Words as Weapons - The #BookTok Civil War
There is nothing more 2025 coded than doom-scrolling short-form content centred around reading long-form content. Does that make sense? I wish I had the humility to openly admit how much time I waste on TikTok and Instagram. As someone with a degree in film and literature, my algorithms have learned to destroy my attention span under the guise of intellectual engagement. In the last two years, the hashtag #BookTok has been everywhere, and everyone seems to be BookToking about it! (I couldn’t help myself.)
Art by Ekaterina Panikanova
So what is “#BookTok”? In simple terms, #BookTok is a community of people and creators who share and engage with content on TikTok related to all things literature. You basically click on the hashtag and enter a portal to a whole new land that’s all books and some bite. There’s also #Bookstagram and #Booktube, but I would argue that the heart of the social media hub of book clubs and fan art exists on TikTok. From personal experience, I would say that most of it revolves around the literary fiction world. That's not to say that the non-fiction sector has no fans, but I mostly see and hear about fiction, so that’s the focus for now. Within that space, a great divide exists between the classic literature baddies and the contemporary romance/romantasy girlies. This divide opens the door to a host of issues in this community. #BookTok wants to show how reading connects us through the art of the written word. The challenge? Keeping an open mind.
As someone who struggles with conflict and has no consistent taste in anything (see my weekly Spotify stats), I have an insatiable desire to unpack the great #BookTok debate. I want to explore the performativity, elitism, snarky attitudes, and exclusive nature of #BookTok in relation to literature and its cultural history. This exploration will unveil the dichotomy between what #BookTok aims to be and what it’s become. I hope that a deeper dive into all of these bits and pieces encourages everyone to let some air into the room, and hold space for productive debate and discussion. At the moment, it feels suffocating to have a distinct opinion on any piece of literature.
Art by Jen Mezza
Hundreds if not thousands of #BookTok creators have these meticulously curated shelves of books, separated into categories such as favourites, to be read (TBR), and did not finish (DNF). There are common trends like “reading wrapped”—where people analyse all the books they read that year (a mimic of Spotify’s annual wrapped trend). It aims to be wholesome and cute and is a great way to get book recs. That side of it is lovely!
However, sometimes, a video or a trend has me scratching my head. This is where things start to get toxic. For example, I saw one video where a girl claimed that she read nine hundred books last year. N I N E H U N D R E D???? I don’t understand how that’s physically possible, seeing that most of these creators have full-time jobs or are in school. Another creator claimed that she technically read over one thousand!! I mean, if the Pepe muppet slideshow trend on TikTok counts as a book, then maybe I could compete with those numbers… but… it's all very suspicious to me!
Art by Laura Lacambra Shubert
#BookTok is supposed to foster a sense of community. Yet that tidbit felt like a brag. Perhaps it was supposed to be encouraging? I hope not. Because the majority of the #BookTok audience will not be able to relate to that. I am a book freak, but with severe ADHD, a chronic illness, and poor time management (three traits common amongst those scrolling #BookTok from what I have learned). I am probably getting to about thirty-forty books a year. I would love to get to sixty a year one day, but that feels unrealistic. When I see BookTokers making these bold claims, I become utterly discouraged. I don’t know if I am allowed to consider myself well-read if those are the numbers I am supposed to be churning out. It’s also difficult for me to believe someone can form well-thought-out, meaningful opinions on these texts if they read them in twenty minutes before they go on to the next! This issue introduces a more complicated problem. When certain creators make these I read a gazillion more books in one year than you will in your entire lifetime statements, it triggers other creators on #BookTok to bite back by attacking the content that others consume. I have seen people battling it out in the comments or through back-and-forth video responses, and it always goes something like this:
@classicsreader1: 900 books, huh? Well, I read two Charles Dickens Novels and all of Arthur Miller’s plays this year on top of some contemporary literature while you read 1000 trashy smut books. At least I read real books and didn’t take the easy way out...
@smutenjoyer2: The classism and elitism in the room is outstanding, imagine discouraging people who might not have the privilege to engage with the classics from reading. #Sorrynotsorry you’re jealous that I reached my reading goal this year and you didn’t.
Okay, it’s usually a lot nastier than that, but you get the point.
Another side to that is creators claiming that no one should announce the number of books they read per month, per year, etc., because it’s not fair to the people who can’t match that. That’s even more absurd than the 1k books a year claim. Banning people from sharing the amount of books they read?? Ridiculous drama. All the time. Never letting anyone do or say… anything. That seems to be the #BookTok way.
Art by Gemma Anton
Let’s dive into the quality VS quantity argument a little further. To me, reading War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy takes more effort and commitment than reading, say, The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood. For one, War and Peace is a hell of a lot longer and centres on an intense history of the Napoleonic era in Russia and France. The Love Hypothesis is about a female scientist who pretends to date her colleague to convince her best friend that her dating life is fantastic. Is one better than the other? Hmmm… Is that really a fair question to ask? It depends on who you are and what you are looking for. I don’t find them comparable regarding the word “good”.
Books have entire worlds built within their walls; they bring words to life, and our personal relationships with the narratives we choose to explore are exactly that— personal. I have read and enjoyed both of these novels, although in very different ways. I got what I needed from them and in my head, that’s the main goal.Romance novels, despite the stigma attached to them, have played an important role throughout history, and the history of the romance novel itself begins with the classics. It existed as an escape from the burdens of patriarchal society for women suffering under these restrictions. Stories of women married for romance and having their desires fulfilled were exciting to young minds whose reality did not match the worlds they had read about. Even with modern romance novels, which now have a naughty reputation for being “smutty”, these graphic sexual scenes depict women’s pleasure in a way that centres on female sexuality. The modern romance novel is an important outlet for women to engage with positive representations of non-male sexual pleasure and desire. Therefore, downplaying the genre of contemporary romance fiction is unfair and, indeed, exclusionary.
