The pressure to perform has migrated from the corporate world into academe. Academics across the globe feel this pressure to perform, often expressed as "publish or perish". I reflect on the rising culture of performativity in recent decades and how it has penetrated South African universities. In doing so, I specifically look at the academic life of Ludwig Wittgenstein (regarded by Anglo-American philosophers as the greatest philosopher of the 20th century) to begin to deconstruct performativity regimes in South Africa and in particular the NRF rating system.