TikTok Made Me Read It

A mid-year analysis of my 2020 reading list and a single app’s growing influence

In the beginning…

I fell hard and fast down the rabbit hole known as TikTok a full year before isolation drove my millennial brethren into the arms of every solo distraction they could get their hands on.

My cousin had grown pretty famous on the app, and I downloaded it for the sake of supporting his content. My first mistake was believing I’d be able to merely sneak in, hit “like” all of his videos, and sneak back out again.

Because, dear friends, amidst the many group dance numbers and couples challenges and lip syncs, there exists a precious and beloved land known as “BookTok”.

BookTok is exactly what it sounds like: a collection of videos and a community of creators on TikTok entirely devoted to books and reading. Just as Bookstagram and BookTube before it, BookTok took one look at an app full of short form videos and decided, “this could use some literature.”

Bless them all.

While I fully understood that TikTok was geared toward a somewhat younger crowd, I certainly encountered plenty of late twenty-somethings and parents and even a delightful Italian granny or two. It’s the internet, after all. All are…