BookTok and Literary Ideologies

“All art is propaganda,” wrote George Orwell. We can extend it to mean, “All literature is political.” Reading is political because we are political animals. We live in political societies and the ideas we encounter, embody, and then exercise in life influence society. Those who wish an escape from #PoliticsIsLiterature have a woefully underdeveloped notion of both reading and society. This is not the same as skepticism toward political messianism or utopianism, for those who express a skepticism toward political utopia can still agree that to live on earth is necessarily to live politically. This is something that BookTok understands and is aggressively promoting.

The declaration that reading is dead is both true and false. It is true that reading has declined in society and that reading comprehension is also declining. That does not mean that literary wars are no longer being waged. Questions over the meaning and purpose of literature, its role in our lives, in our schools, and in shaping the cultural contours of life are still very much alive. This debate is no longer contained to the Ivory Tower of academia and the institutions of education, it has escaped into the broader culture through social media. BookTok is the prime example of this—the digital battlefield where hearts and minds are being shaped regarding how to understand literature and what literature to read.

Ignoring this reality is not helpful. If anything, it is harmful. There are certain gatekeepers who would like to bury their heads in the cloistered hardbound pages of Homer, Virgil, and Dante—ignoring the spirit of the time and the ongoing literary wars that will influence the next 50 years once millennials, Gen Z, and Gen A individuals ascend into the leading roles of schools, media, and industry publishing—deliberately thinking themselves the holy remnant of purist literature, free from the taint of digital pontificating at midnight and low quality audio podcasting that tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people listen to despite visual and audio imperfections. These gatekeepers deserve to moan and complain about the state of literary and reading culture because it is as they want it to be so they can be the self-righteous weeping remnant as their castle of culture is blown away by the aggressivity of technological advancement.

Highly qualified teachers and professionals, scholars and writers, who do have a mastery of knowledge over the books they read and teach mean little when their own students consume hours of content outside of the classroom by “influencers” who may not have the same depth of proficiency and wisdom but are not, by any means, pedants. Yes, there are conspiracy theorists and conspiracy theories are magnified in the age of digital media, but they remain outliers in the world of a million voices fighting for one minute attention spans. To be not be aware of the medium in which the current battles are waged is to not be involved in the war that must be fought.

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Reading, as an intellectual exercise, has always been provocative and revolutionary. Interpretation, too, has always manifested itself as a battering ram against the establishment. Go back to Plato and you’ll see this as Plato both gives a nod to but then subsequently deconstructs Homer and the Greek dramatic tradition which preceded him. Augustine, in the Confessions, accosts the Latin literary and educational establishment for having promoted vices through the texts he read. Even as Augustine couldn’t shed his love for Virgil and Cicero, he offers not a Roman reading of his Roman heroes but a Christian one—revolutionary and scandalous to the conservative teachers of Romanitas in the world of Late Antiquity. In the Divine Comedy, Dante remembers Bonagiunta Orbicciani, an opponent of the docle stil novo (sweet new style) that Dante would come to best embody. Of course, Dante gets the last word in his poem by having his former opponent praise the new style that has come to dominant Italian poetry. Dante was a radical, a renegade, a “new voice” poet. It would behoove us not to also mention the scandal of John Milton and Paradise Lost, whose poem was shocking to the English literary establishment when published, and even a century after his death, the great English writer and biographer Samuel Johnson begrudgingly conceded the greatness of Paradise Lost while still stating no one wished it any longer than it was.

The war over interpretation and the meaning of literature in our lives is no longer being fought solely in print mediums but has transcended paper because of the digital revolution of the new technological revolution. Social media apps are now at the forefront of this warring discussion. One of the surprising figures caught up in the battles now waged over how to read and who to read is the Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson.

For those who don’t know, Brandon Sanderson is about as close to literary royalty as you can get in a democratic age. His Mistborn series and Stormlight Archive have sold millions of copies and have won him praise as the leading author of High Fantasy. I confess to being a Sanderson reader, and an admirer. And as someone who is also on TikTok, I do indulge from time to time to watching and listening to what his mostly Gen Z haters have to say.

One of the recurring motifs of High Fantasy is Good vs. Evil. Of course, for a genre that owes its existence in large part to J.R.R. Tolkien, this shouldn’t be surprising. Yet this defining feature of High Fantasy is precisely the target of BookTok’s critical ire. As one TikTok user said of Sanderson’s novels, it is “neoliberal fantasy.” In particular, the third book of the Mistborn series, The Hero of Ages, was targeted as the prime example of neoliberal ideological indoctrination. The protagonist of the story, the “Hero of Ages,” is supposed to help overthrow an oppressive regime and free the Terris peoples from both oppression and impending cataclysmic doom. While not giving away more than this to the anxious reader who may wish to enter the gripping world of Brandon Sanderson’s writing – which includes a great twist ending in The Hero of Ages – BookTok critics have pointed out how the basic storyline and its overriding motif of Good vs. Evil (Liberty vs. Oppression with a salvific flavor) lends support to the neoliberal empire of the United States of America.

Another BookTok content creator, posting on her regret of authors she “used to support,” included some usual names like J.K. Rowling but, surprise, surprise, also Brandon Sanderson. Anti-Mormonism, an often-little discussed phenomenon in the media, also infects BookTok critics of Sanderson. Sanderson, a Mormon, is criticized for subtly (if not otherwise subconsciously) including Mormon theology in his writings. The preoccupation of Good vs. Evil, Chosen Ones, and the hope of salvation in his writings are targets of criticism for the “problematic” Sanderson. This critique is made ironic since these themes are not exactly or exclusively Mormon concerns, but the revolutionary alternatives in literature such critics offer to their listeners and stray viewers (like myself) also play on the same themes, just from an updated neo-Marxist perspective.

The battles over reading: how to read and who to read, that is currently being waged on TikTok and other social media platforms is rather fascinating. It is also deeply important. Although I’m an instructor of humanities at a preparatory high school, teaching names like Virgil, Augustine, Dante, and Dostoevsky, among so many others, I only reach the students in the classroom in this capacity. Moreover, maybe only one or two of these students will go on to study Literature at university. And maybe, just maybe, one will find themself teaching in the classroom afterward.

While a strong advocate of traditional learning and the greatness of the great books, I reach more people through my YouTube channel, podcasts, and yes, my TikTok account. Through these platforms, I have reached tens of thousands and regularly reach hundreds and thousands of people (around the world) in a single post. Yes, there’s only so much one can say and “teach” in a short video upload, but it is incumbent upon us to fight where there are battlefields. There is a battlefield in the classroom which I am happy to be manning, but there is also a battlefield – a much larger one – in digital space where many more casualties are at stake.

If future literary traditionalists, conservatives, moderates, or anyone who considers themselves defender and supporters of a broad literary culture, high culture, and the classics, are concerned about what may happen in the next 20 years, look no further than the reading wars being waged on social media platforms. Perhaps it is time for many to pick up the pen, or phone, and fight a “digital Aeneid.” The labors will be difficult. But the spirit of the enemy is exactly the same as Turnus: war and destruction against those who seek the music of peace and healing.

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