Art by Jenna Grebba
I think if people are reading, even if there’s disagreement over the value of a given work, it allows them to engage with their critical thinking in some way or another. For better or worse, it is important to showcase ways we can engage with our minds and form our own opinions, and if a smutty novel does the trick, then I say, why not?
I can understand why someone might roll their eyes at someone bragging about reading nine-hundred-plus books in a year if those books seem “easier” to read. However, it doesn’t help the elitist stereotype of the classics. Contemporary romance readers often respond to the backlash they get with the argument that the classics are exclusionary. They claim that anyone promoting this idea that the classics are “real” books excludes communities who got into reading through the romance genre, and that notion is elitist and classist, as not everyone has the education, access, and resources to enjoy the classics.
Still, a counterpoint to the classics as exclusionary and elitist argument is how the classics have recently become more accessible. The prices of books in the smut/romantasy/contemporary romance genres have spiked due to increased demand. If you go on iBooks and search for something like Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, it’s free! I saw in certain comment sections on #BookTok where people discussed growing up in poor areas and how their libraries only had the classics because that’s what people donated. Over the years, an over-accumulation of the classics occurred. Therefore, in many places they are easier to access, at least physically.
In the debate between smut and classic literature, there will always be a difference between friendly suggestions and uptight insults, and the performative aspect of #BookTok fails to note this difference. People make videos spouting:
“We are so cooked because no one reads classics anymore. They are reading bullshit like Colleen Hoover! That is just going to make everyone dumber”.
Or
“Oh, when I said I was a #BookTok creator, I meant I was a Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, F. Scott Fitzgerald girl, not an ACOTAR, Throne of Glass, Fourth Wing, It Ends With Us girl”.
Okay, I get it. I also strongly dislike Colleen Hoover, and Toni Morrison is one of my favourite writers. At the same time, I think the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas is a masterpiece! Also, note that this comparison format often uses the author's names when referring to classic works against the book titles of modern examples. That smells like someone who’s only there to stir the pot and not make an actual point. I don’t want to feel bad about liking popular fantasy. Categorising what genres and authors are good or bad for all readers, THAT’S the elitist part. If someone is worried about the state of reading and how detrimental it is that nobody reads the classics anymore, painting oneself above everyone else is not the solution, is it? If the goal is to put everyone down to make oneself look intelligent/cool/better, then the concern isn’t about anything except image. Ahhh, there it is! That desire to portray a specific image of oneself explains why this is such an issue in the #BookTok space.
Art By Toon Joosen
As our attention spans diminish, our addiction to attention expands.
Our focus has waned with the popularity of short form content, and because of this creators are desperate to stand out. This desperation to steal attention transforms creation into competition and increases an unreachable need for perfectionism, where no one is safe from excessive and constant vitriol.
These two worlds of #BookTok, contemporary romance/fantasy and the classics, desire to exist at odds with each other. In reality, they are a lot more similar than we realise. Tropes have been around since they discovered the art of storytelling. Look at The Odyssey. It began as an oral tradition until Homer decided to write it down. It has everything! Buddy adventure, kidnapping, war, slow burn, second chance romance, a little smut, unrequited love, and monsters! It is THE hero’s journey, and we applaud it repeatedly because of its status as the CEO of the classics. However, these tropes aren’t lauded in modern works the way they are in The Odyssey because they lack the historical prestige. Society associates old and more difficult to interpret language with intelligence, especially the root languages such as ancient greek. When we see #BookTok videos discussing contemporary fantasy or romance and using hashtags like #secondchanceromance, our internal biases denounce them as intended for lazy readers who desire to read texts that are easy to understand.
Art by Ekaterina Panikanova
Ideally, #BookTok permits us the chance to re-evaluate ideas of the literary canon. As more people are given this freedom to tell their stories, we should be further exposed to various works and discussions. Yet, reliance upon social following and trends disrupt the flow, and history repeats itself: popularity contests are unavoidable, and big names on TikTok have mighty influence over what people read and don’t. Social media seems to influence how people engage with literature significantly. The aesthetics and performance of it all have become more relevant than the books themselves.
Moreover, the pseudo-intellectuals are backing themselves by sneering at any content that’s not considered a classic, and the romance pack is crying elitism in response to any critique. I am not saying that every book you read has to make a deep philosophical argument or that you have to annotate every text intensely to evaluate its political value. I don’t think the classics are only for academics; they are more accessible these days than credit is given. I also don’t think it’s fair to hate on a book just because it’s a fantasy or a modern romance. Smut isn’t a bad thing, and neither is a classic historical fiction work written by a man who was probably an asshole. We need to bring awareness to discussions of all types of books. We need to get comfortable with the uncomfortable and stop making flimsy excuses to avoid having authentic debates. We don’t have to share the same opinion on everything and that is a wonderful thing!
Everyone has a unique relationship to literature. We are all going to learn different lessons from different narratives. I simply want to know where the nuance has gone. Open discussion, friendly debate, and the willingness to listen are the best aspects of literary discussion. #BookTok isn’t going anywhere. Still, it’s hard to push past the cesspool of pointed fingers, name-calling, constant judgment, and petty drama. However, a small group of creators bring light and heart to the community, and I don’t want to disregard them. They deserve their own article as they remind me why my algorithm pushed #BookTok in the first place: I believe that to read is to learn, to learn is to listen, and to listen is to love. For that reason, I have hope that one day #BookTok will fulfil its true potential to exist as a massive online hub where all are welcome to freely and openly discuss books with an honest and direct approach to literary engagement.