Revisiting the Performative Man: Why He’s on Borrowed Time
"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds," J. Robert Oppenheimer, with a dead look in his eye, famously quoted this line from the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Vita. This is probably how resident poster boys for the brooding/sensitive male Jacob Elordi and Timothée Chalamet would probably feel if they knew about the monster they created that is the “performative man.”
The meteoric rise and fall of the now derivative meta of men presenting themselves as beings written by women has grown in discourse over the past few months after we first dissected this now full-blown "epidemic." Is there a cure for this and do people even still care about that Joe-shmoe with a Sylvia Plath paperback in his jeans back pocket?
When we hear someone mention “The Performative Man,” it is now like nails on a chalkboard to our ears, with more than a handful of local and international competitions satirizing this new meta of man to the point of even mainstream media covering this phenomenon. We're even getting memes and satirical posts making fun of politicians on performativity on social issues and political correctness, not that this wasn't a thing in the past.
As more guys attempt to cosplay as this “rare” breed of a tote bag-sporting, matcha-consuming, Japanese selvedge denim-wearing, and ‘sad girl music’-enjoying protagonists, they more accurately appear as generic, cookie-cutter NPCs (non-player characters).
Trying to stand out as the “performative man” and the blueprint to boost a man’s stock in the overly saturated pop culture space and modern dating sphere, the more pedestrian and uninspired the endeavor becomes.
We last deconstructed this generation’s ambassadors and flag-bearers of men to be on the lookout for in late-June, when the phenomenon was barely on anyone's radar, even predating the inclusion of the massively popular Labubu dolls surgically attached to karabiners and beltloops to the performative man starter kit. (We apologize for the lack of foresight in failing to predict this evolution.)
“I’m listening to u rn and drinking matcha with my labubu,” one Instagram user commented on indie-pop superstar Clairo’s post.
“Whatever that means,” the singer replied to the comment in confusion.
In the countless videos portraying the peformative man, Clairo's alternative pop music along with other indie darlings such as beabadoobee, The Marías, and Faye Webster are in carefully curated playlists to demonstrate a guy's knack and taste for emotionally gripping tunes.
Clairo: a singer commonly linked to the performative man
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Timothée Chalamet has been seen as the epitome of the modern, emotionally open figure of masculinity
In case you’ve been living under a rock, the spirit of the “performative man” is centered on the buzzword and often loosely defined “female gaze.”
The literature on it stems from the concept of the “male gaze” coined by feminist film theorist Laura Mulver in the 1980s, where women are seen as a bearer of meaning for male fantasies.
So, in effect, the female gaze yearns for unapologetic figures that branch out of the machismo rigid stereotypes and embraces earnest emotions and vulnerability.
When first impressions and encounters are all you have in the wild, analog trinkets is the name of the game in catching the female gaze.
If the performative man were to recommend products to the Esquire Essentials list, thrifted clothing, wired apple earphones, Labubu dolls, ceremonial-grade matcha lattes, Japanese selvedge denim, vinyl sticking out of their tote bags, and books from influential women would just be some of the goods on his list.
Reonciling the traditionally trite artistic choices and taste of masculinity and vulnerability is the name of the game here, but these often reek of inauthenicity.
Personally, the phenomenon has made us think twice about whipping out a book in public with wired earphones in the shallow worry to be perceived as this archetype.
The jig is up: a red flag in sheep’s clothing
While society has caught the performative man bug like the plague, it begs the question of whether this is just a makeover job for the millennial hipsters, fuccbois, and the clandestinely more lethal softboys of yesteryear.
A quick rundown on the two: a fuccboi (or fuckboy) is a man who sleeps around with women without the goal of ending up in a relationship with them and even walking out the morning after; a softboy, on the other hand, is sometimes coined as a "fuckboy with feelings," or a guy who shrouds his intentions with deceptive kind-heartedness.
A softboy, which is seen as a more deceptive and nefarious variation of the two, may be sometimes mistaken for the modern performative man.
This is the case since the fuckboy, or what they called a player back in the day, often explicitly doesn't put in the effort to veil their intentions or what they are after, with the softboy being seen as more cunning and manipulative in nature.
Should we be thinking of this phenomenon as a software update and reboot for these cunning individuals?
We aren’t accusing you of being a poser if you happen to genuinely enjoy these literary, fashion, and music pursuits prototypical of the contemporary performative man, and that you're this red flag for women everywhere. We aren't calling you a manipulative man if you have this particualr taste in fashion, music, or literature, and people shouldn't be reluctant to share these and enjoy these pursuits.
The difference lies in the blatant virtue signaling that makes this performative archetype so easy to make fun of and stomach churning when done unironically.
Is he really enjoying that Simone de Beauvoir, Sylvia Plath, Joan Didion book, or is he executing a cunning mating-call for the micro-fringe sporting object of his desire?
What all this boils down to, whether you take this epidemic seriously or not, is that the performative man won’t be the final boss of the modern bachelor.
"If women allow themselves to be consoled by myth, they are flattering themselves into submission,” Germaine Greer wrote in the The Female Eunuch.
