Is TikTok a Friend to the Literary World?TikTok是文学之友吗？

杰克·克里奇　陈康/译

Is TikTok set to become the greatest cultural influencer of our age？ This short-form video hosting platform may not seem to have much in common with high culture. But many of our great artistic institutions are currently engaged in an elbows-out scramble to beat a path to TikToks door1.

TikTok会成为当代最具文化影响力的平台吗？这个主打短视频的平台看似与高雅文化并无太多共同之处，但许多大型艺术机构现在却争先恐后地挤进TikTok的大门。

“BookTok” is one of the most popular of TikToks fiefdoms， its no surprise that the effects have been palpable2.

BookTok是TikTok平台上的顶流社群之一，其影响力自然不同凡响。

“TikTok has had a significant impact on book sales recently，” says Dan Conway， chief executive of the Publishers Association.

英国出版商协会首席执行官丹·康韦表示：“TikTok近来对图书销量起到了举足轻重的作用。”

These are books that were published a while ago， no longer boosted by publishers marketing campaigns or attention from the traditional media， but catapulted3 into bestsellerdom by the enthusiastic championing4 of BookTokkers.

他所说的图书都是出版了一阵子的，已不再靠出版社推广，也不再是传统媒体营销的焦点。然而，在BookTok博主的热切追捧下，这些书一跃成为畅销书。

Many of these very short videos—the original limit for a TikTok video was 15 seconds and， although that has been incrementally5 increased to all of 10 minutes now， brevity is still the soul of the site—feature users holding up a succession of books to the camera， with captions reading.

在许多读书类短视频里，博主對着镜头接连举起一本本书，并配上文字说明。TikTok视频的时长限制最初为15秒，即便现已逐步增至整整10分钟，但简洁依旧是TikTok的精髓。

If BookTok doesnt always provide users with a very in-depth response to literature， it is certainly vibrant. Successful BookTokkers may have to plough through6 innumerable books to keep providing content for their audiences. They exude energy and enthusiasm.

即使BookTok并不总是能为用户提供入木三分的文学作品读后感，社群内也必定是一派朝气蓬勃的景象。成功的BookTok博主或许得博览群书、苦心钻研，才能源源不断地给观众呈现新内容。他们活力四射、热情洋溢。

So how does one become a successful BookTokker？ Abby Parker， a 22-year-old from Southampton who posts as “abbysbooks”， has more than 430，000 followers and boasts 30.5 million “likes” on her account.

那么，如何才能做个成功的BookTok博主呢？来自南安普顿的阿比·帕克今年22岁，她的账号abbysbooks现已拥有超过43万粉丝，获赞数高达3050万。

“I think everyone finds their own niche7 on BookTok and then sticks with that as its what their followers know and love. Ive always tended to lean more towards the comedic side of videos and try my best to be relatable.”

帕克说：“我觉得每个人都要在BookTok中找准定位，并且坚持做下去，因为这是他们的粉丝熟知且喜闻乐见的内容。我在视频中一直偏重搞笑，尽我所能地与观众产生共鸣。”

Jack Edwards， 23， posts as “jackbenedwards” and boasts 244，000 followers， with 7.9 million likes. His day job is as a research assistant in non-fiction publishing， but his videos convey a wide range of literary enthusiasms. Why has his account been so successful？ “The content creation process is all about following trends and things that are buzzing in pop culture and trying to help people find a book that relates to that. What I do is try to look at what is trending and what everyone has created， and put a spin on8 it that relates back to books.”

杰克·爱德华兹今年23岁，他的账号jackbenedwards拥有24.4万粉丝，获赞数高达790万。虽然他的正职是非虚构类书籍出版业的研究助理，但从他的视频中不难看出，他对各种文学形式都怀有浓厚兴趣。他的账号为何能如此成功呢？“视频内容的创作过程就是紧跟流行文化走向、把握流行文化元素，尽力帮人们找到相关书籍。我所做的就是密切关注目前流行的是什么、大家都创作了什么，再结合书籍的内容进行解读。”

Theres more than one way to become a successful BookTokker， however， and Anex Wilson， a 22-year-old medical student at Imperial College London and fantasy fiction fanatic， does not bother about following trends. “I just talk about whatever Im reading at the moment. I dont have a plan or a list， its whatever Im in the mood to read at the time.” Nevertheless， his personal tastes have garnered9 his “FantasyAnex” channel nearly 200，000 followers and 3.3 million likes.

不過，要想成为一名成功的BookTok博主，方法不止一种。22岁的帝国理工学院医学生安尼克斯·威尔逊是奇幻小说的狂热粉丝。他不想费心劳神追赶潮流。他说：“我目前读的是什么，我就讲什么。我没有阅读计划，也没有阅读清单，全看自己一时兴起想读什么。”不过，他凭借不凡的个人品味，为自己的频道FantasyAnex赢得近20万粉丝和330万个赞。

Both Edwards and Wilson had previously had their own channels talking about books on YouTube， but “BookTube” has never taken off10 in anything like the same way. “There was that sense on YouTube that you have to show your perfect self and you have to have a perfect camera set-up， do multiple takes of the same thing， whereas on TikTok I stick to about a minute and it feels a lot more free-form，” says Wilson.

爱德华兹和威尔逊此前都在优兔开设了以读书为主题的个人频道，但BookTube却没能像在TikTok上那样一炮而红。威尔逊表示：“在优兔上必须展现完美自我，摄像头设置要毫无瑕疵，一个镜头须拍多个镜次。但在TikTok上只要坚持拍摄大概一分钟即可，感觉能更自由地创作。”

Edwards agrees. “TikTok feels much more organic11 and more off the cuff12， and you can be a creator without any technical skills. Sometimes its those spur-of-the-moment13 instant videos—I came up with the concept 10 seconds later Id made it—that end up going completely viral.”

