Before Sebastian Castillo cracks open a book on the bus, he has an intrusive thought: Should he tap the stranger next to him on the shoulder and clarify that yes, he’s starting this book on Page 1, but he has, in fact, read many other books before?
Castillo, a novelist and English literature instructor, said he realizes that is extreme. He’d never do that. But the urge reflects a recent anxiety that has burgeoned around the act of reading in public in the digital age, when everything is scrutinized as possibly “performative.”
“If you’re on the bus or at the park or at a cafe, nobody really cares about you or what you’re doing,” said Castillo, 37. “And so I think it’s, more than anything, just kind of a silly way to think about how people tend to observe themselves more than how other people observe them.”
It’s a feeling that many people have started to put into words.
On social media, real and staged videos of people reading at coffee shops, on escalators or at basketball games have become fodder for jokes about “performative reading,” or the idea that people want to look like they’re reading without actually doing so. Some have playfully shared their own lists of books they deem suitable to “read performatively” on public transit. The singer Sombr even poked fun at the concept in the middle of a concert this year.
Many of the callouts are simply memes, running jokes for people to get in on. But avid readers say the concept of reading for social points is a very real phenomenon that has unwittingly influenced how people approach books.
The discourse around so-called performative reading is the latest iteration of a broader cultural fixation on authenticity in the era of casual social media surveillance — when anything done in public could be farmed for content and people could find themselves going viral at any time.
And it’s not just books. “Performative male” contests have also popped up across the United States this year in which people offer their own tongue-in-cheek versions of men who dress and act in ways that come off as socially aware — complete with tote bags, matcha lattes and dog-eared copies of feminist literature under their arms.
That idea has particularly resonated in the online book community.
On platforms like TikTok, Instagram, X and Goodreads, bookish users often tout images of impressive titles and aesthetically pleasing reading setups or monthly reading lists with dozens of books already checked off.
Raol Muong, a creator who shares video essays about internet culture, made a TikTok video analyzing why books have seemingly become the new accessory in public spaces, as well as in literary circles online.
“Especially on TikTok and in Instagram Reels, we can see that the algorithm basically rewards what looks good, like the eye-catching cover and the staged coffee shots in a downtown cafe,” said Muong, 17. “They’re focusing on what looks good and not whether the book is being read or not. And I think, because of this, platforms turn books into basically aesthetic props to curate in their Instagram dumps.”
Muong said literary classics by the likes of Jane Austen and Joan Didion appear more performative, as it’s tempting to scrutinize whether people are carrying around popularly renowned books to give off an air of intellectualism or good taste.
Even some longtime readers say they’ve sometimes been influenced by the pressure to perform.
Éva Jéga-Szabó, a book lover since she was a young child, typically reads about 50 books a year. But she said the online culture of judgment around how quickly people read, or even the format in which they read — in some circles, audiobooks don’t count — pushed her to change her habits.
“I found myself going for shorter books or novellas rather than what I actually wanted to read. I was pushing for the numbers rather than just engaging with literature the way I wanted. And only recently, when I stopped being attached to the numbers, did I start enjoying it again,” said Jéga-Szabó, 25. “I see this from a lot of people who say that they feel a lot of pressure and shame and they’re going through these reading slogs and they don’t want to read anymore.”
Selwa Khan, a recent university graduate who enjoys sharing her reads on social media, said she feels it’s common for many online, including her, to “aestheticize our hobbies” for content. But Khan, 21, said a little bit of performance doesn’t necessarily take away from the authentic joy of reading.
“I think social media makes everybody perform, whether they acknowledge it or not,” she said. “We’re all performing, and a lot of us are saying that we’re not performing, but the fact that you’re on a platform at all implies the existence of performance, right?”
Khan said she also takes issue with the assumption that any visible reading must be an act, noting that that mindset only reveals the people who can’t imagine themselves genuinely taking pleasure in a book.
“I’ve seen for years posts on BookTok, Bookstagram and all these platforms of titles that are ‘performative,’ which always happen to be titles that I really enjoy,” Khan said. “So there’s always this thought in my head of: What makes these performative? Or are people just projecting their own insecurities with reading?”
Much of the mockery around performative reading seems to take aim at men. Over time, reading has taken on a reputation of being more of a woman-dominated activity. Many in-person book clubs have also noticed a dearth of male members. To some online, that has led to the perception that heterosexual men are so unlikely to pick up a book that if one is reading, he must be trying to impress a woman.
Jafei Pollitt, a frequent reader who has jokingly pushed back against that meme online, said she hopes young men don’t take the trend too seriously or let it discourage them from reading in public.
“Even if it is to impress a girl, if they do have a feminist piece of literature in their hand and they are actually reading it, I don’t quite see the harm in that,” said Pollitt, 27. “Because they’re getting some knowledge in their brain, and by the end of it, they might genuinely be like, ‘Oh, this is how to respect women.’”
Similarly, Pollitt said, she doesn’t judge anyone who does appear to be reading performatively, because even pretending to read still encourages somebody to actually take in the words.
“It’s a little bit of ‘fake until you make it.’ Yes, you can start off wanting to read for the aesthetics, but eventually you might involve yourself in the book, and you actually might like reading,” she said. “So as long as the book is in your hand and you’re reading the book, I don’t know if it totally matters how you got there.”