This article explores the transformation of BookTok from an authentic digital reading community into a performance-driven and algorithmically regulated cultural space, through the theoretical lens of behavioural anthropology. Using a qualitative digital ethnographic methodology, the study analyzes a corpus of 1,500 TikTok posts collected over a five-month period under prominent BookTok-related hashtags. The analysis focuses on patterns of self-presentation, engagement solicitation, and symbolic participation, identifying recurrent behavioural rituals such as follow-for-follow exchanges, performative reader identity, engagement-bait strategies, and content homogenization. The findings indicate a clear shift from reading as a cognitive, interpretive, and dialogical activity toward reading as symbolic performance oriented toward visibility and algorithmic validation. In this context, BookTok functions less as a community of practice and more as a field of digital performance structured by metrics, trends, and affective display.
The article further discusses the broader implications of these transformations for digital culture, literacy practices, and contemporary cultural production. By positioning BookTok as a relevant anthropological field site, the study contributes to critical debates on digital rituals, platform governance, and the behavioural reconfiguration of cultural communities in online environments. Full text …