BROOKLYN, N.Y. — The death of literacy has officially been succeeded by the far more tragic death of shelf integrity. Across the nation, remote workers are no longer purchasing literature to read, but rather acquiring it by the cubic foot to aggressively curate Zoom backgrounds that project an aura of profound, entirely unearned depth.

Gone are the days of arranging pastel spines to match an overpriced sectional—a chromatic catastrophe I have long mourned. Today’s performative intellectuals demand a highly engineered diorama of suffering and enlightenment, prominently featuring thick, uncracked translations of Russian depressives.

"You cannot simply throw a Garamond-typeset copy of 'Infinite Jest' in the frame and expect people to think you have a soul," said Julian Cresswell, Chief Optics Officer at the interior consulting firm ShelfAware. "We currently advise clients to casually obscure their ring light with a strategically dog-eared copy of Marcus Aurelius. The shadow implies existential brooding."

This desperate, tactile flexing is merely a reaction to our automated modern reality. The physical book has devolved into a Birkin bag with chapters, brandished by people who genuinely believe a serif is a type of medieval peasant.

"I spent four hours distressing the dust jacket of my 'Odyssey,'" said Thaddeus Vance, Senior Synergist at PivotPoint Media. "My colleagues must know my spirit aches for antiquity, even though I exclusively consume fifteen-second videos of people power-washing rugs."

At press time, Vance was seen furiously Googling whether "Crime and Punishment" was available in Helvetica to better complement his minimalist standing desk.