By Davis McClure

Early one morning, a barista yelled out “Strawberry matcha!” over a rustling crowd of students, many running late to class.

A tote bag on one arm, with Clairo blaring through his wired headphones, an allegedly-six-foot-two man made his way to the counter to retrieve his order. He went about his day as normal.

That was, until he opened Yik-Yak and found a picture of himself and his matcha trending. He was then labeled as a ‘performative male.’

But where did this term originate from?

In 2024, the ‘performative male’ jokes took the internet by storm. The term was largely authored by women, aimed at men who perform ‘femininity’ to appeal to the female gaze.

Renne Walden, a junior at the University of Arkansas, proposed that there are larger forces at play with the performative trend.

Walden stated that Gen-Z’s reliance on social media has instilled a need for belonging among students, which leads them to borrow their identity from others so that they can fit in.

“I think we’re often striving to become more palatable to people because we crave connection,” Walden said. “When we experienced COVID, social media was our only way of connecting for a long time. That isolation made us aware of what it’s like to lack community.”

Walden stated that students are forced to create connections through the media that they consume as opposed to genuine individuality, which blurs the line between individuality and copy-and-paste culture.

Despite gaining popularity in 2024, the performative male archetype still holds weight. The term has influenced fashion and musical trends among students on campus.

A fashion group at the U of A, ‘Fits N’ Shit,’ has surged in popularity over the past year. Every Friday, the group goes around campus and takes pictures of students with the ‘best’ outfits. These pictures are then posted to their Instagram page.

Jagger Shushi, ‘Fits N’ Shit’ founder and a senior at the U of A, said the page isn’t a fashion competition, but rather a place to be recognized for experimenting with style.

“It’s just fun to get dressed,” Shushi said. “I think it’s something you shouldn’t really take too seriously.”

Christopher Keller, a junior at the U of A, has been featured on the page many times.

Keller said that while he likes seeing the group on campus, he has seen a noticeable shift in behaviors around the group.

“There’s people out there who plan their outfits and purposely wait around for them to come so they can get their picture taken,” Keller said. “It’s literally the term performative. They are performing.”

Keller talked about how getting called performative affects his forms of self-expression.

“Growing up in a really conservative town, my form of self-expression was through my clothes,” Keller said. “I used clothes to gain confidence in myself, and I think if we call people’s style performative, it sucks the enjoyment out of it.”

The label doesn’t just follow these men into their closets, but also to their streaming platforms.

Charles Hill, a sophomore at the U of A, said that he is a victim of the matcha drinking and Clairo listening stereotype.

According to Hill, a large part of the performative male persona is listening to female artists and while some men copy-and-paste what they see women consuming on social media, many are genuinely expressing themselves and their personal interests.

“I think people’s fear of being seen as unmanly is greater than their fear of being seen as performative,” Hill said.

This poses the question: does displaying femininity in any capacity automatically label someone performative?

Alyson Hubbard, a sophomore at the U of A majoring in studio art, expressed the importance of men consuming art made by women.

“I feel that performative culture is discouraging men, especially young men, from engaging with feminist literature,” she said. “Everyone of every gender needs to be consuming art by women because it embodies the female experience and the struggles that we go through.”

Hubbard described gender as a spectrum and stressed the importance of men exploring it.

“Discouraging any feminine behavior, what’s the flip side to that?” Hubbard asked. “It’s alpha male toxicity. I would much rather have a world full of performative men than misogynistic men.”

Hubbard expressed that she doesn’t think that men have the place to be upset about the joke, considering that women have faced their own version of this with the term ‘pick me girl’: a label that reduces a woman’s exploration of masculine traits as attention-seeking.

“Obviously misandry is never as harmful as misogyny is gonna be,” she said. “But if we want to create a generation of respectful and informed men, we need them to be able to be open to more feminine expressions.”

But where is the line drawn between femininity and inauthenticity? Who draws it?