BOOKTOK7 AUG 2026Booktok, performance and the politics of readingIn the age of BookTok, reading has evolved from a solitary pleasure into a public performance. This article delves…Shaun Langa8 min read

There was a time when reading was one of the few acts that remained private. A book was encountered alone: on a taxi, bus or train during the commute home; beneath a blanket on a winter evening or on the sofa with jazz music playing softly in the background in a room of one’s own. The relationship unfolded quietly, between a reader and a page, beyond the gaze of anyone else.

But in the internet age, before a novel is even opened, it has often been photographed, the initial response to the cover has been filmed and the book has been arranged beside a matcha on a café table, bookmarks, highlighters and sticky notes to set the mood that this is how I read: cosy and non-threatening. Spend enough time at 44 Stanley and you’ll probably recognise him. Baggy trousers.

A fitted polo shirt. Wired, plugged in earphones. A tote bag resting against the chair.

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A copy of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment or bell hooks’s All About Love open on the table. Every now and then he looks up, watching people pass before returning to the book. I have often wondered whether he is reading in public for pleasure or performing the act of reading.

Was it for the female gaze? New York City held a satirical contest for the performative male last year. This bruised me a bit as a self-proclaimed soft boy who religiously reads feminist and queer Bipoc (black, indigenous and people of colour) literature.

Was I performing too? Are we all performing? A woman screams into her phone camera, violently sobbing and in her hands is a copy of Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life.

“Why did you write this!” she screams on Tiktok. Since early 2020, #Booktok has become an integral part of the international literary field. Publishers credit it with reviving backlist titles, launching debut authors onto bestseller lists and persuading a generation raised on short-form video that reading can be exciting.

Bookstores dedicate entire shelves to books “As Seen on TikTok” and “TikTok sensation”. Romance novels, fantasy epics and literary fiction alike arrive with stickers announcing their viral status. When I worked in a bookstore, I struggled with this category.

What exactly made a book a “BookTok book”? Was it the writing? The cover? The minimalist typography?

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