Performative Male Readers: A Modest Proposal

The performative male reader caught in a dangerous trap.

According to a recent ⁠Independent article⁠ by Lydia Spencer-Elliott, the elusive "⁠literary man⁠"--long thought extinct--has become further threatened by an ingeniously camouflaged obligate predator, the "performative male reader." While by all appearances a "literary man," the "performative male reader" (Homo librispretentious) is in fact anything but, using his book as an aesthetic cudgel to lure and subdue unsuspecting female prey.

To combat this invasive species, publisher and animal behavior specialist ⁠Sam Austen⁠ has devised an ingenious trap: copies of the most pretentious books of all time--including titles by ⁠Nietzsche⁠, ⁠Dostoevsky⁠, and ⁠Tolstoy⁠--with all content removed, replaced by the word "meow," repeated hundreds of thousands of times.

"The appetite of the peformative male reader is voracious; he's utterly indiscriminate when acquiring his weapon of choice," Austen says. "By seeding bookstores with 'meowified' versions of the literary classics favored by these predators, we're making them easy to spot in public. The cats on the covers of these 'meow' books makes them readily distinguishable to the literate public, but performative readers don't know the difference. They'll be trapped at Intelligentsia Coffee reading the word 'meow' thirty to forty thousand times, utterly transfixed. In this distracted state, they are tranquilized and netted by the special task forces active across California and New York dedicated to keeping their population down."

This week's podcast gives you a window into the mind-numbing experience of this anti-performative-reading measure, available ⁠everywhere books are sold⁠.