Is TikTok a Friend to the Literary World?TikTok是文學(xué)之友嗎？

杰克·克里奇　陳康/譯

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會(huì)成為當(dāng)代最具文化影響力的平臺(tái)嗎？這個(gè)主打短視頻的平臺(tái)看似與高雅文化并無(wú)太多共同之處，但許多大型藝術(shù)機(jī)構(gòu)現(xiàn)在卻爭(zhēng)先恐后地?cái)D進(jìn)TikTok的大門。

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

BookTok是TikTok平臺(tái)上的頂流社群之一，其影響力自然不同凡響。

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

英國(guó)出版商協(xié)會(huì)首席執(zhí)行官丹·康韋表示：“TikTok近來(lái)對(duì)圖書銷量起到了舉足輕重的作用。”

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.

他所說(shuō)的圖書都是出版了一陣子的，已不再靠出版社推廣，也不再是傳統(tǒng)媒體營(yíng)銷的焦點(diǎn)。然而，在BookTok博主的熱切追捧下，這些書一躍成為暢銷書。

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.

在許多讀書類短視頻里，博主對(duì)著鏡頭接連舉起一本本書，并配上文字說(shuō)明。TikTok視頻的時(shí)長(zhǎng)限制最初為15秒，即便現(xiàn)已逐步增至整整10分鐘，但簡(jiǎn)潔依舊是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并不總是能為用戶提供入木三分的文學(xué)作品讀后感，社群內(nèi)也必定是一派朝氣蓬勃的景象。成功的BookTok博主或許得博覽群書、苦心鉆研，才能源源不斷地給觀眾呈現(xiàn)新內(nèi)容。他們活力四射、熱情洋溢。

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 “l(fā)ikes” on her account.

那么，如何才能做個(gè)成功的BookTok博主呢？來(lái)自南安普頓的阿比·帕克今年22歲，她的賬號(hào)abbysbooks現(xiàn)已擁有超過43萬(wàn)粉絲，獲贊數(shù)高達(dá)3050萬(wàn)。

“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.”

帕克說(shuō)：“我覺得每個(gè)人都要在BookTok中找準(zhǔn)定位，并且堅(jiān)持做下去，因?yàn)檫@是他們的粉絲熟知且喜聞樂見的內(nèi)容。我在視頻中一直偏重搞笑，盡我所能地與觀眾產(chǎn)生共鳴。”

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·愛德華茲今年23歲，他的賬號(hào)jackbenedwards擁有24.4萬(wàn)粉絲，獲贊數(shù)高達(dá)790萬(wàn)。雖然他的正職是非虛構(gòu)類書籍出版業(yè)的研究助理，但從他的視頻中不難看出，他對(duì)各種文學(xué)形式都懷有濃厚興趣。他的賬號(hào)為何能如此成功呢？“視頻內(nèi)容的創(chuàng)作過程就是緊跟流行文化走向、把握流行文化元素，盡力幫人們找到相關(guān)書籍。我所做的就是密切關(guān)注目前流行的是什么、大家都創(chuàng)作了什么，再結(jié)合書籍的內(nèi)容進(jìn)行解讀。”

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，要想成為一名成功的BookTok博主，方法不止一種。22歲的帝國(guó)理工學(xué)院醫(yī)學(xué)生安尼克斯·威爾遜是奇幻小說(shuō)的狂熱粉絲。他不想費(fèi)心勞神追趕潮流。他說(shuō)：“我目前讀的是什么，我就講什么。我沒有閱讀計(jì)劃，也沒有閱讀清單，全看自己一時(shí)興起想讀什么。”不過，他憑借不凡的個(gè)人品味，為自己的頻道FantasyAnex贏得近20萬(wàn)粉絲和330萬(wàn)個(gè)贊。

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.

愛德華茲和威爾遜此前都在優(yōu)兔開設(shè)了以讀書為主題的個(gè)人頻道，但BookTube卻沒能像在TikTok上那樣一炮而紅。威爾遜表示：“在優(yōu)兔上必須展現(xiàn)完美自我，攝像頭設(shè)置要毫無(wú)瑕疵，一個(gè)鏡頭須拍多個(gè)鏡次。但在TikTok上只要堅(jiān)持拍攝大概一分鐘即可，感覺能更自由地創(chuàng)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.”

