Frankie McNamara: 'People who read books on The Tube' (2025)
https://www.youtube.com/embed/vN6ufdjsVCQ
Context: "I first met Frankie McNamara unexpectedly, thanks to my For You page on TikTok. A twenty-something Irish native, McNamara's series of 'cultural observations' dissect everyone from Swifties to Gen Z to young men who wear North Face puffers. Conveyed with an unwaveringly flat affect, his well-researched videos are recorded in public alongside individuals who match the given description. Dozens of commenters refer to him as this generation's David Attenborough, although I wouldn't peg him as a biologist. Cultivating a largely European audience, his account has amassed nearly half a million followers and over 43 million views" (Tauszik, B., 2024). Transcript: "Hello and welcome to this episode of Frankie's Cultural Observations. Today we're going to be analysing people who read books on the tube. Society used to be obsessed with character. Now all we care about is personality. No longer in a state of becoming.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becoming_(philosophy) We're auditioning, auditing our everyday lives to appeal to people who aren't even looking at us because they have their AirPods in. So the commute home becomes a casting couch for the romantic lead in a novel that doesn't exist. And now finally I'm the one who's reading them. For these main characters, what's inside the Marxist literature they're pretending to understand is irrelevant. All that matters is what it signifies.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signified_and_signifier#Relation_between_signifier_and_signified They're not enjoying the book. They're enjoying the power of knowing you might be watching them. These 'tubermensch' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cbermensch are performing spectacle, propagating a fantasy, building the blueprint for a life that isn't real. Because they're not European, they're English, and England is no longer in Europe. That, that's pretty European! People who read books on the tube don't have the power to alter their economic conditions. When the future got cancelled,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man they didn't fall apart. They made their lives look aesthetic because it was all they could do. Staring longingly at a book they definitely aren't reading and wondering how hot they look right now. Despite being stuck on page two for the duration of their journey, nothing's going into their brain. They're not consuming the book. They're consuming the image of intellect on public display in the hopes that someone on the Elizabeth line would fall in love with them, which makes them more like a sex ornament with a superiority complex than an old soul with an inner life. In the attention economy, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy public transport becomes a sight of lifestyle branding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_brand All quiet reflection gets muted and transformed into theatre. They fetishise their own isolation and act like no one's ever felt as alienated as they do. But alienation is a common experience that everyone shares. It's just being repackaged to trick you into thinking you're the only one who feels it because you're too deep and no one understands you. Whether the mask you wear is a Penguin Classics book seller, the gram in your pocket, or the phone that needs to be surgically removed from your hand, melancholia is not a you problem. It's mass-produced and everyone's buying it. In the performance of self, nothing escapes the commodity. This isn't a train journey for them. It's labour, not of the mind or the body, but of their presence. This is the work of being watched. A craft they've mastered after years of trying to look interesting on public transport, performing to an audience already looking away, too disinterested to even reject them. They don't just take the tube, they work it. When romantic introspection becomes their identity, and every silence demands a crowd, they mind the gap between the person they are and the person they're trying to become. People who read books on the tube engage in impression management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impression_management to control how they're viewed by the other passengers. Their identity isn't fixed. It's assembled. A highlight reel of their most desirable traits for public consumption, which is usually just a cardigan and a copy of Das Kapital. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital Life is no longer for living. It's for broadcasting, live streaming, endlessly posting into the abyss to rebrand the ruins of a revolution they were never a part of. These are not books. They're portable billboards with words too big to understand. So these novels aren't meant to be read, they're meant to be worn. With the death of third spaces, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place the tube is one of the only places where you're forced to stand close to people. But closeness isn't connection. It's choreography. You're not allowed to speak. You shouldn't make eye contact. And you're definitely not supposed to be filming. Cognisant of all the social etiquette to remember, everyone performs civility, pretending not to notice each other while hyper aware of being seen. So readers retreat into the brick they pulled out of their tote bag to maintain the fragile illusion that they're still the ones writing their own story. The panopticon https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/#HistPris is no longer in the prison tower. It's on your phone camera. You might not be watched, but you behave as if you are just in case. This is the new performance of the downwardly mobile. That's cultural capital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_capital for people who can't afford their own home but can afford a book written by Sally Rooney. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Rooney The American dream is dead, but we still stream selling sunset and self-s surveillance, internalising the gaze https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_gaze until it becomes a wobbly monument to a freedom that no longer exists. And when they reach their station, they put the book down, signalling the end of the performance. You're tuning in to notes from the underground. " Observation: "People who read books on the tube engage in impression management to control how they're viewed by the other passengers. Their identity isn't fixed. It's assembled. A highlight reel of their most desirable traits for public consumption, which is usually just a cardigan and a copy of Daz Capital. Life is no longer for living. It's for broadcasting, live streaming, endlessly posting into the abyss to rebrand the ruins of a revolution they were never a part of." https://www.youtube.com/embed/vN6ufdjsVCQ?start=167&end=195 Bibliography: Tauszik, B. (2024, January 17). "TikTok’s Frankie McNamara on Viral Fame". Paper Magazine. https://www.papermag.com/frankie-mcnamara-tiktok McNamara, F. (2025, May 4). 'People Who Read Books On The Tube' [YouTube]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN6ufdjsVCQ https://www.youtube.com/@MeditationsForTheAnxiousMind https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19223538/
