This week was somewhat slower for research. I did start writing a mission statement for my thesis. I’m not sure if it’ll go in the final draft, but keeping strict goals in mind prevents me from adding my own biases and assumptions about BookTok and the texts I’m reading in it. My goal is to identify patterns in tropes, explain how the relate to escapist fantasies, and create a discussion about the issues with publishers rather than the authors or the consumers. It’s important to make that distinction because I’m anti-censorship, so I don’t find anything wrong in creating or reading fiction solely for pleasure.

For my research, I found a website called booktoktrends.com. It tracks trending accounts and posts on TikTok in real time. This makes collecting data and finding books to read so much simpler. My own algorithm has bias for my preferences, but this site removes that obstacle. Some of the current trending trope tags as of today are #darkromance, #billionareromance, #marriageofconvinience, and #mafiaromance, which is interesting, because I nothing about this site or my personal account is looking for a very specific genre of books. Romance just happens to appear consistently.

This was the busiest September of my academic career and I still feel as if I didn’t do enough. But for this week, I sat down and compiled what I could find through the library on the topic of escapism. I was pleasantly surprised to see there was more than I expected. The vast majority of research on the subject is in relation to people who play video games. The term “hikikomori” even popped up, which I am surprised to see in an academic context. It refers to people who severely self-isolate and don’t do any kind of work or studying, originating in Japan because of large number of individuals who’d given up on forming real life connections.

I didn’t find anything in relation to bookworms about escapism. There are some few and far between articles about fandom spaces, but I don’t think I want to cover that aspect in my research. Fandom is a form of community regardless of its downsides. BookTok isn’t as deeply devoted to the book series to create fandom spaces (though there are some exceptions, like Sarah J Mass’ series). I did find one article about brainrot induced by AI micro-dramas, which I think is something I’d like to link to my research into popular tropes. I also found an article about the readership base of webnovel fans, which is a reader base that also prefers specific tropes like characters “leveling-up” their powers or traveling back in time to fix mistakes. I think BookTok belongs with this highly sought after type of trope-ism.

Also, I made a mind map like I promised in last week’s blog. I’m not sure it helped me narrow down my thesis, but at least I can use it to explain where my thinking is. We’re trying to get to publishing industry bias from all of these concepts.

Thankfully I haven’t changed the direction I was planning on going in Spring so I don’t have to edit much within my proposal. I spent this week reading some of Orwell’s essays, since I have Orwellian ideas in mind for the criticism I’m trying to make. The first work I read was called ‘Facism and Democracy.’ It required a lot of searches since I’m not familiar with British history like I am with American. There are comparisons to be drawn with England in 1944 and the U.S in modern day, but I’m specifically focusing on the literary, so I’m not sure that this piece is what I’m looking for.

My second reading was Politics Vs. Literature: An examination of Gulliver’s Travels. An important novel, one that I didn’t enjoy reading because the groups being satirized went over my head. I think that this article focusing so specifically on one piece of fiction makes it less than helpful to me, since I’m looking for something that pairs with Orwell’s 1984. I think I’d also like to focus on history that was more recent, reflecting Orwell’s observations in the 40’s and how that mirrors what we’re viewing in 2026.

The third essay I read was Politics and the English Language, and wouldn’t you know it, third time really is the charm. So much of what he says about how language is shaped and how authors express meaning ties into the contemporary slop that I’ve been reading. He takes issue with English prose by claiming,”[The author] is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not.” This is important to my work because the authors of these popular novels do not realize how their works contribute to degradation of race, gender, and literacy in a political climate where education on those topics is actively being suppressed.