Picture a man sitting in a cafe. He’s wearing baggy shorts, carrying a tote bag, drinking matcha and reading feminist literature. This is the image of a performative male, a trend that has popped up on TikTok over the past few months, blowing up on social media and captivating many. What started as a fun trend aimed to poke fun at “indie” men has evolved into discourse, with people questioning the intent behind these men. Is the performative male a harmful ruse for male manipulators, or is it just a fun trend meant to get laughs and views?
what is a performative male?
Forbes describes a performative male as a man who carries a tote bag, sips an iced oat milk matcha latte, wears baggy pants, accessorizes with a Labubu and pretends to read Angela Davis. They are often seen listening to Clairo and beabadoobee through wired headphones and carrying disposable cameras and feminist literature.
Performative men have existed for a long time; this isn’t something new. In the early and mid-2010s, there was the hipster, which transitioned into the soft boy in the late 2010s. Even in the past year or so, we have seen a variation of the performative male with the “3 a.m. morning routine guy,” who used performative characteristics to appear as an “alpha” male.
This new iteration of men has popped up on TikTok in the past several months, taking social media by storm. There have been endless TikToks and YouTube commentary videos made and even performative male lookalike contests, at colleges like USC and UC Berkley, and parks and cafes in Berlin and Toronto.
The ruse of feminism
Although it started out as a fun trend, it has quickly become the center for discourse, as some performative men allegedly pretend to have a vested interest in women’s hobbies like feminist literature or matcha, to attract and seduce women, but then mistreat them.
These men curate this specific look to appeal to what they think women like and look for in a partner, rather than what they themselves actually like. In essence, a performative male’s interest and style are governed by what he thinks women will find attractive/endearing.
Now, it must be said that the majority of men participating in this trend are not manipulative or bad. But the problem isn’t the trend itself; it’s when the performance doesn’t match the true action and the outcome. When the values, cultural signifiers and belief systems attached to matcha, feminist literature and the soft boy look are false, that’s where the problem lies.
There is nothing wrong with liking feminine things like jewelry or adhering to that kind of aesthetic. It’s the fact that some men will pick out these things and recognize that they make women more comfortable around them. They put up a performative act or an aesthetic and weaponize it in order to get women to like and respect them so that they can take advantage of that.
While this is the extreme result of this trend, and is by no means the majority, there are still many examples of this trend being co-opted and manipulated. The rise of the performative male reveals a cultural movement where softness isn’t just stylish, it’s strategic. Aesthetics may look like vulnerability, but vulnerability without actual accountability, that’s strategic.
Has the joke gone too far?
The trend of the performative male hasn’t just created discourse about men, but also about the trend itself. A lot of men are wrongly being labeled as performative males on the internet because they dress similarly to and have similar hobbies to a stereotypical performative male. Although these men may look like your average performative man, they are not. This is because, at its core, the performative male trend is about intent and authenticity.
The reason why the trend went so viral is not so much because of the way these men dress or the hobbies they engage in, but rather because they are putting on an act, playing it up for laughs and views. The intended target of this trend was a misogynistic male manipulator crafting a completely inauthentic persona to trick women into sleeping with him. But as the TikTok-ification of social commentary dictates, the scope of scrutiny is now widened to include any guy who looks like a stereotypical performative male.
Instead of inspiring these men or recognizing their interests, this trend may be doing more harm than good. Seeing a man dress or behave in a feminine way and automatically labeling him as performative is really just a roundabout way to perpetuate patriarchal ideologies. What you’re essentially saying is men should only look one particular way. Women are the ones who should be behaving in this more feminine way, when in reality, people should be free to look and behave any way they want to, regardless of gender norms.
In our culture, the idea that a man could be interested in drinking tea, reading for pleasure and wearing a sweater vest is preposterous and therefore automatically considered performative. When people start clowning men for dressing a certain way, for drinking matcha and reading books, they can end up discouraging them from participating in this aesthetic or lifestyle.
Remember, it’s not the trend itself that’s bad; it’s the performance and the intent behind the behavior. If a man generally loves Clairo vinyls, reading and drinking matcha, he should be able to engage in these activities without being judged on social media. However, if he is only doing these things when women are watching, with the goal of seeming more attractive to women, then he is 100% a performative male.
On the bright side, this trend is happening in a generation that is hyper-online and hyper-self-aware. People can’t engage in a fun meme without also having the discourse about the meme happening concurrently. Every time there is a meme, people also have to discuss the implications of said meme on society, and because of that, the discourse is happening in a reasonably healthy way online, as healthy as it can be.