by Eric Schenck
There’s a question that’s been eating at me the last year or so: When did reading become so performative?
Maybe it’s always been this way: Something makes you look smart or sophisticated, so you want people to see you doing it.
This need for some kind of social acceptance is deeply rooted in us from birth. But with the internet, reading (or more specifically, being seen reading) sometimes feels like it’s reached a fever pitch:
- People posting their latest book haul.
- Social media accounts with names like “Hot Guys Reading.”
- Pictures snapped of giant thousand-page novels (always with post-it notes sticking out).
It makes reading feel less like something you love for the sake of it, and more like something you do to influence what other people think of you. And even worse than the performative part?
People expecting your opinion to fall in line with theirs.
Like if you read a certain book and didn’t like it, you just didn’t get it. To give you a concrete example from my own life: I recently read The Count Of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Everybody told me it was one of the best books ever written. That it was a shining example of literature done right.
That I was going to looooooooooove it. Well – I didn’t. At times, I didn’t even like it.
Every character was one-dimensional, the count was a bit of an asshole, and the plot had far too many side stories that just seemed irrelevant. Silly me.
I should have kept this opinion to myself.
But then I came across a guy on Twitter saying The Count of Monte Cristo was “the absolute best book bar none” he had ever read, and I couldn’t hold back. I said I wasn’t the biggest fan-
Which turned into a bit of a thing.
The number of people who jumped on me in the comments section and said I “didn’t get it” was…
Weird? Annoying? Strangely sad?
I don’t know the right word for it.
My favorite comment:
“This novel is simply brilliant. You clearly are not.”
My poor heart! I like to think that the great authors of history would much prefer a critical reader that had something real to say, than the masses claiming it was “simply brilliant.”
Anyway…
I guess my problem isn’t that people are looking for some kind of social validation. (Can’t blame humans for being humans.) It’s that while prioritizing being seen reading, tracking our reading, and criticizing others for not liking the same reading…
Actually reading seems to have taken a backseat.
And that’s the thing that really makes it feel a bit empty.
None of this is to put myself on a pedestal. One of the most embarrassing things I can possibly admit:
I probably buy books just because I like the way buying them makes me feel.
Actually, I know I do. If it was a crime to purchase reading material that you were never really planning on reading, I would be one of the worst offenders.
I’ve never seen a tattered book about some esoteric topic that I didn’t like. The thought of having “the world’s best home library”? It makes me feel like the second coming of Jay Gatsby.
And my Kindle? Well, that’s the worst culprit of all. Those notifications I get that tell me a Kindle book I’ve saved to my wish list is just 99 cents….
How many have I bought? And how many have I ever even opened?
If my Kindle were an actual library, there would be stacks of books overflowing, gathering dust, while I sat and looked on wistfully. (But with pride, of course.)
The reason for all of this?
If I’m honest about something that nobody seems to be willing to say-
It’s that I like the way buying a book makes me feel.
And maybe that’s the most performative thing of all. Because let’s be honest:
- There is the emotion you get when you buy a book.
- There is the emotion you get when you read that book.
- Those two things are not the same.
We all like to feel and look smart, and buying books is an easy way to do that, without actually needing to make the effort to consume them.
Still, publicizing it for others to see? That’s when reading seems to lose a bit of it’s authenticity-
Even if you actually do read the book.
All this to say:
Maybe the internet has made a certain amount of performative reading and book buying inevitable. And maybe that’s ok.
Just know that every time you post a picture of your latest book haul, half of which you probably won’t even read-
I will still be rolling my eyes.
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