying that every single book you read requires a 1,000 word review in order to prove that you’ve critically engaged with it.

But small, seemingly trivial comments like ‘I turn my brain off when I read’ or ‘it’s not that deep’ or ‘reading isn’t political’, while innocent on the surface can contribute to a culture which is much more significant and egregious. In a world where humanities subjects are being taken off curriculums, fact-checkers are being removed from social media, and media literacy is troublingly in decline, we need critical thought and analysis more than ever. In a political climate that doesn’t want you to research, to fact-check, to read different perspectives, to dig deeper, to ask questions, doing so is in fact an act of defiance.

If you can’t see the domino effect this can have, you’re not paying attention.