Reading was on the rise, but TikTok has now branded the act of flipping through a book in public as "performative". But if posting about reading inspires more young people to pick up a book, it can't be a bad thing, writes Herald columnist Marissa MacWhirter.
A few weeks ago, I found myself in the throes of a late summer melancholy spiral. To distract from my own thoughts, I trotted off to the bookshop for a little treat, and masochist that I am, decided now was the perfect time to finally read Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life.
The novel was released 10 years ago but, thanks to social media and celebrity endorsement, its popularity is enduring. I will spare you the details, but the cult appeal of the 720-page tome is rooted in its brutal and unflinching “trauma porn” plot and prose. Pop star Dua Lipa is a superfan. Actor Matt Bomer voices the new audiobook. Dior featured the novel in its Book Tote Club.
Before embarking on the journey, I snap a picture and post it on my Instagram story. “Wish me luck!”
Now, with a hundred pages to go, microtears in my elbows from holding its weight above my head nearly every night, and disturbing flashbacks to some of its more harrowing scenes, I feel duped. I thought everyone had suffered through this book, but now I look around suspiciously and wonder if it was all performative. After the tears I have shed over this torturous page-turner, I feel utterly betrayed.
The concept of “performative reading” has been on the rise since 2021. Fuelled by TikTok, the concept is that the twenty-something sitting at a café sipping a matcha and flicking through a copy of The Bell Jar isn’t actually engaging with the book. They just want to be seen reading. The book is merely a prop that signals to passersby that the person behind it is cool and intellectual. Gen Z are buying books to post a photo or video of it without actually finishing the book or reading it critically, is the argument.
The choice of book is key to the performative aesthetic. David Foster Wallace’s postmodern encyclopaedic novel Infinite Jest or anything by Joan Didion is a good start. There was a rumour going around in 2022 that celebrities were hiring a mystery book stylist to source paperbacks like handbags so they could be photographed with one as if it were the latest accessory or status symbol. An iconic snap of Gigi Hadid at fashion week with a copy of Camus’s The Stranger springs to mind.
Another strand of the “performative reader” phenomenon is that of the “performative male”. Last weekend, a performative male contest packed out Soho Square in London in typical self-referential internet humour fashion. It was a sea of tote bag-wearing Gen Z men pretending to read novels with Labubus dangling from their baggy jeans. The performative male is a late-stage iteration of the performative reader, the concept being a man who appropriates so-called women’s hobbies (reading, drinking matcha) to lure the fairer sex into a relationship and ultimately still treat them poorly. I have had first-hand experience with these halfwits and can attest that they are the worst.
Performative males aside, as a lifelong voracious reader, the whole “performative reading” phenomenon drives me up the wall. Who cares if someone is not reading a book the way you think they should, or if they are reading it at all? I love to see what people are reading. I thought that was the reason people were sharing this sort of content online. Jumping on the bandwagon and following the herd should not make you a poser when it comes to novels. I love to read the same book as a friend so that we can unpack it together. “I can’t wait until you finish this so we can discuss,” one friend (an English teacher) had messaged me as I began my Yanagihara odyssey. That is why book clubs are so popular.
To pull a concept from one of my favourite Kurt Vonnegut novels, Mother Night (1961), we are who we pretend to be. Reading books does, in fact, make you a reader. Our book choices do shape us over time, and the more we read, the better we read. Literature teaches us, helps to expand our understanding and vocabulary, and helps us see the world through the lens of others. Devouring a novel is an intimate experience. One of the most enriching forms of entertainment, reading does not reduce you to a consumer. Books are maybe the last media that we can consume without advertising. With my tin hat on, I wonder if social media companies are supercharging memes mocking readers to get us sucked back into the algorithm.
Read more:
- I tried Glasgow’s top iced matcha lattes, here’s the truth about the Gen Z craze
- Who will staunch the flow of fake Labubus now?
- Banning Bonnie Blue and her disgusting Bang Bus would be a mistake
- Manhattan's West Village Girl plague has already spread to Scotland
As a society, we consistently criticise those who spend too much time doomscrolling and posting online as vapid. We love to lament the youth of today and their short attention spans and lack of critical thinking. My English teacher friend has, in the past, shared with me her alarm at the literacy level of her students at times. She worries that they are reading at a level far behind what they should be. “They will tell me they have read a book, and I will ask them a simple question about it, and they can’t even answer,” she tells me. “There is no critical engagement.”
Her observations are backed up by research. Teachers in Scotland believe a third of their pupils are weak readers and that children are struggling to keep up with the curriculum because of their reading ability. By the time students reach S1, many are reading at least two years behind their chronological age, and the gap grows to three years by S2-S4, according to a report from the University of Dundee. A sweeping online movement that reframes reading as cool and attractive to young people does not seem like a bad thing to me.
I think back to when I was 16, struggling through Dostevesky’s Crime and Punishment on the bus or how Wilde’s A Picture of Dorian Gray completely changed my teenage brain. Was it performative then, or simply one of the clumsy identity-forming experiences that are part and parcel of coming of age? I definitely felt mature and cultured reading in public then, even if TikTok wasn’t around to share it with.
I have carted my weighty copy of A Little Life to many wine bars and cafes over the past few weeks. Were the youngsters sniggering at me behind my back for being performative? So what if they were. I refuse to believe that reading could ever not be cool. Judging people for reading something wrong is far more pretentious than reading in public will ever be.
Marissa MacWhirter is a columnist and feature writer at The Herald, and the editor of The Glasgow Wrap. The newsletter is curated between 5-7am each morning, bringing the best of local news to your inbox each morning without ads, clickbait, or hyperbole. Oh, and it’s free. She can be found on X @marissaamayy1
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