Writing these posts is the closest thing to participating in social media that I do, so I miss out on a lot of pop culture. However, I’m up-to-speed on how the term performative is changed. The definition itself, of committing some act for show rather than for the sake of the act, hasn’t changed, but it’s evolved from being applied to sending weekly status updates or carrying a TUMI bag through the airport1, to being applicable to really anything that a person could do.
In my perspective, calling someone performative is akin to how the word hipster was used fifteen years ago. One person sees another person brewing their own kombucha or wearing a hat with a feather in it (or the list goes on, the real hipsters were creative), and that first person calls the second a hipster in the sense that they don’t actually like their kombucha or feathered cap but they drink/wear in order to be perceived as a counter-cultural person.
A common example that I’ve heard, which dovetails with an earlier social media trend of women posting pictures of “hot guys reading on the train” is that it is performative to read certain books or to read in public2. Being performative is usually used to describe a man, a performative male, if you will. I think the adage that women don’t dress well in the office for men, but for the other women, is counterfactual to the idea that modern men are more performative than women, but I’m here to fight the negative stigma around performative acts and I have a defense for fashion in particular, too.
My defense of those who do things that could be considered performative is simple: at least they are doing things! We’re social animals, we need social proofing. I still think that people should try things that aren’t completely tied to raising their social capital, but I think that trying something because other people like it or at least like the people who do it, is a perfectly fair heuristic.
For example, I like reading David Foster Wallace and Joan Didion. While DFW definitely scores among the authors talked about because talking about them makes men in particular sound intelligent, both authors are on lists everywhere for being among the best American authors. And while I found them because some list told me about them, and maybe there was some intellectual snobbery to my picking up Infinite Jest, I like the books! DFW is funny in a really verbose way3 and I have no idea what attracts me to Didion’s work, but I’ve read several of her books and want to read more.
Now, reading those authors as performative acts came easily, because it’s easy to read books you like. But, one of the benefits of doing performative acts might be that it keeps you trying at something that you initially may have rejected or given up on. Many performative acts are acquired tastes. I didn’t hear jazz improv one day and think “What is this beautiful sound? I must throw myself into this.” On the contrary, I had been playing in hardcore bands and knew that playing jazz is highly technical and theoretical, and I wanted to prove that I could play with technical skill and follow advanced music theory. I now very much enjoy listening to jazz, but it did not come naturally. The same is true for Russian Literature. I’m now on my third attempt at The Brothers Karamazov, because every intellectual-dude-bro on the internet says that the Grand Inquisitor passage will change your life, and the third time just might be the charm. I’ve gotten past all the challenging Russian names (and nicknames) and now I can just follow the story. I might get something out of it, and I wouldn’t have tried if it weren’t a little performative.
Before I defend fashion and close out, I want to cover something tangential. I think I’ve established that trying and doing things that you think will make you look cool is totally normal pro-social behavior. While doing things with the intent of making people not like you is anti-social, there is something to be said for trying things that you find uncool. If you try things that you think run counter to how you imagine yourself, you might find you like something. For me, I would put reading Westerns, watching the UFC, and birdwatching on this list. I’ve read a few Westerns (and yes, the books were on some dude-bro curated list), but I didn’t think I’d be a Western guy. Reading Westerns feels a little like something an elderly racist would do, but I keep on reading them because they aren’t actually that and because I like the storytelling. Similarly, the UFC is incredibly conservative-coded and I don’t want to be pictured as a “UFC Guy” but I like watching the fights4. Uncool in a different way is bird-watching, which Elizabeth and I try to do in Riverside Park or when we make it to the Ramble in Central Park. We can identify a decent number of common birds and keep getting better at it. We like it, but it’s definitely not because it’s cool.
Now, onto fashion. I’m not anti-performative acts, but as I was thinking through getting there I kept thinking about fashion as something that can’t really exist without being performative. If you wear the hottest outfit of the summer, and no one was there to see it, does it really matter? I think the answer is no, but that’s okay. I think real interest in fashion is meta-performative because it’s not just dressing a certain way with the goal of making other people think or feel a certain way about you. It’s also about knowing how another person thinks or feels about you makes you think or feel about yourself. So yes, a woman may dress for the other women in the office, but it’s not just about them, it’s about how she feels and sees herself reflected in their observations of her. Maybe I’m totally off-base, but I think it makes fashion seem less frivolous.
So, try something, even if it’s just because you want to look cool on the subway. Try something else too, even though you think it is square. And wear something that makes you feel yourself. I’ll keep wearing my undershirt tank tops in public, because of how it makes me feel.
P.S.
When I started writing this, I was originally going to write about yoga and westerns as interests that found you rather than ones that you sought out, but a better example that I’ve had even more recently is poetry. I had read a few novels by Bukowski, but several months ago a neighbor left one of his poetry collections outside on the stoop. I took it home and I liked it. Then, in LA last month, I read from a Shel Silverstein collection in the Airbnb while nursing my hangover each morning. I came home and bought some Shel Silverstein to read with Remy, and got myself some more Bukowski last weekend. Reading poetry naturally makes you want to add some tension and release to your own words, so I’ll leave those of you who stuck around with a Remy’s Corner update that came to me in the middle of the night.
Salvation
A cry in the night
Blind searching
First, a binky
Then the small head, face, mouth
Then there is quiet
Her hands find mine
And we are both saved
Thanks for reading.
Both are performative behaviors from the management consulting industry. There are probably better examples in different industries, but these are the ones I know.
I did a case study in business school on the Economist, and one of the takeaways was that the Economist still does so well as a print magazine because people want to be seen reading it in public because it makes them look smart.
I also like his method of breaking up the reading process by overusing footnotes.
I have been joking for a while that every night when it’s just me and Remy at home is “UFC & Pizza Night,” which meant that I really watched anthropology documentaries after Remy went to sleep, but more recently it has actually included some UFC streaming.