From Politico:
Washington’s Secret to the Perfect Zoom Bookshelf? Buy It Wholesale.
Books by the Foot curates shelves full of books for Washington offices, hotels, TV sets—and, now, Zoom backdrops.
In a place like Washington—small, interconnected, erudite, gossipy—being well-read can create certain advantages. So, too, can seeming well-read. The “Washington bookshelf” is almost a phenomenon in itself, whether in a hotel library, at a think tank office or on the walls behind the cocktail bar at a Georgetown house.
And, as with nearly any other demand of busy people and organizations, it can be conjured up wholesale, for a fee.
Books by the Foot, a service run by the Maryland-based bookseller Wonder Book, has become a go-to curator of Washington bookshelves, offering precisely what its name sounds like it does.
The Wonder Book staff doesn’t pry too much into which objective a particular client is after. If an order were to come in for, say, 12 feet of books about politics, specifically with a progressive or liberal tilt—as one did in August—Wonder Book’s manager, Jessica Bowman, would simply send one of her more politics-savvy staffers to the enormous box labeled “Politically Incorrect” (the name of Books by the Foot’s politics package) to select about 120 books by authors like Hillary Clinton, Bill Maher, Al Franken and Bob Woodward. The books would then be “staged,” or arranged with the same care a florist might extend to a bouquet of flowers, on a library cart; double-checked by a second staffer; and then shipped off to the residence or commercial space where they would eventually be shelved and displayed (or shelved and taken down to read).
Erik Ulfers, founder and president of Clickspring, noted that a good TV set either transports viewers to someplace completely new and unfamiliar (“some are very abstract, really graphic-heavy”) or invites them to someplace welcoming and relatable. He recalls that he wanted the books on the “Meet the Press“ set to project familiarity infused with a sort of intellectual gravitas. He requested vintage books, he says—“It suggests a longer history, and somehow it seems more academic”—and replaced the pages in a number of the books with Styrofoam to avoid overloading the shelves.
Another force at work, however, was the rise of the well-stocked shelf as a coveted home-office prop. When workplaces went remote and suddenly Zoom allowed co-workers new glimpses into one another’s homes, what New York Times writer Amanda Hess dubbed the “credibility bookcase” became the hot-ticket item. (“For a certain class of people, the home must function not only as a pandemic hunkering nest but also be optimized for presentation to the outside world,” she wrote.) And while Roberts makes an effort not to infer too much about his clients or ask too many questions about their intent, he did notice a very telling micro-trend in orders he was getting from all across the United States.
“We can sort of, you know, guess, or read between the lines, and we’ve had an uptick in smaller quantities,” Roberts said over the summer. “If your typical bookcase is 3 feet wide, and you just want to have the background from your shoulders up, then you might order 9 feet of history, or 9 feet of literature. That way, you put them on your home set … [and] nobody can zoom in on these books and say, Oh my God, he’s reading … you know, something offensive, or tacky. Nothing embarrassing.”
I swear that in one of the great dystopian novels of the 20th Century, there is a reference to wealthy people owning lots of books, not to read them but to show them off as status symbols. If it’s not, it feels like it should be.
You always suspected that these politicians, pundits, celebrities, and others in our “expert class” are not well-read.
But this article really points a spotlight at the naked emperor and screams “hey, we can see your dick, jackass!”
I want to take a quick jaunt over to the New York Times article linked above.
The ‘Credibility Bookcase’ Is the Quarantine’s Hottest Accessory
The bookcase has become the preferred background for applying a patina of authority to an amateurish video feed.
Imagine that you are a member of the expert class — the kind of person invited to pontificate on television news programs. Under normal circumstances, your expertise might be signaled to the public by a gaudy photograph of skyscrapers superimposed behind your head. But now the formalities of the broadcast studio are a distant memory, and the only tools to convey that you truly belong on television are the objects within your own home. There’s only one move: You talk in front of a bookcase.
The credibility bookcase, with its towering, idiosyncratic array of worn volumes, is itself an affectation. The expert could choose to speak in front of his art prints or his television or his blank white walls, but he chooses to be framed by his books. It is the most insidious of aesthetic trends: one that masquerades as pure intellectual exercise.
I’ve never read anything the NYT that I agreed with so much.
Our “betters” who have been telling us that we need to listen to them have been buying books by the foot. Not even bothering to pick out the titles themselves, but having other people curate their bookshelves, to make them seem well-read when they Zoom from their home offices.
Our elites can’t even pick out their own prop books.
They Zoom from in front of bookshelves filled with books that say:
“Look at how well-read I am. Look at how smart I am. I know all this stuff. You should trust me because I am smarter and know more than you.”
The reality is they put as much effort into that as it takes to place an order for a party sub.
“I need nine feet of books on politics. Thank you.”
This is the zenith of shallow vanity.
The part about stuffing the books with styrofoam to make them fit is such an on the nose metaphor about these people who have gotten degrees from Ivy League diploma mills. On the outside, they seemed filled with knowledge, but on the inside, it’s just air and stuffing.
