Source: Hailey Hoffman
It’s more common for women to be the subject of jokey memetic categorization, getting slapped with the labels of “not a girl’s girl” or “pick mes,” for totally unremarkable behavior. However, men have been accused of being manipulative or fake for doing so-called unmasculine things for a while. There was an era where straight guys who wore nail polish were constantly called "manipulative" because, according to the incredibly online people criticizing them, they were trying to look feminine to appear “safe” to women. I When it comes to the “performative male,” it’s understood that these guys aren’t performing in this way to win the approval of other men, but of the women they seek to date.
The idea of someone’s gender being “performative” didn’t come out of nowhere. The concept of gender performativity originates from the works of feminist writer Judith Butler. In their book Gender Trouble, they theorize that gender is something you perform instead of something you’re born into. According to their works, throughout our lives, we are taught how men and women are “supposed to” act, and we mirror these ideals in our behavior. To Butler, our ideas about our gender are heavily influenced by the society we’re brought up in and the way we speak about gender.
The contemporary origin of the “performative male” as we know him in this latest meme comes from X user @highslip. On December 16th, 2024, he said, “You can always tell when a man’s mustache is performative and not representative of his true spirit.” Looking at it through this lens, the Performative Male meme is more about trends than it’s about performing your gender.
Mustaches are much more en vogue for young men in the 2020s than they were in the 2000s. People will conform to the newest grooming trend whether or not it actually suits them. At the very beginning of the 2020s, it seemed like nearly every woman went from parting her hair on the side to parting her hair in the middle. In the 2010s, parting your hair in the middle would make people think you’d stumbled out of the 16th century! But these trends change very quickly, and if you don’t jump on the bandwagon, you’re at risk for coming off as passé or old.
The central question of the performative male discussion is, “Is it okay to be kind of basic? Is mindlessly adhering to trends that don’t particularly suit you something that’s worthy of scorn?”Again, while this is heavily discussed with it comes to women and their fashion, it seldom enters mainstream discourse when it comes to men’s fashion and grooming.
I vividly remember being in middle school and seething about girls who were so-called “basics.” They all flat-ironed their hair so straight that there was no evidence it ever had a wink of texture in them. They all had Vera Bradley backpacks and wore the same kinds of clothes. At the time, this gendered presentation bothered me so much. I was certain there was no way it could be authentic. All these girls in my class couldn’t in their heart of hearts want to dress and look exactly the same as each other.
By the time I reached 9th grade, I realized that judging my classmates for dressing similarly to each other was not productive—or kind. The question of “Are these girls being fake by dressing this way?” wasn’t a question worth considering or one I should be asking in the first place. I was judging books by their cover, and that is exactly what people are doing with “performative males.” We see popular ways of dressing and styling and automatically label them as inauthentic simply because they’re popular.
I’m not saying there’s nothing to the idea of the performative male. Some dudes are total phonies, and they should be judged for that. However, phoniness comes from within; it is not a surface-level phenomenon. A guy you see walking down the street may look like his mustache doesn’t match his true essence, but there’s a good chance that would be a surface-level analysis. Maybe if you actually talked to him and his mustache, its sacred purpose would be revealed to you.
People make grooming choices that are bad for them all the time! It’s not a deadly sin. If you saw what my hair looked like during my first year of being blonde, you would probably wince. Guys shave their heads on a whim and regret it immediately. A bad haircut does not equal an evil spirit, but despite the virtues we were taught as kids, it’s not easy to get people to stop judging others by their appearance.
If you’re someone with an incredibly strong sense of self that is largely unswayed by trends, fads, or seeking the approval of others, the struggle of the performative male might seem vapid to you. If that’s you, consider this: We live in an internet culture where the most unremarkable behavior can be twisted into proof that someone is a nefarious trickster who can’t be trusted. Even if someone is aesthetically basic and follows trends like they’re getting paid to do it, it doesn’t mean they’re an intrinsically fake person. We’ve all got to perform our gender somehow, and the performative males are no exception.
