BookTok

English

Etymology

From book +‎ -Tok.

Proper noun

BookTok

1. The community of book- and reading-oriented accounts on TikTok.
   • 2021 February 23, Carly Pearce, “BookTok? A Gen-Z guide to literature”, in Epigram, Bristol University, page 20:

     The biggest difference between the other communities and BookTok is the length of the videos.

   • 2021 September 9, Maddy Franklin, “The rise of BookTok”, in The Red & Black, University of Georgia, page A7:

     Frazier agreed, saying BookTok has the power to determine what novels are popular […]

   • 2022 February 1, Lara Mellett, “Inside the World of BookTok”, in Trinity News, Trinity College Dublin, page 13:

     BookTok seems to be a gateway to a reading hobby for many users.

   • 2022 July 1, Elizabeth A. Harris, “How TikTok Became a Best-Seller Machine”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     BookTok is not dominated by the usual power players in the book world such as authors and publishers but by regular readers, many of them young, who share recommendations and videos of themselves talking about the books they love, sometimes weeping or screaming or tossing a copy across the room.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:BookTok.

Hypernyms

• Bookternet

Coordinate terms

• Booklr (Tumblr)
• Bookstagram (Instagram)
• BookTube (YouTube)

Derived terms

• BookToker

Noun

BookTok (plural BookToks)

1. A book- or reading-oriented video on TikTok.
   • 2021 October 8, Sarah Jerasa, Trevor Boffone, “BookTok 101: TikTok, Digital Literacies, and Out-of-School Reading Practices”, in Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy:

     As you consider the ways you might include BookToks in your classroom, we ask that you are mindful of these critical components that make BookTok so unique and relevant to its users […]

   • 2021 November 3, Scharina Bencosme, “The Enchanting World of BookTok”, in The Outlook, volume 94, number 7, Monmouth University, page 8:

     In my case, the BookToks I see thanks to the algorithm are related to my genres of preference such as historic fiction, young adult, sci-fi, and books popular in my age group.

   • 2022, Maarit Jaakkola, Reviewing Culture Online: Post-Institutional Cultural Critique across Platforms, Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, page 110:

     Blogging, YouTubing, vlogging, instagramming, microblogging and podcasting—or, more specifically, book blogging (Driscoll, 2019; Steiner, 2010), booktubing, (Tomasena, 2019; Vizcaíno-Verdú et al., 2019; de Leusse, 2017; de Lourdes López López, 2017; Sorensen & Mara, 2014), bookstagramming (Jaakkola, 2019), sharing BookToks (Merga, 2021) or booktwittering—are distinct practices of using social media, and reviewing—or, for example, reviewing books—embedded in these forms of communication.