The tote-slinging, matcha-drinking, maybe-reading caricature of the performative male is alive and well in New York City. As I write this article in the back of a cafe on the Lower East Side, observing the other customers as part of my creative process, it’s clear the men of my hometown share my enthusiasm for books and iced beverages. Still, it’s hard to judge people for reading in public when I also brought my laptop to do work away from home, and it’s hard to accuse them of “performing” as they actively flip the pages. Performative reading is an internet-born concept usually regulated to the online world; posting yourself reading is performance, “actually reading” is not. The combination of both, however, may not be as bad as people make it sound.
We live in an age of dropping literacy rates and an increased dependency on generative artificial intelligence to both digest and produce written content. Competing against the allure of an immersive online world that offers instant gratification, reading has become a hobby associated with a certain cachet — even if it is for simple enjoyment and not out of intellectual curiosity. It’s no surprise, then, that the nepo-baby types — which one imagines as the face of modern “influencing” — see the appeal of a pseudo-casual selfie with their latest read. Being a “reader” sends a message: “I am cultured, even as the ever-elusive concept of culture becomes swallowed up by social media.”
The paradox, of course, is that the intellectualism they strive for is the antithesis of Instagram carousels and 15-second TikTok videos. Being “cultured” is an amorphous trait meant to arise out of genuine, self-fulfilling interest in the arts. With instantaneous access to products galore, we are encouraged to orient our identities around consumption, but artistic taste is too personal to acquire in this manner. By contrast, social media is, by its very nature, all projection and blunt personal branding, a loose imitation of something meant to look like real life. This is OK. Using the arts to self-aggrandize isn’t even particular to reading; the same tension lives on in museum photo-ops or the reduction of artists like The Smiths and Clairo into buzzword personality signifiers. But posing with a book still suggests an interiority beyond what the consumer of online content has immediate access to: “Not only do I glamorously lead your ideal life, I also read Russian literature while you use ChatGPT to summarize a five-page paper for class.”
All the same, it’s not the individual influencer’s fault that literacy has become another lofty personality-brand checkbox. Even the average performative man posting himself reading Virginia Woolf isn’t the reason nobody reads classics anymore. We can’t rewind to a pre-social media age. Instead, the next step in the right direction might be to make it clear that these projections of reading aren’t actually performative. Using books as props in the curated theater of social media makes reading seem like playacting for the pretentious and the posers of the online world. If influencers talked about their books instead of just pouting next to them, their fans might feel more inclined to see what all the fuss is about. The only problem with performative reading, in short, is that it’s too transparently fake. These performers need to put up a more convincing front if they want to come across as authentically intellectual. With a more sincere show of reading, the performative male influencer might woo more women while influencing others to pick up a book.
The performative readers of the internet provide the necessary external pressure: Scrolling aimlessly becomes a conscious choice instead of the default. The feeling of underlying shame that these obnoxious readers provoke in us is probably why they were labeled performative in the first place; we are aware of the activity’s positive association, but assume it must be done to gain approval instead of for its intrinsic, personal benefits. That anyone reading in public is immediately labeled as a poser is merely a symptom of a larger crisis of illiteracy. Reading as a hobby has fallen by the wayside to the point that it seems like a form of recreation no one would truthfully choose. While some may feel pressured to avoid the scrutiny of being labeled a performative reader and only read in private, this is the exact opposite of what we need. Performative readers need to be more obvious, more annoying and more commonplace, until reading becomes a mundane fact of life again and not a brag-worthy hobby at all.
Human habits often stem from seeking external approval. Both influencers and performative men demonstrate the act of turning a personal, solitary activity into a show meant to communicate their intellectual depth. Nonetheless, even reading to impress the opposite sex or to gloat is beneficial to the individual. Performative readers are doing themselves favors, but the showier they are, the more they contribute to a public good as well. If you pick up a book because you’re inspired by an influencer or swayed by seeing a performative man on the train, you’ll still experience the positive effects of reading. You may, in turn, influence others as well.
Before we had cell phones to scroll on, we had to combat boredom in other ways. People of this bygone era weren’t more intellectual — they just didn’t have access to easy dopamine the way we do. Eventually, however, Instagram Reels and Block Blast become unfulfilling, too. Our brains have the capacity for so much more than this tedium, and yet they are induced into complacency by our phones. Reading is harder in the short term, but ultimately a much more satisfying use of our limited time.
If performative readers bring reading in public transport or on park benches back into vogue (even if they’re doing it to subtly seduce unsuspecting women), then they’re doing the world a service. Nevertheless, as long as the guy reading Simone de Beauvoir and sipping on matcha isn’t just scanning lines, it’s still possible he’s reaping the benefits of intellectual stimulation. For the rest of us, instead of dating the performative man, maybe we should invite him to our book club.
Daily Arts Writer Sofia Thornley can be reached at tsofia@umich.edu.
