Culture Share: ‘Performative Males’, The Algorithm and Yet Another Crisis in Masculinity

What would bell hooks say? That’s a question that’s been orbiting my brain for the past few weeks since the performative male meme took hold this summer. Truth be told, I don’t know what it means, and I’m probably far too old to care or have any major gripes with a trend that started on the clock app. The reality is that bell hooks likely wouldn’t give this sort of discourse the time of day, given that she’s already written books such as Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Will to Change specifically focuses on building a world in which men can express a full range of emotions, and that we’re victims of patriarchy, despite many of us buying into and benefiting from it. Side note: This is the bell hooks we should be reading first, and then All About Love.

When I read tweets, posts, etc, about being a performative male, I see it as the latest rung on the online male beration industrial complex that’s been reached. Masculinity has been studied, dissected and redefined since ancient times. For all the male bravado that followed the release of Frank Miller’s 300, few of its fans were aware that Spartan soldiers engaged in homosexuality, and this act demonstrated peak masculinity at the time. The practice still exists in some ways in the male locker room through butt-slapping and nudity.

There has always been a crisis in masculinity because what the world expects us to be never quite matches what we’re allowed to be. Then, when you throw in the intersections of race, sexuality and class, the definition of man and masculinity becomes even more nuanced.

A few years ago, it was men are trash, which was, in essence, a rightful title. So men did either one of two things: attempt to level up or double down. The level uppers are the ones you see walking down Columbia Road with a bunch of flowers, wearing jorts, white socks and loafers. Those who doubled down are on podcasts, asking their guests how much they spend on dates.

Just this week, GQ published a piece, albeit late, on the white socks and loafers trend. Max Berlinger writes, “Another idea that this look represents is 'dressing for the algorithm,' which essentially denotes jumping on trends because they’re fed to us for likes and comments, thus perpetuating a broader cycle of sartorial homogeneity.” We’re all inspired by external forces, particularly when it comes to style, as after all, it’s a form of self-expression. But when your digital feed dictates what your latest look is, it’s worth taking a step back and asking yourself, Is this how you would dress if you were online less frequently than you currently are?

Therein lies the problem; complex social theories have been reduced into bite-sized trends and memes we’re supposed to make sense of. We’re left in a state of confusion as to what performative masculinity is because it removes the fundamental aspect: how men act and treat women. If men are signalling that wearing white socks and loafers is a softer aesthetic of masculinity, what is it about other expressions that have been found lacking?

It wasn’t long ago that nose rings and piercings defined a softer visual representation of masculinity, but Chris Brown has one and well, you know. Men like this have recognised that there is social currency in presenting yourself as a softer, kinder, compassionate man. And it brings us back to the idea of identity politics and how fragile it is to judge people and their actions based on aesthetics alone, and how they present themselves.

Brands have capitalised on this, all too well. Van Cleef isn’t typically made for men, but celebrities such as Michael B. Jordan, Jay Z, Jack Grealish and Timothee Chalamet have all been spotted wearing the luxury jewellery brand. Now, each of these celebrities represents differing forms of masculinity, and we see your everyday, stylish man wearing pearls and Van Cleef knock-offs because these items have not only signified wealth but a less-aggressive presentation of masculinity. A man wearing these items twenty years ago may have been considered ‘fruity’, but less so now.

Thus, the pendulum continues to swing between toxic and performative masculinity. All the while, young men are still figuring out how to be men in a world that keeps pushing the goalposts depending on how the wind blows.

Maybe we need to stop trying to figure out masculinity and leave it to the experts. Of course, that’s impossible to do, and mainstream masculinity represented in popular culture is pretty violent. I think, once again, this is a result of popular culture trying to make sense of every micro-trend and the media’s response by giving too much power to these meme-cycles, which last only a matter of weeks.

The discourse has largely been heteronormative-male-focused, but it still appears flat when memes make far less sense given how ubiquitous fashion has become among young people. With the algorithm feeding everyone the same style looks: jorts, white vest and socks, loafers, tote bag and a baseball cap, we have to ask who falls into this bracket of performative male? Sure, it’s just an online viral trend, but the most popular ones generally tend to make sense.

Take a step further back, and the particular look that’s been prescribed to performative males can find its origins in Black communities from the American South and Midwest – except the loafers. We’re well used to Black styles being appropriated by the mainstream, but when those looks get you branded as being a performative male, there’s a nuance that’s lost. More importantly, what does it say about young people today that most of their inspiration comes from the same place? And what are we really saying about men who dress like this?

We’re making some broad assumptions that all of the men who fit this archetype are straight and heteronormative, and that’s largely because the discourse has failed to acknowledge one fundamental tenet of gender: it’s mostly a performance. We dress the way we do, behave, act and express ourselves in certain ways because gender is learned, and as society has, for the most part, become more accepting of queerness, even heteronormative men are taking style cues.

