is booktok ruining reading?

im so sick of people pretending libraries don't exist

Hell yeah I made it! Honestly booktok has ruined some reading! The wattpadification of Romance novels is genuinely making me cry. 😭

I really struggle to understand how only reading porn is something to be proud of. I mean, reading smut is nothing to be embarrassed about either, but could you imagine someone bragging about only watching movies with sex scenes? Thats stupid

haunting adeline has been one of the worst outcomes of booktok 💀 “it’s dark romance!” “if you don’t like it don’t read it!” and it’s literally a romanticized stalker graping an innocent woman

honestly thank you for specifying that the subsection of BookTok people have issues with shouldn't encapsulate the entire whole of BookTokkers / BookTubers

Genuinely these people need wattpad

I feel like masked cosplayers and COD cosplayers get such a bad rep and have weird assumptions about them due to the loud minority over sexualizing it

I use Booktok to find some really good recommendations for books that I might be interested in reading. However, I do think that the strange obsession with spice is a bit overwhelming. I understand that people wish to explore their fantasies in a safe manner, but it's gotten to be too much in my opinion.

wurld you should watch this one show called bojack horseman i think you’ll like it

As someone who almost exclusively reads manga and danmei this is absolutely WILD to me You mean your romance doesn't have convoluted world building and action and 46383746 chapters before the love interests even kiss????? Y'all are missing out

i think the women who only read smut, and also romanticize alot of fucked up stuff in smut and romance books have ruined booktok. i love literature and discussing it but it's hard to consume book content when it's taken over by millennials who are porn addicts.

I watched a girl on TikTok buy books from a thrift store and put them on her giant shelf BACKWARDS for aesthetics. I’d say that is overconsumption somewhat. Yeah it’s from a thrift store, but can’t wait for her to toss em because she decided to do something else with her shelf decor.

the only problem I have with smut being so popular is that it makes it so much harder to find books without smut. I am someone who doesn’t enjoy smut at all and prefers small doses of romance. fantasy is one of my favorite genres and finding new recommendations for good fantasy WITHOUT smut or romance is near impossible anymore, it COMSUMES the genre. it makes it difficult for me to trust any recommendations because some people will only say “omg its so good you HAVE to read it! best book Ive ever read!” or even “oh, you like fantasy? you’ll love this!” or something along those lines. then they’ll fail to mention that theres smut or heavy amounts of romance that smothers the plot, world building, and character development. when I read fantasy I want FANTASY. not romance with a sprinkle of fantasy. its infuriating.

The book that got me back into reading was “I’m glad my mom died” lmfao.

You make me feel more comfortable in my Twenty One Pilots obsession

Maybe people associate all of booktok with the romance or "spicy" booktokers because they literally introduce themselves as THE "booktok girls" in the comments. Like they will fr say something like "the booktok girlies have been summoned😈" in the comment section of a cringy thirst trap video. I think their engagement with other parts of TikTok contribute to how loud they are too. And don't forget that one spicy booktok lady that called her the "Queen of Booktok"🥴. I'm joking but those comments have gotten so far to the point were they are calling them the "booktok gooners"

Tbh just here to flex that I NEVER touched Coleen Hoover's books, the youtube videos are enough 🙃. At the end of the day, you read what you wanna read, we are all gonna die one day so, go crazy✨️✨️ (you're still wired)

i remember seeing a video of a girl showing a comment she got on a video of her showing books she read and the comment asked if White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a smut… LIKE ITS DOSTOYEVSKY

I’m somebody who is writing a book. As of May 2024, this is my fourth year working on it (yipppeee!🎉). And watching the trends on TikTok from a distance, and refusing politely to read a single book from that collection (unknowingly, I read *The Song of Achilles*, and actually enjoyed it, I admit…), it’s obvious that there’s been a negative change in how these stories are written. I have a super close bestie of mine who reads only TikTok-starred books. And great heavens almighty, I picked five of them up and it was all smut, smut, sex, lemons, no lime, bang-bang missionary type shit- oh, look, an interlude of some sort of sweeter moment!- *SEX.* I’m… joking but I’m not. Like, are they fueling a P-addiction here? Hello? The fact that books have become solely page-turners and have a lack of true depth to them sometimes makes me sad. How these tropes are impacting the originality of many said page-turners, the fact that only these books might be advertised and the fucking **colleen hoover books stand in barnes n noble** makes me worry that all books will be are merely trends and words for people to consume, and not stories*. The girlies I know who never read a lick before now consume this fiery waste, and that’s all there is! At least people are reading, but *this??? While it isn’t every book in the Tok, it still is many, and many problematic ones. … Anyways, I’m writing a book. And no, there will not be smut in it.

the only bit of booktok that i have ever interacted with on tiktok has been weird (typically contemporary) horror book recs and i eat it up every time