Step aside skeletons, ghosts, and characters from Wicked: There’s a new hot Halloween costume in town, and it’s the “performative male.” He’s sensitive, he’s a feminist, and women across the internet loathe him.
The meme of the performative male exploded this year and has been documented everywhere from Cosmopolitan to the New York Times. Performative male contests have been held throughout the country, particularly in cities where you might happen to find such specimens in the wild: San Francisco, Amherst, and New York City.
Participants wear Ruth Bader Ginsburg shirts and carry protest signs and copies of Michelle Obama’s Becoming. They wear wired headphones and, inexplicably, Labubus, the creepy collectible plush toys that have become Generation Z’s Beanie Babies. One Halloween costume suggestion includes a “tote bag from a record store abroad” and “ceremonial grade matcha” as well as vinyls from female singer-songwriter Clairo. Not included are “original thoughts” and “self-validation.”
What holds this seemingly incoherent aesthetic together? These are all things that today’s liberal men suspect might be appealing to the ladies. Even Jacob Elordi, the heartthrob who played Elvis in Priscilla, has been counted among the posers. The irony is that in their attempts to appeal to Gen Z women, these young men aren’t off the mark; they just can’t be reading feminist literature performatively. They actually have to be interested in it.
For years, liberals have complained about men’s toxic masculinity and inherent privilege, demanding that they apologize for their entire sex’s sins and atone by making themselves more invisible. For a lonely Gen Z liberal, what’s he to do but hook a Labubu to his belt and pretend that he reads feminist theorist bell hooks for fun? Any man who is called out for his performative look can claim that it’s tongue-in-cheek — or that it’s a Halloween costume.
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But Gen Z seems to be growing sick of irony. When every social media post is carefully curated to look like it’s not carefully curated and natural feelings are packaged and rebranded to fit comfortably with our modern age — wanting to have children is now a breeding kink, for example — what young people are craving most is authenticity. But then they’d have to admit that it’s OK and normal for men not to be reading Sally Rooney novels (and other popular books marketed toward women) and drinking matcha if they prefer coffee (or even Diet Mountain Dew).
If the popularity of “romantasy” novels and shows such as Outlander tells us anything, it’s that women are not looking for men with wired headphones and a collection of records as much as they’re interested in men who display more stereotypically male traits and virtues. But as long as young women performatively proclaim that they’re looking for male allies with whom to fight the supposed injustices of the world, they will find performative men to meet them.
