When Did Reading Become Performance?

What is it with people and books? Being a reader is so fraught now. Reading is starting to feel a bit like mathematics. If you’re lucky, you are introduced to either by someone who enjoys it. Both are plagued by bad PR and performatively admired by others. Thereafter you either love it or misunderstand it. I was lucky with both pursuits.

Recently, I’ve resumed reading after not being able to. This is a thing that happens and it did not make me hate books or resent other readers who were able to, through the pandemic or mental health issues. My relationship with books is a parallel journey to theirs; what is the point in comparing? I never stopped being a reader, even when I wasn’t actively reading.

I’ve also been attending book-themed gatherings. And one of them was interesting in the most alarming of ways. Mostly populated by very opinionated people who did not seem to like reading. One bragged,

“I used to hate books. And then I attended a workshop. Now I have read 17 books in one year. SEVENTEEN BOOKS!”

All those books were self-help books, by the way. Yes, I know we are supposed to say self-help books are books too, that their authors deserve as much credit for penning them as do fiction greats. But well, you can say something about the book by the reader, can’t you?

This kind of reader is looking to make an impression. The books are for virtue-signalling. Now ‘I am a reader‘ is a virtue? I want to believe that these books may be gateways into reading but they are not. Five Point Someone and Harry Potter were. Regardless of how you feel about their authors, each of these books did bring entire sections of people into reading.

Self-help books are for people who don’t like reading. So why do they still exist in a world that has free Instagram accounts touting mental wellness in 300 characters and expert advice in 30-second Reels? The irony might be poetic if poetry found any purchase in right-now gains. 10 Signs That You Have Culture.

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It’s been a few months since my return to dating apps. I’ve cued up my love of books in several ways in my bio. I even seek out the readers amongst the travellers bragging about the 70+ countries they have visa stamps from, the bikers with their photographs and umm, the ‘I have money’ guys whose whole personality is their degree and their job. Real men do not appear to have hobbies. Only props as status symbols – cars, wine glasses, passports. Nothing as mundane as reading which is about you, rather than any tangible social gain.

The few dating app profiles I see that list reading, I swipe right. I ask them what they last enjoyed reading. They reply calling me cute, saying my eyes tell the truth. A few call me a fashionista (which I suppose they think is a compliment). The occasional II-bro will reply like it’s a chess move with the statement, “I like nonfiction”. Bruh, I’m an MBA too and I’ve been a reader long enough to recognise that for the FAIL save that it is.

Here’s an excerpt from a book that I have just begun. It features in the first chapter.

“But there must be a reason you don’t like me. Be honest.”
At this point, there are many reasons not to like him. She picks one.
“Do you remember when I said I worked in publishing and you said you weren’t much of a reader?”
“You’re a snob,” he concludes.

‘The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry‘, Gabrielle Zevin

At this point, I’m happy. It gives me the impetus to unmatch the useless creatures that are crowding my inbox with lies. As always fictional people feel friendlier and give better advice than real world ones.

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The aforementioned event had another young man proudly explaining his reading as follows,

“I only started reading now. I am from XYZ community so I want a good ROI (he actually used this word). So I read SelfHelp 1, MotivationalSpeaker 2 and BizJargon 3. The points from them are very clear.”

Oof, ROI.

I want to ask what ROI such a person gets from watching a (shitty, overpriced) Bollywood movie. Or a massively hyped (also overpriced) music concert or sports event. Have you seen the average attendee at one of these? They aren’t actually partaking of the experience. They’re chronicling it for their social media feeds, disrupting the few truly engaged with their boredom. Do they hear the chord changes, catch the story turns, experience that miraculous save between updating their captions? And most importantly, how do these fare in their Taste-as-personality Investment Portfolio?

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Then again, in a later chapter in the same book, I encounter the following passage.

“You never come to the store, I guess.”
<Character name> looks at his shoes, the familiar shame of a thousand high school English classes where he’d failed to do the minimum required reading rushing back to him.
“Not much of a reader.”

‘The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry‘, Gabrielle Zevin

Ah, like most other silly behaviour, I suppose this too comes down to childhood shame. Books teach me so much, even when they are not being read. Curiously this book is also now a movie. Yes, I believe a book is almost always better than the movie. But films are probably a more accessible entry point than books, for a lot of people. An entry point into stories, not into books though. A lot of people I’ve asked, who liked a film if they’ll now consider reading the book tell me,

“But I know the story already!”

Umm yes, that might be an issue with stories that are about surprise endings. A book is a whole different experience from a film. But I suppose the thrill of the ROI chase is not in the experience.

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To be clear, it’s not a crime to not be a reader. So why are people pretending they are? Is being a reader suddenly cool? I doubt it, and it’s not because I’m being modest or clueless. Hey, I’m a reader. That means I’m greedy for more insight into the human condition. (This does not mean I am intelligent.)

I blame this Poser Reader phenomenon, at least a little bit on the pressure to be a speaker and writer. These have become status symbols parading as growth hacks to becoming that most aspirational of Gen-Z professions – an influencer. Perhaps finally, enough people are being called out for the assholishness of writing without reading. “I write but I don’t read” is the paper/byte equivalent of I speak but I don’t listen. Narcissism is good at quick saves (but not necessarily effective ones).

Then there is the fact that most people on our overcrowded planet, even the ones with privilege and access have never bothered to develop as human beings. This involves understanding yourself and pursuing individual passions even without validation or company. Most people who show up at events, gatherings, and meets wouldn’t have an answer to why. For timepass is the answer. Of course, their boredom would disrupt the proceedings and when seen, would result in defensiveness.

I am also aware of the notoriety of male misbehaviour at rejection. A man who pretends to read on a dating app is treating me the way he treats books – looking for ROI and the ends may justify the means. That is not how reading is done and that is not how relationships are done either.

When did reading become such a performance? She wails as she hits publish on yet another post about books.