Performative Men: A Crisis or a Creation?

Alex Gervais ’28

Executive Opinion and Design Editor

Selvedge denim, matcha, “East of Eden,” Labubus; it seems that the idea of the performative man has all but cemented itself in our cultural zeitgeist. The trend, which peaked over the summer on TikTok and Instagram, has become a cultural touchpoint for many in our generation: a universal digital language that goes beyond a week-long trend and becomes truth. 

For older readers who are likely incredibly confused at this point, it will be valuable to understand the stereotype of the performative male. Performative men are guys who base their lives around performing for the female gaze. They wear tote bags and thrifted denim, they sit in coffee shops with a half-read paperback book in one hand and a matcha latte in the other. These men are not some new cultural appearance, they’ve been with us all along. In 2011, it was the men who wore thick rimmed glasses, plaid and fedoras. In 2018, it was the guys who painted their Vans, listened to Mac DeMarco and wore bright orange Save the Bees hoodies everywhere they went. In 2021, it was wearing Air Force Ones, skateboarding and over-saturating Instagram photos. The idea of the performative male is a cultural constant, a left-of-center expression of masculinity that so often pairs itself with feminine presenting subculture. 

The performative trend came to fruition not only in online spaces, but in real ones as well. Across the country’s largest cities and college campuses performative male contests went from a joke to a reality. Born out of the look-a-like contest trend of late 2024, the performative male contest became a place where performativeness was given an inherent value, where men were literally competing for attention. Men show up to these contests with their wired earbuds and cropped button downs in hopes of approval not only from women, but their fellow performative men. They hope that they may indeed be the belle of the ball, the most performative of them all. 

Many of my friends would leap at the opportunity to tell you that I fit this performative bill; I go grail hunting on Vinted, Clairo was my most listened to artist last year, I drink green tea and I wear sweaters. Yet the question bears asking: are we not all performative? At a school as small as Trinity it’s no secret that performance matters, that the identity you present will be remembered and pigeonholed by your peers. Each one of us is always being perceived by others and, consciously or not, responding to their perceptions. The many wrists on our campus adorned with fake Van Cleef and Rolexes are inherently performing for others. The appearance we put on may be self-fulfilling, but they’re also a product of the cultures we came about in and the ways we were taught to perform. These days, the internet is having an outsized impact on that self appearance.

At a time when our nation is awash in conservatism, who would we rather have our young men performing for? Many of our young men—rightfully or not—feel left behind by their society. They’re often turning to the internet for approval and acceptance, yet these online spaces are so often gateways to dangerous fascist ideologies. Shaming our young men into these right-wing communities can be an unintended consequence of our discourse on performance. Coding explicitly feminine activities and aesthetics as purely a performance and not as self expression tends to push men away from experimenting with gender identity. As traditionalism rapidly makes its reappearance in our culture, we must reaffirm and protect expressions of self identity, no matter how insincere they may be. 

At the end of the day, our young men must commit to performing for themselves rather than for others. The men who want to drink matcha and listen to Clairo should do that and the men who don’t want to shouldn’t, but they should do it for themselves. No amount of approval from strangers on the internet or victories in performative male contests can fill the void of self acceptance and lost community that so many young men face today. We must instead build true connections, true community for the sake of ourselves, not as a performance.