In praise of ‘performative reading’

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

The New Yorker carried an interesting piece on its website Dec. 2 titled “Now Watch Me Read,” in which Brady Brickner-Wood explores the idea of “performative reading.” That is, the vibes — real or perceived — that are put off by people who show up in a public place like a bar or coffee shop, crack open a hefty tome and start flipping the pages.

Apparently, this activity unsettles a lot of people, who feel like anyone who dares consume a physical book outside their private space is somehow showing off, lamely attempting to attract a mate or otherwise insulting everyone else by not scrolling through their phone like everyone else. 

Of course, no one can know the motivations for someone bringing a book to the bar, but that doesn’t matter. According to Brickner-Wood, the root reaction among the anti-performative readers is that performative readers are “pretentious” in a variety of ways and, therefore, commit the sin of inauthenticity. Who do they think they are, the critics argue, to think they’re impressing anyone by ruminating over Moby Dick instead of binging on TikTok or Instagram?

More dire, the article considers that the repulsion felt by many toward public book-readers stems from the “deprioritization of the written word.”

With so many forms of media tailored for rapid, passive consumption — or, in the case of generative AI, rapid, passive creation — what’s the point of settling for a singular narrative that may require hours, days or even weeks of sustained concentration?

Even more depressing, Brickner-Wood writes: 

“Performative reading has emerged as a suspicious activity not because reading books is suspect but because being beheld reading a book is understood to be yet another way for one to market himself, to portray to the world that he is indeed deeper and more expansive than his craven need for attention — demonstrated by reading a difficult book in public — suggests.”

That observation implies people have become so trained to the algorithmic ebb and flow of how information and personalities are presented via a screen that any action (even in the real world) is clocked as if it’s being curated for viral online consumption. Everything is a commercial, including reading a book.

“When did life become a land mine of possible performative gestures?” Brickner-Wood writes, later adding, “If our culture of liberal individualism demands anything of us, it is to be, above all else, authentic. To be seen as a poseur or a phony — a person who affects rather than is — violates some nebulous code of acceptable self-cultivation.”

We must “keep it real” at all times and at all costs, whatever that means.

It’s a good read, but a question that gets lost along the way and deserves asking is why reading a book, specifically, elicits such a negative response as somehow affected or “phony.” It’s not just the “deprioritization of the written word” in a galaxy of digital “content,” nor is it the hair-raising stats that show Americans are not just becoming less literate but less capable or willing to understand what they can or wish to read. 

The missing component to the “performative reading” backlash is guilt.

People know that it’s better for their mind, body and spirit to read a book than it is to spend between seven and 11 hours or more per day consuming whatever is on the nearest screen (which are the numbers most sources cite for the average American — and, let’s admit, we’re all “the average American”). 

It’s the same as running, biking, swimming, taking a walk or simply “touching grass.” It’s the same as eating healthy or doing yoga, meditating or playing an instrument, painting or making anything with your hands. 

Everyone, whether they’re conscious of it or not, knows all those things are healthy; and, when we see someone else doing them while we’re not, it’s a common reaction to despise them because we know we should be doing those things, too.

There’s guilt in that reaction, but also some shame spiced with jealousy.

Sure, there’s a flex inherent in whipping out War and Peace on a crowded plane when everyone else is putting their brains on autopilot with whatever device they have at hand, but so what? Better to performatively read than underperformatively exist. Really, in the end, which of those “performances” is more authentic anyway?