Gatekeeping in the Age of Virality

The internet is a riveting place, full of all sorts of people. Earlier this week, I was doom-scrolling TikTok when I came across a woman whose video stopped me mid-swipe. In the thumbnail, she looked visibly upset. I braced myself for another weird, vapid TikTok rant. What followed, however, was something much more frustrating.
Let me give you some backstory.
Evidently, an Australian man joined BookTok and quickly gained a following. Not long after, he was offered a two-book deal with Atria Books.
Seems pretty straightforward, right? Well, the first issue people latched onto was the fact that he hadn’t completed a manuscript… not even one. He was signed purely based on the concept of his story, and, as some have pointed out, possibly boosted by his fame as a former rugby player and contestant on The Bachelor Australia. The second, and arguably bigger, point of contention for many was the fact that he is a white man.

The video I initially watched focused heavily on his race and gender. So let’s talk about those in the context of the writing world. Currently, 60–65% of traditionally published authors are women, 30–35% are men, and fewer than 5% identify otherwise. That suggests women hold a significant share of the industry.
Now, let’s look at race and nationality. While it’s true that 75–80% of traditionally published authors are white, that figure carries different weight when you consider that Australia doesn’t even rank among the top seven countries dominating the global publishing market. The lowest-ranking among those, Germany, accounts for just about 7% of published authors.
So the fact that this white, Australian man, who has spoken openly about his lifelong love of reading, is being torn apart across the internet strikes me as somewhat hypocritical.
Why do I feel the need to write about this?
Because under a separate video, one that meticulously dismantled this guy’s credibility, I saw two comments that genuinely made me sick. One said that it didn’t matter whether he could write, because he’d probably just hire a woman of color as a ghostwriter. Another replied, “Nah, he’ll just use AI… it’s easier that way.”
As a semi-avid reader (thank you, work, for constantly stealing my attention), I find it appalling that we’re so quick to dismiss a potentially good story based solely on the author’s nationality, race, or gender. If the roles were reversed, we’d hear loud accusations of racism, bigotry, and ignorance.
I, for one, plan to withhold judgment until I’ve read what he writes… or at the very least, until I know what the story is about.
To me... a story is a story.​