Reading is the most magical thing a human can do. With an amount of paper, words and imagination, it is possible to create a new world, powers, heroes and villains, a beautiful romance story, try to solve a case with the coolest detective, and maybe rethink our life choices with a guy who woke up as an insect and is worried about losing his job.
Books are the infinite doors to infinites worlds. But, lately, reading has become an ego game. Who reads faster? Who reads more books in one year? Why are only people who read classics considered actual readers? And worse, reading has become performative and judgmentalIt’s not possible anymore to just read that romantic or fantasy book. People will indeed judge you in public.
What does being “performative” mean?
The word performative alone means doing an action or behaving in a certain way to create an impression on others, instead of being genuine. This new slang has been taking over the internet in the past few months, the problem begins when literally everything you do is being considered “performative” and not genuine.
A good example of what is being performative is when you see someone reading Dostoiévski in the subway. Fiódor books are not that easy to read and it gets worse to understand a word when you are in a public space where there is noise everywhere. Some people really do these things just to get attention for being such a cultured person, or, they are just being themselves and really enjoy reading Crime and Punishment in public.
Being a performative reader means holding or displaying a physical book, in public – often a classic or trendy title, with the goal of looking sophisticated or gaining a certain kind of social validation. But, what if the person who is reading is just being genuine and isn’t seeking attention?
Performative reading is contributing to the decline in reading
The habit of reading is declining all across the world, and it is worrying. According to the University of Florida and University College London, in England, the amount of people who has the habit of reading for pure pleasure fell for more than 40% in the last 20 years. One of the principal causes is the internet, it is really easier to just scroll with our fingers when demanding our attention in one book with 300 pages.
According to the search with the platform Preply, it was revealed that 60% of Brazilians claim that social media is an obstacle for their reading time. This data points to a concerning fact: the decline of reading habits in the country. Brazil isn’t a country that has reading as the number of hobbies, but, with the performative era, it became harder to keep up with your reading schedule.
Reading started to feel more like a social label than an actual funny hobby, so you can’t just read your book in a specific place, because you will be performing. And you also can’t read book A or B because it isn’t considered an actual reading.
The pressure to read the “right” books, finish a certain number of titles, or always have a book in your hands can make reading feel like another task to accomplish. Instead of picking up a book because the story sounds interesting, people may start thinking about how their choice will be perceived by others. When reading becomes another way to prove how cultured, intelligent, or productive you are, it can take away some of the pleasure that made people want to read in the first place.
With the clean and performative era, reading certain types of books is a shame. Is not only being performative that matters, it is also about how cringe the book is, but, who decides what is cringe or not?
Destroy the label, read whatever you want whenever you want
Reading isn’t supposed to be a burden, it is supposed to be fun, inspiring, encouraging, patient and bring back critical thinking. Any type of book can help with that, from the sweetest romance to l the most beautiful classic you can think of.
In 2025, Brazil gained 3 million new readers, and among this number are people who read romance, classics, manga, true crime, fantasy books and so on. Reading has the power to bring people together, not to tear them apart.
Who cares if you are being performative or not? Reading isn’t an ego game to see who’s better, it is a privilege. Read that romance book, read that classical in a public space, who cares?
Being happy while you’re reading shouldn’t be a free pass to judge or to decide whether you are being or not a performative being, it should be an example for all generations, the past and the future.
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The article above was edited by Elisa Nuñez.
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