Hey BookTok, Maybe Calm Down and Not Harass Teenage Boys Because You Like Dark Romance?

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Books | November 28, 2023 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Books | November 28, 2023 |

Oh, BookTok. You’re a riddle wrapped in an enigma that perplexes and exhausts me. Literary lovers on TikTok have proven themselves to be a publishing force to be reckoned with. Fans have managed to use their might to make multiple books massive bestsellers through word-of-Tok alone, and elevated many self-published titles to the traditional leagues. At its best, BookTok, which is a disparately connected series of communities rather than a monolith, can be a great place to bond over the beauty of the written word. At other times, as with all online fandoms, it can be a total mess.

We covered this before when we wrote about the Seattle Kraken drama, wherein an ice hockey player and his wife faced abuse from BookTok after pushing back against the intense fans who used him as inspiration for their romance novels. That couple was attacked mercilessly for daring to call out what they felt was an unacceptable and clear example of sexual harassment, and way too many BookTok users who were literal adults decided to respond by saying they asked for it. The concept of boundaries and online fandom are not always sympatico, and we got a new example of that this past week. Only this time? It involves a 16-year-old boy.

Before we get into that mess, we need to discuss dark romance. One of the most popular and vocal subsets of BookTok is dedicated to the subgenre that is loosely defined as dark romance. These books tend to be extremely bleak, heavy on kink, and dedicated to pushing boundaries of desire. If you’ve ever seen a mafia romance where the ‘hero’ is basically a felon with a good jawline, that’s dark romance. It’s not uncommon to see these books come with trigger warnings that include kidnapping, dubious consent, and hardcore BDSM. None of this is necessarily new to romance — the early examples of the modern genre in the ’70s and ’80s bodice rippers were big on those ultra-alpha heroes who indulged in ‘non-consensual sex’ (i.e. rape). It’s just become more evidently commodified and widely discussed. It’s not really my thing, but I get it.

Biker romances are a big part of this genre. You may have seen this in our previous romance-related post where we detailed a dark romance author who wrote a book with a literal Klansman as the hero. That was part of a series about bikers. It’s a morally dubious world enshrined in myth with codes and leather, so of course, it’s a thing for some romance lovers. We all watched Charlie Hunnam in Sons of Anarchy. Not my kink, but you enjoy yourselves. This has led to a decent-sized crossover between BookTok and BikerTok, with many men enjoying the attention and pandering to it. The line is quickly crossed, however, when you latch onto a teenage boy with a motorcycle and badger him into reading books about rape and kidnapping to satisfy your lust.

jesze.bee is a 16-year-old on TikTok whose videos are mostly dedicated to his motorcycle. He wears a helmet in all his TikToks to obscure his identity and makes a lot of content about his bike. Again, he’s 16. We know this because it’s in his bio. After posting a video of himself with The Hunger Games books, showing them as something he likes to read, some BookTokers found him and latched onto him hard. His TikToks went up in viewership numbers tenfold and the comments sections were full of women who were admittedly old enough to be his mother making some deeply inappropriate comments. One video shows him reacting to the comment ‘BookTok, not this one. Keep him innocent!’ with the header ‘I’m so confused.’ Some comments were leering and clearly sexualized in tone. Others started recommending he read dark romances rather than YA. One commonly recommended book was Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton, a wildly popular dark romance that became a hit via BookTok. This novel contains content warnings for graphic violence, rape, child trafficking, and degradation. The author herself has noted repeatedly that the book is not for children.

@jesze.bee Replying to @charz What is this "booktok"? #fyp #motorcycle #biketok #bikelife #biker #booktok #books ♬ original sound - xylo

@jesze.bee Replying to @blue someone please explain 😂 #fyp #motorcycle #biketok #biker #booktok #books @Jesze.Bee ♬ Originalton - ᥫ᭡

@jesze.bee Replying to @Brook 📚 I'm honestly still confused how this happened😂 #fyp #motorcycle #biketok #booktok #biker ♬ original sound - 𝓣𝓻𝔁𝓹𝔃

*sigh*

Fortunately, a lot of people pushed back against these commenters, calling out their inappropriate behaviour towards a literal minor. There is another strain of faux-mama bear ‘oh, we will protect you, our little golden retriever’ defences that I’m not exactly eager to support either. Just because you’re not sexualizing this kid, that doesn’t mean trying to shoehorn yourself into his online life as an adult figure is more justifiable.

@thewyvernsbookshelf I'm embarrassed for them. #booktok #biketok #hauntingadeline ♬ Paint It Black - Wednesday Addams

@itsmjwatson “Spicy” booktok keep your fcking hands off minors. All these young teens getting into reading deserve a community without you being creepy and making fun of them for not reading “spice”. Grown ass adults keep yourselves in check #booktok ♬ Nothing s new by Rio Romeo - 🐙𝐈ѕa★

What this incident has further proven is how the malleability of online boundaries and wilful misunderstanding of consent can lead to a whole lot of mess. We saw this with the Seattle Kraken drama, where a bunch of tax-paying adults thought it was okay to barrage a man with sexual demands on- and offline because he was famous and it was apparently a job requirement, even when he repeatedly said he didn’t like it. There is certainly a prevailing attitude in fandoms of all kinds that you can do or say whatever you want on the internet, even if it’s directly towards your fan interest, because it’s not ‘real life.’ The BookTok issue also drives home the ways that many women replicate the worst excesses of patriarchal cruelty and believe it’s subversive because the genders have been swapped. There’s no feminist liberation in making men or boys feel unsafe with your drooling harassment.

I’ve seen some people blame the entire concept of dark romance for this and I don’t think that’s fair. It’s not an entire genre’s responsibility to make people behave. I don’t particularly like dark romance because I think a lot of it relies too much on garden-variety misogyny and rape culture in the name of kink but lacks the finesse and nuance to make it work. For the people who appreciate these worlds, however, there’s clearly something valuable to get from it. The vast majority of these readers are adults who enjoy a fantasy then move on with their lives. The women who can’t control themselves and use their hobbies to excuse it are absolute losers. There’s really no excuse for making a 16-year-old your dark romance hero. Perhaps some of these people can take some time away from TikTok and do the work to understand how consent works in the real world.