All of this will only lead to confusion among young men and boys who wrestle with their own ideas of masculinity, particularly in a world where trends are moving at a lightning pace. It’s safer for young boys to turn to Andrew Tate because, to them, he offers a tangible solution even though the reality is far from that. And fundamentally, the ‘performative male’ trend exists because it’s far simpler for society to poke fun than it is to find a remedy to the toxicity and violence that masculinity can sometimes inflict. If there are no answers, should we rethink the questions we are asking?

These trends will move on, but men will remain, and so will masculinity.

And all of this is the result of us being too online, and after a while, it does become a bit sad. After all, what is masculinity – and femininity – if not performance? And what does that say about society if the performance of it all is lost? Maybe I’m reading too much into a TikTok trend, but it says a lot about the platform and its users that their depth of thinking is as broad as a fishbowl and as deep as a puddle of spilt Matcha.

Admittedly, this was a difficult newsletter to write because of the lack of depth the ‘performative male’ meme carries. It’s gone through far more edits than any other piece I’ve written in the past few years because I was struggling to find the deeper layers of meaning, so I drafted in Meena to offer some thoughts from a female Gen Z perspective:

“While I don’t condone the hyper-critical for no good reason ‘performative male’ trend, it does strike me as somewhat important to point out that, being gazed upon, critiqued and labelled has historically been the domain of those of us who are female or femme-presenting. The female experience in and of itself is one of being perceived and judged. It starts as young as childhood when you are first told you are ‘pretty’ or ‘flat-chested’ or wolf-whistled at by a man in a white van.

Perhaps we finally have a point of mutual understanding then. Living in this world of cameras and social media, the experience of being looked upon is no longer just a female one. We are all victims of a surveillance culture; we are all constantly on display, at risk of being papped and plastered on TikTok. So, I can empathise with how these ‘performative males’ might be feeling.

I see the ‘performative male’ as the male equivalent of the ‘pick-me’ girl. The performance at play is one of attracting the attention of a potential romantic interest by assuming the traits you think they will like. And the costume, well, that’s just dictated by the algorithm, as Jesse said. Surely it’s a win that we have reached a point in time when men are ‘performing’ a version of masculinity that is deemed most palatable to women, with those attributes including feminism and emotional intelligence?

And anyway, when it comes down to it, a performance is just a performance; what really matters is what you’re like off-stage. I couldn’t really care less what you wear. I know plenty of men who veer far away from loafers and jorts and are genuinely feminist and highly emotionally intelligent. The algorithm will change, and we’ll all be wearing something else in two years. Stop caring about who is ‘performative’ and start praising those who are genuinely embodying a version of masculinity that benefits all of us in society, men and women alike.”

For me, it really does come back to the point that the frustration many people have is that nothing is original, authentic or unique anymore. Our style inspirations all come from the same places, which I mentioned earlier, but we’ve built a world where the outliers are ostracised, so why wouldn’t your everyday bloke go with the stream? It’s much safer and draws far less attention. The irony in that, though, is that by dressing the same, we’re still standing out.

Drake was once the poster boy for performative male-ism because he named interludes after women he had sexual encounters with and opened himself up, as if he were the first rapper to do so. Buzzfeed ran a piece in 2016 headlined Drake Belongs To Black Women, but the early detractors were right about him. In the piece, Hannah Giorgis writes: “Still, their coupling held weight. Here was Drake publicly adoring a black woman who is so often compared to men, to horses, to any manner of insults. That Serena does not have the slender physique, thin features, or light skin of women like Rihanna and Beyoncé, whom even a casual racist might list as Hot Black Girls, is not insignificant. The details of their breakup notwithstanding, his public affection was yet another reminder that Drake loves him a black girl. Hard. Even when they’re not as keen on blowing those kisses right back.”

Serena Williams was cripwalking on the Super Bowl stage during Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show, the proverbial dancing on Drake’s grave, the final death knell. The problem with Drake was never how people felt about his music, but that at a time when millennials were learning new languages regarding social issues, we projected our beliefs onto the Canadian, believing he was more empathetic and introspective than your average man, and he took that and used it as a marketing strategy.

Never mind that it was lowkey condescending to believe that Serena Williams couldn’t be desired or wanted by your average Black man – it’s important to note that she’s one of the greatest and richest athletes in sports history. Never mind that Drake, for years, has had sexual predators as his closest confidants and business partners. Never mind that Drake maintained inappropriate relationships with Jorja Smith and Millie Bobby Brown. The conversation would probably have more weight if she were neither of those things and Drake were a regular dude. But this all spectacularly backfired last year because he eventually became the butt of the joke. Some may gleefully boast that they knew Drake was performative all along, but how we all ignored the signs when they were right in front of us goes to show how aesthetics are not enough.

None of this is new, Gen Z have just been able to spot the cues of performative men in 2025, but the difference between them and millennials is that they’re not really taking any of it seriously, because they grew up armed with the knowledge that ‘men are trash’. But as Meena rightly touches, none of this should really matter because it’s all a performance, and what matters is what happens when the cameras stop rolling.