Coping With The Performance Of Taste

We suddenly seem to care a lot about what the person next to us is reading. Between celebrity book clubs, literary moments on the runway, and the rise of the professional tastemaker, taste itself has never been so public. You may even have started wondering whether the book tucked under your arm on your morning commute is something you love, or something you’d like to be seen loving.

This week, Alice Griffin and Jannah Anderson unpack the performance of taste, exploring the psychology of signalling and impression management, the trends and people shaping contemporary reading culture, and what it means to cultivate preferences that exist beyond aesthetics, algorithms and social capital.

☆ If you're also spiralling about technology, loneliness, and the human condition, Klara and the Sun has your name all over it. Gather the group chat accordingly. In cinemas from 22 October. ☆

Plot Twist! All the Books Guests Brought to the Valentino Show by Anna Cafolla and Francesca Faccani, Vogue

Bring a book: how reading became fashion's favourite accessory, Cur(AI)tion Substack

Watch: Jack Edwards’ Valentino Book Swap video

The Curious Notoriety Of “Performative Reading” by Brady Brickner-Wood, New Yorker

Read: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter

Social Network Profiles as Taste Performances by Hugo Liu

Impression management: A literature review and two-component model by Leary & Kowalski

Basic Or Pretentious: The Anxiety Of Spotify Wrapped Perceptions by Sofia Appolino, The Diamondback

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