I’m sure many people out there, including me, have had a man say or do something to them that was lowkey (maybe highkey) awful. That may just be the great equalizer. So, when Lorde released her new song “Man Of The Year” on May 29, it became time for me, and many others I’m sure, to unleash their inner “thought daughter” and reminisce on every time a man has done me wrong.
If you haven’t seen TikTok’s “Man Of The Year” trend yet, let me explain: While this new single is about Lorde’s experience with gender fluidity, the trend gives the song another meaning by calling out men’s trash behavior. TikTok users are using this new Lorde song to expose the horrifying things men have done to them, ironically calling these guys the “man of the year” for their actions.
In just a couple weeks, “Man Of The Year” has already surpassed 14 million listens on Spotify. Some of this must be attributed to the popularity of the song on TikTok, as the song has over 100,000 videos under it on the app, most of them exposing horrible men. I thought I was basically desensitized to all the bad things a man could do, but boy was I wrong. As the lyric says, “Let’s hear it for the man of the year!”
One video from a creator named Paris details how her ex found out she was pregnant and promised her the world, before leaving her a month later for a new girl and blocking her on everything. And this is just one of many.
Another video from TikTok user @sophs414 shows how her man sent her numbered text messages saying “I don’t cheat”… 1,000 times. Yeah, you read that right. I don’t know about you, but I’m guessing he cheated.
In quite possibly the most diabolical video from this trend, one TikTok user shared that her boyfriend cheated, so she broke up with him, and then he made an EDM song of one of her voicemails in which she’s crying and saying “you really hurt my feelings.” She also shared said EDM song in her video, to which one of the top comments on the video says, “If it makes you feel better it sounds like sh*t.” I can’t even begin to unpack all of that.
Lorde herself has even commented on the trend, with a video of her shaking her head and the caption, “These messages…” in reference to messages people have received from men and posted them to the audio.
There are thousands of videos like these, so if you have had a horrible man do something to you, this could be the perfect opportunity for catharsis. But seriously… where do these men get the audacity? May we never know.