對(duì)此，愛德華茲表示認(rèn)同。“在TikTok上拍視頻更能有感而發(fā)、即興創(chuàng)作，不懂專業(yè)的拍攝技術(shù)也可以創(chuàng)作。有時(shí)正是一時(shí)興起拍攝的“即興視頻”，就是那種我在拍完10秒鐘后才想出主題的視頻，最后爆紅網(wǎng)絡(luò)。”

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.

沒錯(cuò)，如果能走紅網(wǎng)絡(luò)，那確實(shí)能影響圖書銷量。2019年，小型獨(dú)立眾籌出版平臺(tái)Unbound重新出版了愛德華·波伊斯·馬瑟斯的一本懸疑小說(shuō)。這本成書于20世紀(jì)30年代的小說(shuō)構(gòu)思精妙，書中疑案重重，讀來(lái)驚心動(dòng)魄。小說(shuō)共計(jì)100頁(yè)，以亂序印刷，讀者須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”.

據(jù)Unbound聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人約翰·米欽森回憶，2021年秋，他突然開始莫名其妙地收到大量訂單。他表示：“這一切皆因一位舊金山的TikTok博主——薩拉·斯坎內(nèi)爾。她偶然發(fā)現(xiàn)了這本書，回到家就將自己的臥室變成破案室。她將100張書頁(yè)貼在墻上，用各種箭頭符號(hào)和細(xì)線標(biāo)注關(guān)系，就像一塊案情分析板，試圖以此解開謎團(tuán)。她的視頻播放量超過了1000萬(wàn)次。我認(rèn)為這種和書籍互動(dòng)的方式別出心裁，所以能引發(fā)廣泛共鳴。”米欽森還稱，視頻走紅的部分原因在于斯坎內(nèi)爾的行為“顯然不屬于出版機(jī)構(gòu)策劃或贊助的宣傳活動(dòng)”。

“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.”

布盧姆斯伯里出版公司社交媒體負(fù)責(zé)人段簪英（音譯）表示：“TikTok讓用戶如此樂在其中的部分原因，正是各個(gè)出版品牌面臨的難題所在。這個(gè)平臺(tái)獨(dú)樹一幟、不循常規(guī)，所推崇的內(nèi)容必須首先保證‘話題標(biāo)簽的真實(shí)性。這種真實(shí)性由Z世代（以及越來(lái)越多的千禧一代）推動(dòng)，這是出版品牌無(wú)法復(fù)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，出版機(jī)構(gòu)該如何積極利用BookTok的力量呢？段簪英表示只要大膽放手即可。年輕同事會(huì)參考微趨勢(shì)，提出制作BookTok視頻的奇思妙想。對(duì)此，段簪英的態(tài)度便是“雖然我不太懂你在說(shuō)什么，但你大可去努力實(shí)現(xiàn)”。

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.”

當(dāng)然，BookTok的弊端在于，無(wú)論BookTok的粉絲能在多大程度上辨別出視頻是否受到贊助，只要他們察覺到一絲出版機(jī)構(gòu)在幕后指手畫腳的跡象，便會(huì)心生厭倦。這個(gè)平臺(tái)也面臨其他問題：TikTok在推動(dòng)年輕人閱讀方面的確功不可沒，但其算法機(jī)制往往會(huì)推送與其他熱門視頻相關(guān)的視頻。如此便會(huì)造成循環(huán)現(xiàn)象，用威爾遜的話說(shuō)就是，“似乎每個(gè)人都在談?wù)撓嗤?0本書。若要找小眾或者其他作者的書籍，還真得費(fèi)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是否會(huì)對(duì)大眾的閱讀選擇施加過于強(qiáng)大的束縛？倘若只有寥寥數(shù)本書集萬(wàn)千關(guān)注于一身，從而大賣特賣，那么這對(duì)有些作家來(lái)說(shuō)可能是個(gè)壞消息，因?yàn)樗麄儾粔蛐疫\(yùn)，沒有擅長(zhǎng)制作視頻的粉絲。

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

目前，BookTok發(fā)展得可謂風(fēng)生水起，年輕創(chuàng)作者們熱情高昂，功不可沒。

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，他們目前似乎都樂于長(zhǎng)期活躍于BookTok。威爾遜表示：“只要還有人看，我就會(huì)一如既往做下去。”

（譯者為“《英語(yǔ)世界》杯”翻譯大賽獲獎(jiǎng)?wù)撸粏挝唬航K省無(wú)錫市玉祁高級(jí)中學(xué)）