TikTok’s ‘turn to page 30 challenge’ explained: Why BookTok is obsessed

The ‘turn to page 30 challenge’ has taken over TikTok. Here’s why BookTok is totally obsessed.

TikTok trends rise and fall on the whims of rabid scrollers and live and die by their entertainment value. Some are longlived and varied like the Dark Fantasy craze still sweeping the app, others fade into obscurity as quickly as they arrive like NPC livestreaming.

Whether the ‘turn to page 30 challenge’ currently gripping TikTokers is the former or the latter remains to be seen but it is everywhere right now, particularly amongst BookTok which is finally getting a bit of spotlight.

So, what is TikTok’s ‘turn to page 30 challenge’? And why is it perfect for BookTok?

What is BookTok?

In case the name didn’t give it away, BookTok is a community on TikTok that creates and consumes content focusing on a love of reading and collecting books. It is massively popular as well with the BookTok hashtag raking in hundreds of billions of views since its inception.

Of course, with the various genres enjoyed by TokTokers, BookTok can be divided into categories based on preferences. There’s fantasy BookTok, sci-fi BookTok, self-help BookTok, and what we’re calling fairy smut BookTok.

It’s not always fairies but they seem to be a popular focus of the memes and our feed is crawling with it. Anyway, the point is there are a lot of BookTokers and if you couldn’t already tell, something called the ‘turn to page 30 challenge’ was always likely to blow up in that online community.

What is the ‘turn to page 30 challenge’?

The ‘turn to page 30’ challenge involves grabbing your closest book, turning to page 30, and revealing its first sentence. According to legend, or the internet anyway, that sentence is supposed to indicate the state of your love life.

Interestingly, this trend has been around for a while and didn’t even originate on TikTok. The earliest example we can find came from a Reddit post in 2021.

Still, BookTok has grabbed ahold of the ‘turn to page 30 challenge’ with both hands and there are few people better to take part. Given the piles of books at their disposal, their answers can vary from romantic and poignant to hopelessly depressing, or outright nonsense, as it is in most cases.

Regardless of whether the words make sense or not, there’s still plenty of laughs to be had. You can check out some examples of the ‘turn to page 30 challenge’ below.

That’s the ‘turn to page 30 challenge’ in a nutshell. Now that you’ve seen the TikTok trend in action, you can try it for yourself.