Carrying a paperback — Sally Rooney, ideally, or bell hooks — as an accessory rather than a book. The reading wing of the performative-male summer, and a joke about who the book is for.
A man on a park bench with a book held at a 45-degree angle to the path, pages unturned for twenty minutes. Confirmed performative. The book was upside down for at least part of it.
There was a version of Performative Reading that went round my family group chat about a month late, presented as new. I did not correct anyone. It was, for them, new, and that has to count for something.
Where did you see it, and when? A date and a source that still resolves.