对此，爱德华兹表示认同。“在TikTok上拍视频更能有感而发、即兴创作，不懂专业的拍摄技术也可以创作。有时正是一时兴起拍摄的“即兴视频”，就是那种我在拍完10秒钟后才想出主题的视频，最后爆红网络。”

And， yes， if you go viral， you can really have an effect on book sales. In 2019 the small independent crowdfunded publisher Unbound reissued an ingenious14 mystery novel written in the 1930s by Edward Powys Mathers. Its a high-concept15 puzzle of a book that consists of 100 pages printed in the wrong order， which the reader has to rearrange to solve the central murder mystery.

没错，如果能走红网络，那确实能影响图书销量。2019年，小型独立众筹出版平台Unbound重新出版了爱德华·波伊斯·马瑟斯的一本悬疑小说。这本成书于20世纪30年代的小说构思精妙，书中疑案重重，读来惊心动魄。小说共计100页，以乱序印刷，读者须重新排序以破解核心迷案。

In the autumn of 2021， as Unbound co-founder John Mitchinson recalls， he suddenly started to receive an unexplained flurry of orders for the book. “It was because of one TikTokker in San Francisco， Sarah Scannell， who happened to have come across a copy of the book. What she did was turn her bedroom into a murder room： she took the 100 pages and pasted them on her wall like a murder board16， with arrows and bits of string， and tried to solve the puzzle. It went on to get over 10 million views. I suppose it struck such a chord because it was such an imaginative way of interacting with a book.” Part of the videos success， says Mitchinson， is down to the fact that “it obviously wasnt part of a publisher-devised or endorsed campaign”.

据Unbound联合创始人约翰·米钦森回忆，2021年秋，他突然开始莫名其妙地收到大量订单。他表示：“这一切皆因一位旧金山的TikTok博主——萨拉·斯坎内尔。她偶然发现了这本书，回到家就将自己的卧室变成破案室。她将100张书页贴在墙上，用各种箭头符号和细线标注关系，就像一块案情分析板，试图以此解开谜团。她的视频播放量超过了1000万次。我认为这种和书籍互动的方式别出心裁，所以能引发广泛共鸣。”米钦森还称，视频走红的部分原因在于斯坎内尔的行为“显然不属于出版机构策划或赞助的宣传活动”。

“Part of what makes TikTok so fun for its users is also what makes it such a challenge for brands： it is a unique， unpredictable platform that celebrates content that is， above all， ‘hashtag authentic，” says Tr?m-Anh Doan， Head of Social Media at Bloomsbury. “Its an authenticity driven by Gen Z （and increasingly， millennials） that cant be replicated by brands.”

布卢姆斯伯里出版公司社交媒体负责人段簪英（音译）表示：“TikTok让用户如此乐在其中的部分原因，正是各个出版品牌面临的难题所在。这个平台独树一帜、不循常规，所推崇的内容必须首先保证‘话题标签的真实性。这种真实性由Z世代（以及越来越多的千禧一代）推动，这是出版品牌无法复刻的。”

So how can publishers actively harness the power of BookTok？ Being hands-off is the answer， says Doan， who adopts an “I dont really understand what youve said but go for it” approach to ideas from younger colleagues for BookTok videos based on micro-trends17.

那么，出版机构该如何积极利用BookTok的力量呢？段簪英表示只要大胆放手即可。年轻同事会参考微趋势，提出制作BookTok视频的奇思妙想。对此，段簪英的态度便是“虽然我不太懂你在说什么，但你大可去努力实现”。

The danger， of course， is that the people who love BookTok will get fed up with it if they start to detect the whiff of publishers standing in the background， influencing the influencers， however clearly they differentiate between sponsored and non-sponsored content. There are other problems with the platform too： yes， it gets young people reading， but its algorithms tend to push videos that respond to other popular videos， so that it all becomes very circular—or， as Wilson puts it， “everyone seems to be talking about the same 10 books. You have to make a conscious effort to find content about smaller books， more diverse authors.”

当然，BookTok的弊端在于，无论BookTok的粉丝能在多大程度上辨别出视频是否受到赞助，只要他们察觉到一丝出版机构在幕后指手画脚的迹象，便会心生厌倦。这个平台也面临其他问题：TikTok在推动年轻人阅读方面的确功不可没，但其算法机制往往会推送与其他热门视频相关的视频。如此便会造成循环现象，用威尔逊的话说就是，“似乎每个人都在谈论相同的10本书。若要找小众或者其他作者的书籍，还真得费一番心思。”

Might TikTok gain too powerful a stranglehold on peoples reading choices？ If its only a handful of books getting all the attention， and therefore the sales， this might be bad news for authors who arent lucky enough to have fans who are skilful at constructing videos.

那么，TikTok是否会对大众的阅读选择施加过于强大的束缚？倘若只有寥寥数本书集万千关注于一身，从而大卖特卖，那么这对有些作家来说可能是个坏消息，因为他们不够幸运，没有擅长制作视频的粉丝。

At the moment BookTok succeeds because the genuine enthusiasm of its young creators is so palpable.

目前，BookTok發展得可谓风生水起，年轻创作者们热情高昂，功不可没。

Still， at the moment they all seem happily in it for the long haul. Says Wilson： “As long as people are watching Ill keep going.”

此外，他们目前似乎都乐于长期活跃于BookTok。威尔逊表示：“只要还有人看，我就会一如既往做下去。”

（译者为“《英语世界》杯”翻译大赛获奖者；单位：江苏省无锡市玉祁高级中学）