https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/07/report-finds-youtube-more-popular-than-tiktok-for-young-book-buyers
Despite recent stories about the popularity of BookTok, Neilsen’s survey found more of those aged between 14-25 searched YouTube for new reads
There have been a lot of articles in press about TikTok being responsible for the rise of interest in literature by young people, as the article also mentions.
At the end, it probably was either a planted story, or memetic evolution triggered by one journalist noticing something in their environment that wasn't a general trend.
🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles: ::: spoiler Click here to see the summary YouTube trumps TikTok as the most popular online platform for young people to discover new books, according to a report by Nielsen BookData.
Nielsen, which provides data for the Bookseller’s UK Bestsellers chart, conducted a survey in November 2022 that revealed 34% of people aged between 14 and 25 find new reads using the video platform YouTube.
This data comes after reports that “BookTok” – the corner of TikTok in which creators share book recommendations – is driving sales of particular authors and genres that are popular on the platform.
Its YouTube counterpart, BookTube, similarly features videos of users discussing their favourite titles and “hauls” of books they have recently bought.
“With such high general usage it’s not surprising that they would be discovering books” through the site, said Jackie Swope at Nielsen BookData.
Leading factors that participants said would encourage reading were more interesting books (34%), a reading routine (30%) and restricting time on social media (26%), while the main factors influencing the purchase of a book were the description (46%), if they had enjoyed the author or series before (35%) and the cover design (31%). :::
Youtube channels offer long form discussions, analysis and writing advice. Tiktok isnt as compatible with that longer format maybe?