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The hashtag "BookTok" now appears on over 60 billion videos on social media app TikTok. Even if you're not a TikTok user – even if you don't understand what it means for a hashtag to feature in a video – you are still quite likely to be feeling its influence.
At its most basic level, BookTok is an online community of people reviewing books and recommending good reads to each other. At its most intriguing level, however, it is a cultural juggernaut that dictates which titles make it onto bookshop shelves and ultimately onto your nightstand. The buzz created around recommended novels can propel an author to stardom and result in a huge sales boost – so the publishing industry is thrilled.
But since the people making the recommendations often have quite similar tastes and backgrounds, a certain homogeneity in their selections is becoming a problem. I only realised how much my own purchases have been dictated by these social media trends after reading this article. And if you’ve picked up a copy of Song of Achilles, A Little Life or even Pride and Prejudice recently, you too may have been inadvertently BookToked.
“I’ve watched 150 episodes of Brookside in the past few months,” Ben Williams, one of my long-term collaborators, confessed to me late last week as we sat down in a House of Lords committee room for an afternoon discussing how future generations should be taught about Margaret Thatcher.
“But why, Ben? Why?” I asked, entirely confused. He then stood up and delivered a frankly gripping paper on how rewatching this classic 1980s soap opera is an ideal way to understand not only the culture and politics of Thatcher’s Britain but also how the decisions she made in office shaped ordinary lives. The characters may be fictional but the plot lines, which deal with strikes, unemployment and class tensions, are very real. Ben has now watched 170 episodes so you’ll have to get started if you want to catch up. Or, if you’ve not got the time, his hypothesis is summarised in this excellent article.
For those looking for entertainment that explains more recent events, a film opening this weekend could be for you. Dumb Money tells the story of how amateur internet traders banded together to take on the financial industry by buying up stock in failing electronics company GameStop. In doing so, they blasted a $25 billion hole into hedge fund profits. This finance expert reviewed the film and says it’s the perfect example of how an idea that seems extremely silly can still be extremely powerful.
Also this week, how you know the newspapers checked their facts before reporting on the accusations against Russell Brand, what would happen if Donald Trump won an election from jail and why Rishi Sunak could soon regret his net zero u-turn.
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