The coronavirus pandemic limits our opportunities to collect and display these “objectified” pieces of cultural capital. Thus social class … is attained through the adoption of values and aesthetics and the ability to decipher symbols and signs beyond materialism,” Currid-Halkett wrote. Objectified cultural capital suggests that particular objects gain cultural or symbolic value that transcends, and is often greater than, any monetary value assigned. “Cultural capital … is the collection of distinctive aesthetics, skills, and knowledge (often attained through education and pedigree). In her book, Currid-Halkett characterizes a powerful group that spends money on subscriptions to the New Yorker, organic dinosaur kale and yoga classes. But this phenomenon started before the coronavirus pandemic.Įlizabeth Currid-Halkett, a professor of public policy at the University of Southern California, documented the rise of a new elite class in “The Sum of Small Things,” published in 2017. Although class is still signaled by luxury goods, one can express membership in powerful social classes with less traditionally materialistic possessions and practices. This aestheticization of bookishness represents a culture in which knowledge is synonymous with capital. They are instead symbols of class aesthetic that imply knowledge and respect. In constructing and approbating model Zoom dioramas, books no longer function only as something to be read. These are props they blend in with the flower vase and the perfectly hung modern art.
The likelihood that the national political reporter who Zooms into the evening news has actually read every single book in the sea of titles floating behind their head is slim. Just as we revere the uncommon few who effortlessly recall Plato, Proust and Hemingway, we revile the unread.īut Zoom bookshelves are particularly bizarre because they entail no actual reading. It’s those moments when we recoil in horror - for how could a 5C student have never read “To Kill a Mockingbird”? - when the nasty side of this tendency reveals its nature. To access esteem and respect, there is a required reading list that we must reference or somehow possess in the recesses of our brains. I am guilty of entering a bookstore and purchasing titles - mindless of their cost - that I think I should read. Belonging to a class altogether different from goods like purses and shoes, books seem like a wholesome investment, promising the return of self-improvement. It is easy to divest their identity as a product from their function as a tool of learning and knowledge. We may wax poetic for the delicious materiality of feather soft pages, crumbly covers and inky text, but books are still objects they are goods for purchase in a capitalist economy. But I still wonder how we ought to judge the reign of Zoom bookshelf backgrounds. This pattern might appear benign, and perhaps it is less problematic than broadcasting in front of more garish displays of wealth and power. In a time of virtual connectivity, the consensus among intellectuals, experts, politicians and entertainers is such: to look smart is to appear in front of rows, stacks, sometimes whole libraries of books. It just seems like all smart people broadcasting from their home bunkers have decided that books are their ideal setting. It’s not that the account selectively comments on Zoom backgrounds with bookshelves, as one might be led to assume. Spend a minute scrolling through Room Rater and you’ll see that most of the featured backgrounds contain some kind of printed, bound and displayed literature. Library, books, bookcase - the pattern is inescapable.
The tweets are undeniably funny, drawing humor from the bizarre shared reality of coronavirus pandemic daily life, but they are also pointing to something else in our culture, something that is perhaps deeper and more consequential than a 280-character review. The Twitter account Room Rater releases upwards of 20 Zoom background reviews every day, commenting on the home spaces from which newscasters and specialists broadcast on live television.
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