booktok, anti-intellectualism, and how not to burn the bridges you want to walk on
as if
Here we go again: another hot take burning through our corner of the bookish world. There’s been some heated discussion of anti-intellectualism due to the rise of booktok and the reductive nature of viral marketing. TikTok’s marketing engines are once again responsible for the decline of all humanity, and we are, essentially, doomed to a the Idiocracy universe, according to many of these furious liberal arts majors who would probably benefit from some chamomile tea. Is it all elitist? Of course. Is it all pretentious? You bet. Is the outrage warranted? Nope.
If this is your first time interacting with me on this world wide web, let me give you my qualifications: I’m an author, editor, former publishing professional, and creative writing professor. I have shared breath with Pulitzer Prize winners and MacArthur Geniuses. I have very cool friends who have cool friends that have afforded me the privilege of being among the brightest minds of the 20th and 21st centuries. Here’s what I’ve learned: the smartest people in the world don’t have to tell you that they’re smart. They’re not really worried about what you think about them at all.
With all that said, I am a book snob. I tend towards literary fiction and literary genre fiction. Nothing brings me more joy than dissecting a book and the discourse that follows. I also have have spent an inordinate amount of time devouring books from AO3 and I read that last big booktok book in a single sitting. I will defend your right to read whatever you hell you want until I die.
It’s important to note that this argument has been had, age after age. Shakespeare was considered bawdy and lowbrow. Jane Austen was commercial trash. Tolkien was the ruin of the literary world. Romance, as a genre, has been accused of rotting the mind despite the fact that it’s keeping the book world afloat. And booktok, with its quick takes and viral moments, is part of the same engine. Just because a book has been marketing with buzzwords doesn’t mean it lacks depth or complexity or is unworthy of the analysis we apply to classics. We don’t determine a classic until we’ve seen a book outlast the zeitgeist.
One take claimed that the reductive nature of booktok was harmful to authors, which is a wild thing to say, since all authors want is to find readers. A book with a strong female main character may be the entry point for a reader. That doesn’t mean they won’t pick up on the deeper, more complex themes. And even if they don’t, even if they just like a girl power moment, who does that hurt? With the exception of plagiarism, I don’t care how you came to my book as long as you’re reading it. If this post has ruffled your feathers, please hate read my book. I’d love that.
My debut novel, Sing the Night, comes out next year with 8th Note Press, an imprint of ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. If you want the viral marketing pitch for the book, it’s something like: Phantom of the Opera meets the Night Circus with slow burn romance, a devastating love triangle, and music-based magic. Great. Sure. It is all of those things. It’s also a love letter to all artists pursuing their art at all costs, while balancing the inexorable grief of living. It’s about the way we lose ourselves to be found again in the beauty and misery of creation, of the pieces we carve from ourselves in order to find space for our art. You can come for the magic, and stay for the deeper themes. Or you can just hang out with the magic. That’s fine, too.
People come to books for a lot of reasons. Not everyone wants to think deep thoughts or explore the radical trauma some of these great literary works contain. Some people just want a spicy monster romance. Some people just want to escape into beautiful, magical worlds. Some people are breaking into literature for the first time after being forced to read an analyze books throughout school and are learning that reading can inspire joy instead of dread. Everyone comes to the table with different experiences and seek different things from books. And…they’re allowed to? Let’s not gate keep reading. That’s so middle ages. We are past that.
That brings me to my most salient point and the best advice I’ve ever received in the literary world: don’t be an asshole. If you like literature and you want to be part of the literary community, then I behoove you to do so kindly. You don’t need to step on others for clout. And if you are all caps yelling about anti-intellectualism on TikTok you are being an asshole. Whatever your goal is in the literary community, you are shutting doors through your unnecessary and misguided elitism. If you’re looking to be a writer, publishing professional, or book influencer, you are burning the bridges you want to walk on.
I will maintain that a love for reading begets more books. There are so many people who never read a book after high school because intellectualism was forced on them before they found a love for reading. Booktok has revitalized the book industry in a beautiful and fruitful way. Literary novels have gone insanely viral alongside commercial novels. How incredible is that? How lucky are we to live in a world in which all of this art and beauty is at our fingertips?
And listen, I am pretentious. I love books that live in the liminal space between literary and genre fiction. If it has prose that I want to wear on my skin, complex, brilliant characters, and magic? I’m sold. But I also think that people can be allowed to enjoy things. If someone pitches my book in a reductive manner but it gets people to read it, alleluia. Life is hard enough without trying to make it harder.
The argument for intellectualism as an entry point for reading has always been classist. It will always be classist. The bumbling, thesaurus-lipped try-hards and pick-mes of the pseudo intellectual crowd might be loud, but those of us who just want you to love books are louder. You are allowed to read books in a way that is satisfying to you. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Also: TikTok has a very sensitive algorithm. If you’re only seeing reductive book takes, then perhaps reexamine how you are engaging with the platform. The majority of book reviews I see are very thoughtful, very mindful, very demure. It exists. The deep thinking literary world has always existed and still exists. Check your privilege, check your algorithm.