He has a mullet or a bleached buzz cut — no in between — and probably a Letterboxd account with an ode to “Interstellar” as his top review. He drinks specialty tea lattes with dairy alternatives. He wears Japanese denim and a Carhartt jacket. He listens to music exclusively through wired headphones or on vinyl in the comfort of his Clairo-postered studio apartment. Who is he? The man, the myth, the urban legend: the performative male.
Famously disingenuous in his self-presentation, this male archetype tailors his image to appeal to women, curating his interests to come across as profound and cerebral.
Though popularized late this summer, the performative male has always existed in some shape or form online. One thing remains constant — he is persistently characterized by his opportunistic embodiment of femininity.
At the dawn of the internet, there was the so-called “nice guy.” Later, 2019 birthed the “softboi,” who wore pearl necklaces and discovered empathy. Jokes cautioning against the Radiohead-listening “male manipulator” appeared in the cultural zeitgeist, and women online teased about grown men having revelatory thoughts they’d had at 11. Is this shapeshifter, however, of any real consequence beyond the screen? Some say yes. Others say no.
“I don’t really mess with matcha, so I think I’m ineligible,” said Brian Thomas, a fourth-year economics major at Harvard University.
Thomas has never been labeled performative himself but observes it as a phenomenon among his peers to garner female attention.
“They want some play. You know, it’s been a while for some of them, and they think this is the path,” Thomas said.
Thomas’ belief isn’t unfounded — research suggests this persona has tangible appeal. In a 2024 study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, women ranked feminine male profiles as more romantically appealing than masculine ones, indicating that the so-called “performative male” may have better long-term female relationship prospects.
“Authenticity when it comes to social presentation is always really difficult because when you’re presenting yourself, it’s to be perceived by others… It’s never going to be solely a manifestation of your selfhood,” said Jess Montgomery, a fourth-year landscape architecture major at Northeastern.
Montgomery further alluded to the teachings of feminist philosopher Judith Butler, who originated the idea that gender presentation is a “stylized repetition of acts.”
“Gender is a performance. Every day, when we wake up in the morning, we decide how we are going to perform gender,” Montgomery said.
With this in mind, it’s not the loafers, the tote bags or the film cameras that make Montgomery weary — it’s when she can tell that someone’s just hopped aboard the proverbial bandwagon.
“I think it’s immediately obvious when you’re talking to somebody and they’re sort of picking through interests and clothes and hobbies and adornments because they’re of the moment,” Montgomery said.
For Montgomery, the difference between performative and authentic self-expression also lies in time expenditure, citing hobbies like crochet that take a concerted amount of effort, and are, by default, unperformable.
“You have to build up that skill,” Montgomery said. “Like, it’s obvious that you’ve sort of invested.”
Elliot Phifer, a second-year design major at Northeastern, argues that there are two brands of the performative male — the caricature and a more well-intentioned, true-to-life version.
“I think there’s, like, the memeified version that you see online. It’s like the tote bag and the Clairo vinyl and the matcha and the Labubu. But I think there’s the more real version, which is where it’s not as much of a hyperbolic exaggeration of a person,” Phifer said. “I think the real performative male is much more subtle, and it’s probably not very much of a conscious thing.”
Has Phifer himself ever fielded accusations of performativity? “All the time. My friends say that to me all the time because of how I dress and who I listen to,” Phifer said. “And because I enjoy a matcha every now and again.”
Phifer is able to take the jokes in good faith because they’re just that — jokes. He would only take offense if they were meant as a more serious moral indictment, he said.
“I feel like that would be a little hurtful because I really do just enjoy a lot of these things,” Phifer said. “And so to be called performative [in that sense] implies that you’re in some way deceiving.”
Across college campuses, the performative male has become such a phenomenon that students have started holding performativity contests, including at nearby institutions like Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard and Brown University.
Now, there are posters around Northeastern advertising a contest slotted for Sept. 27 at the Boston Common, promising a $100 prize for the winner and Labubus for contestants who come in second and third.
“People have been telling me to join,” Phifer said jokingly. “I will not be… If I do well, I’m hurt, right? Because nobody wants to be that. And then if I don’t do well, I’m also hurt because, come on — I want to do well. I want that Labubu.”
Unconsciously or not, a little performativity lives within everyone.
Phifer doesn’t know anyone participating in the contest, but, “Maybe I’ll know him when I see him,” he said.