My bookcases don’t lie about me. Engineering texts, books about guns, military history, the US Civil War, some classic Sci-Fi, and I like to collect used library encyclopedia sets when they are sold by the Friends of the Library.
I think the ultimate lesson to take from this is, we should never listen to these people again. Our expert class is filled with a bunch of ignorant know-nothings surrounded by styrofoam filled books they have never so much as even read the titles of.
I’m not at all surprised. A big part of Left Wing Virtue Signaling was the Openly Displayed In-Book of the Moment.
And the important thing was displaying the In-Book in public, not actually reading it.
Shades of ‘Mein Kampf’ and ‘Mao’s Little Red Book’.
“Shades of grey” anyone? “Harry F’in Potter anyone??Im not suprised either. The elites are a bunch of hypocrite scammers. Most are dumber than a box of rocks. Its all a friggin illusion.. My parents house and my house are FULL of books. And 99% of them have been read. I ll have to remember this when I run for office
The important thing to them is not that you have read books- especially when it’s the various lumpenproles reading the wrong kind of things.
It’s that you publicly signal your affirmation of the right kind of Groupthink. Nobody is actually expected to read those ghastly tomes.
I feel this was a waste of a post, because this is the dumbest activity I’ve heard of all year. And that says a lot.
The Elites are the most ignorant, shallow, vacuous, vainglorious people alive
‘Nuff said, right there. No need for the rest of the article.
“In other news, rigorous scientific analysis concludes water is wet.”
But it does show that the “Philosopher Kings” who inhabit the halls of Congress are less philosopher, more wanna-be kings, and not even close to deserving of the respect they demand.
Seriously, buying a loaded bookshelf to appear well-read? Is that notably different from being issued an “honorary doctorate” by donating heavily to a university in lieu of taking any actual classes?
I had a very jarring meeting with my new boss.
It was mostly jarring because I was told this guy was going to be a peer, not my boss, and this was the meeting where he assumed I knew I would be working for him and was speaking to me accordingly.
The other jarring thing was that there were only three books in the obviously-staged-for-video-conferencing bookshelf behind him. All three were turned so you you could see the cover, almost like a bookstore display.
All three were Barack Obama Autobiographies, including the one that had just come out the week before.
It would be kind of fun to ask these kind of people friendly, but really in depth questions about these books so prominently displayed.
It’s best if you have read them, but even if you haven’t, you can still make it work. Just admit you haven’t read it, but what does the owner like about it? What’s his favorite part? and so on.
There have been times when I bought a book for no reason other than it “should” be on my bookshelf. I do not have too many of them, Milton’s Paradise Lost is one of them (Sorry, tried reading it, could not do it. Just did not work for me, too much effort).
Most of my books have either been read, or get referenced regularly. I just do not have much need for a show off shelf.
Like most of the well read on this blog, I have a collection. I’ve read every one. Several 3-4 times. Basically if it’s a good author, I’ll buy the dead tree version. My wife badgered me about buying hardcover instead of paperback or kindle. I looked at her and said I plan on reading it more than once and I’d like to enjoy it.
That said, funny boss story:
I worked in telecom and joined a consulting firm 3years before y2k. Things were hopping and to learn new tech, like ip, networking, winders servers, databases, I’d buy the dummies books. I’m no dummy, but they let me get my feet wet so I could get started an know what kind of advanced book to buy later.
So I’m in my area with my books, many of them dummies books and the big boss shows up, leans next to my ear and tells me they hired us because we’re experts so could I please put the dummies books in my drawer?
Oh, wait, it gets even dumber. The DC based company mentioned in the article curates the collection they give their clients by some sort of subject matter theme: liberal politics, history, science, law, or whatever. So when you do your talking head schtick on MSNBC you look well-read on the subject.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s “lifestyle” company will see you a collection of books that are chosen because they color coordinate with the rest of the room’s decor.
https://www.racked.com/2015/7/21/9006055/goop-gwyneth-paltrow
I’m looking at my corner: 3 reloading books, a couple of general gun books, a few Drupal books. Hoyle’s a few dozen children’s books for my grandson. 50ish kindle books covering SciFi, surgical procedure, mechanical devices.
In my office java books about a dozen, a shelf of photography books, a half dozen boss on gun smithing and building guns. Woodworking books, fishing, hunting and such. A few FM s.
A complete library of US FM in PDF format.
I have dozens of books on metal fabrication and machining and pattern making and casting. Books on building houses and sheds and shelters.
Around the rest of the house are bookshelves of fiction, SciFi, history, math, and science. And any other skill you might think of.
I’ve read most of them except for the reference books but some of them as well.
The reality is they put as much effort into that as it takes to place an order for a party sub.
“I need nine feet of books on politics. Thank you.”
The difference is that the party sub has some meat in it.
Books by the foot has been around for ages, although previously they were selected solely for appearance and catered primarily to the nouveau riche and commercial establishments. The virtue signaling Zoom background appears new for 2020.