Everyone tells authors to “use BookTok hashtags”. Nobody tells them which ones carry anything. We scan 564 book hashtags and record, for each one, how many videos we read and how many plays those videos carried — so you can see reach and crowding as measured numbers instead of folklore. Every figure below is a snapshot with its own scan date.
The forty hashtags whose scanned videos carried the most plays each. Counted from the scan dates shown.
| Hashtag | Videos scanned | Plays in those videos | Plays per video | Reach vs median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #bridgerton Historical — Regency | 62 | 1.23B | 19,821,677 | High reach scanned 2026-08-18 |
| #hopewinchesterhistoricals | 19 | 246.4M | 12,967,826 | High reach scanned 2026-08-22 |
| #elsiequinn | 54 | 598.5M | 11,083,101 | High reach scanned 2026-08-18 |
| #polyamoryromance Contemporary — Polyamory / Why Choose | 77 | 722.5M | 9,382,967 | High reach scanned 2026-08-17 |
| #catherinekennedy | 80 | 716.4M | 8,954,966 | High reach scanned 2026-08-18 |
| #enemiestoloverstiktok Contemporary — Enemies to Lovers | 76 | 630.6M | 8,297,771 | High reach scanned 2026-08-16 |
| #militarythriller Military Thrillers | 76 | 581.9M | 7,656,639 | High reach scanned 2026-08-16 |
| #coldwaterbay | 79 | 546.4M | 6,916,631 | High reach scanned 2026-08-21 |
| #catmystery Cozy Animal Mystery | 62 | 384.5M | 6,202,273 | High reach scanned 2026-08-20 |
| #horrortok Folk Horror | 55 | 310.3M | 5,642,278 | High reach scanned 2026-08-16 |
| #ownvoices Hispanic & Latino Romance | 61 | 243.2M | 3,986,922 | High reach scanned 2026-08-17 |
| #culinarycozy Cozy — Culinary Mystery | 59 | 168.8M | 2,860,909 | High reach scanned 2026-08-17 |
| #horrorcomedy Horror Comedy | 60 | 164.5M | 2,741,365 | High reach scanned 2026-08-17 |
| #horrorrecommendations Horror Fiction | 61 | 145.2M | 2,381,012 | High reach scanned 2026-08-21 |
| #darkfantasy Dark Fantasy Horror | 61 | 142.1M | 2,329,240 | High reach scanned 2026-08-17 |
| #historicalmystery Historical Mystery | 61 | 122.3M | 2,004,370 | High reach scanned 2026-08-16 |
| #funnyromance Romantic Comedy | 58 | 104.0M | 1,792,459 | High reach scanned 2026-08-17 |
| #inspirationalromance Amish & Mennonite Romance | 60 | 106.2M | 1,769,370 | High reach scanned 2026-08-16 |
| #booktokmademebuyit Romance Adaptations | 56 | 93.5M | 1,668,949 | High reach scanned 2026-08-16 |
| #romcom Romantic Comedy | 60 | 93.2M | 1,552,697 | High reach scanned 2026-08-17 |
| #scarybooks Horror Fiction | 62 | 92.6M | 1,492,974 | High reach scanned 2026-08-16 |
| #friendstolovers Contemporary — Friends to Lovers | 59 | 82.8M | 1,403,396 | High reach scanned 2026-08-17 |
| #bluecollarking | 59 | 81.7M | 1,384,208 | High reach scanned 2026-08-18 |
| #adventurefantasy Action & Adventure Fantasy | 62 | 81.0M | 1,306,675 | High reach scanned 2026-08-17 |
| #supernaturalhorror Occult & Supernatural Horror | 60 | 75.8M | 1,262,641 | High reach scanned 2026-08-17 |
| #wholesomeromance Clean & Wholesome | 59 | 72.9M | 1,235,511 | High reach scanned 2026-08-18 |
| #bookok 45-Minute Romance Short Reads | 62 | 76.3M | 1,231,410 | High reach scanned 2026-08-20 |
| #cottagecore Cozy Fantasy | 62 | 76.1M | 1,228,172 | High reach scanned 2026-08-17 |
| #manhattanmillionaires | 61 | 74.0M | 1,213,889 | High reach scanned 2026-08-20 |
| #fantasytok Fantasy | 61 | 73.5M | 1,204,994 | High reach scanned 2026-08-21 |
| #psychthriller Domestic Thrillers | 61 | 72.3M | 1,184,611 | High reach scanned 2026-08-16 |
| #courtroomdrama Legal Thrillers | 60 | 70.3M | 1,170,852 | High reach scanned 2026-08-17 |
| #thesavagecourt | 57 | 66.4M | 1,165,078 | High reach scanned 2026-08-20 |
| #monsterhorror Monsters & Creatures Horror | 62 | 71.8M | 1,158,700 | High reach scanned 2026-08-17 |
| #conspiracythriller Conspiracy Thrillers | 60 | 67.5M | 1,125,773 | High reach scanned 2026-08-17 |
| #sierrapine | 62 | 69.3M | 1,117,795 | High reach scanned 2026-08-22 |
| #sciencefiction Science Fiction | 61 | 67.5M | 1,106,553 | High reach scanned 2026-08-22 |
| #culinarymystery Cozy Mystery | 60 | 62.6M | 1,043,388 | Above median scanned 2026-08-20 |
| #psychologicalthriller Psychological & Domestic Thrillers | 62 | 63.0M | 1,015,730 | Above median scanned 2026-08-18 |
| #nonestated | 60 | 60.6M | 1,009,436 | Above median scanned 2026-08-22 |
40 lanes carry at least 3 hashtags of their own, which is the floor for giving a lane its own page — below that there is nothing on it you would not already have from the general list above. The general hashtags apply to every lane.
Every row is a dated snapshot, not a live counter and not a lifetime total. For each hashtag we read a sample of its videos on the date shown and counted the plays those videos carried. “Plays per video” is that total divided by that sample. TikTok counters move by the hour; a figure scanned in May is a May figure and is labelled as one.
Reach vs median compares a hashtag’s plays per video against the median across all 564 hashtags we track, which is 351,631 plays per video. Three times the median or better is called high reach; at or above the median, above median; below it, below median. That is the whole rule.
Use it the way it is built: a hashtag with high plays per video and few videos is reach you can still get into; high plays and very many videos is a hashtag you will be shouting under. It is a measurement, not a promise — nothing here predicts what your video will do.
4,454 scans across 564 hashtags and 137 subgenre lanes, first scan 2026-05-11, most recent 2026-08-22. The same figures are available as JSON with ?format=json.
Free to embed anywhere. The widget keeps a visible “Data: Tropesmith” credit link back to tropesmith.com — that link is the licence, and it is rendered into the payload server-side so it cannot be shipped without it.
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