As with everything, I was late to the trend. Unbeknownst to me, “Performative Reading” is Gen Z’s new fixation. After learning how books have turned into the generation’s latest prop, I couldn’t help but notice it everywhere.
Well-dressed “intellectuals” have overrun the parks and trendy cafés of my city. They are virtually everywhere.
With tote bags draped over chairs, they lean in behind their heavy books, a now-common sight. Surreptitiously, Gen Z has found a new item to add to its ever growing closet of fashion trends.
The online mockery of performative reading hasn’t slowed it down since its genesis–if anything, it’s spilling more visibly into the real world. Though I was late to the trend, I was eager to obediently follow; to really find out what the fuss is all about.
With nervous excitement, I perched myself on a familiar bench at my local park and cracked open Stoner, a book my girlfriend lent me ages ago. It’s a quiet, melancholic narrative about finding meaning in the mundane, which felt fitting to counter the creeping end of summer blues. But, as I lost myself in its pages, something strange began to stir in me.
Eyes watched me with surprised glances, and the quiet giggles of people walking by halted my enjoyment of the novel. What began as an attempt to read quietly turned into something else. Suddenly, I felt so awkward and afraid to continue that I threw the book in my bag and made my way home.
It made me think: Has performative reading tainted our enjoyment of reading, or are we all performing like social media tells us we are?
Reading between the lines, what is it?
The definition of performative reading is loose but widely understood. We all sort of know what it means without digging much further.
What started as an internet trend to make fun of the performative man’s attempt to appear clever has turned into a startling reality. Maybe it’s that I’ve gone looking for it, but my city is filled with eyes watching the people that pass by, rather than reading the books they hold.
For better or worse, books have become a new type of prop for Gen Z. Internet memes identify men’s newest ambition as choosing eclectic feminist reads and obtuse philosophical books to impress onlookers. The more niche, the better.
There is a growing notion that intelligence is in: Using books to signify to people that we look beyond our phone screens is cool (ironically, even when anti-phone trends are diffused via social media).
This new type of intellectualization is unique in how it prioritizes the appearance of engagement over genuine comprehension. It thrives in digital spaces where reading becomes a performance for social validation rather than for personal enjoyment of literature.
Arguably stemming from BookTok’s influential approach to promoting literature, there is a newly imbued sense of cultural capital attached to reading—not for introspection or intellectual growth, but for visibility and social currency.
Performative reading feels like a distant (and cooler) relative of the hipster geek chic of the early 2010s. There was a time when people read just for the joy of it, but these days, it feels like reading has turned into something you do to prove a point or put on a show.
In other words, books are trendy right now—or at least pretending to read them is. Like other internet crazes, performative reading has become synonymous with clout-chasing culture.
Are books becoming something else?
This new stratosphere of status-signaling through books feels increasingly hard to ignore. Even my friends tease me about it!
Recently, a friend of mine spotted The Bell Jar on my bedside table, a book I’m studying for a university essay at the moment. He laughed, asking, “Is that to impress girls? You would keep it right on your bedside table.” I, a humble English student, could only laugh.
For some, books have evolved to represent something else entirely. Without knowing it, people can attach new meaning to literature.
That said, trends fade. While books are currently caught up in this performative cycle, the novelty is likely to wear off. What remains to be seen is whether we will see deeper engagement or a mere shift of attention to the next cultural display.
Trends, however, are somewhat impossible to ignore (for me at least). In a last-ditch effort, I decided to make one more venture to the park. I was determined to ignore the internet and enjoy what I wanted to.
Read it anyway!
I sat at the very same bench and cozied up. I ignored every impulse to look up from the pages of the book and sank my teeth in, as they say.
After I got over the invisible glances of passers-by, I settled into the book. Things seemed to disappear the way things do when people talk about reading a good book. Whoever said it first was, of course, right.
And maybe that’s the point. Maybe it doesn’t matter why we start reading: to impress, fit in, and create some curated version of ourselves that we want everyone to see. The only performance that occurs comes from perception. Without an audience of your own making, there isn’t anyone to perform for.
Like most internet trends, there is a lot of rubbish associated with performative reading. But it’s important to read for yourself, not for the fulfillment of a trend that will exit as swiftly as it entered.
Who cares, I’ll read anyway.
