The rise of performative reading

Next time you see someone poring over a highbrow novel on the train or posing with a philosophical tome on social media, you shouldn't automatically assume they are reading the book.

"Performative reading" is a trend that's trickled down from the celebrity world to everyday mortals, with some concluding there's more value in being seen to be reading an impressive title than in actually reading it.

'Trendy books'

It's known as "performative reading" as the 'reader' wants "everyone to know" they read, wrote Alaina Demopoulos in The Guardian. They're signalling they have the "taste and attention span" to "pick up a physical book" rather than "putting in AirPods".

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The phenomenon has its roots in 2021, when a "boom" in book clubs led by celebrities along with "BookTok", the section of TikTok dedicated to promoting and discussing commercial fiction, turned favoured books into a "trend-driven accessory", said Sarah Manavis in The New Statesman.

BookTok is "inherently performative", with "trendy books" going viral, but not because of the "quality of the literature" but because it suggests an "increasingly fashionable, pseudo-intellectual aesthetic". And when reading becomes a competition, with "countless users bragging" about having read more than 35 books in a single month, supposedly, quality takes a backseat to "demonstrating yourself to be a voracious 'reader'".

For some members of Gen Z, books have become "a symbol not of intelligence" but of "hotness", said Allegra Handelsman in The Times last summer, an "accessory" to be worn with "a good outfit, wedged in the bottom of a designer bag" or "pretentious tote". Performative reading is everywhere, from "tattooed creatives, smoking cigarettes while staring at Marcus Aurelius's 'Meditations' on a beach in Ibiza", to the single man reading, or "at least appearing to read", feminist literature "in the hope of pretty girls sliding into his DMs".

Finger-wagging

The "commodification of intellect" with books isn't new, said Manavis, "nor is social posturing" through books. But what is new is the "uniquely unapologetic" way social media "rubber-stamps" the idea of books as "an accessory, rather than an art". And there's a danger it could lead to publishers focusing their efforts on books that are "feed-friendly".

But the inconvenient truth is that the virality of literature has led to an uptick in book sales, said Chloe Mac Donnell in The Guardian last year: in 2023, 669 million physical books were sold, the highest overall level ever recorded, with Gen Z a big driver of those sales, along with an increase of visits to UK libraries.

One of life's "simplest pleasures" remains "falling into a story" and "tuning the world out", without "worrying about what someone’s going to think of you", said Demopoulos. Enjoy the story. Many people are still doing exactly that, so rather than "finger-wagging" about performative reading, next time you see someone with a book at a bar, coffee shop or the park, maybe leave them alone because "this is not for you", they're just "enjoying the vibes".