Performative

He has a little moustache and a mullet, a whole album of silly tattoos on his arms, dresses like a carbon copy of every TikTok trend, and his passions are as authentic as a thirty-euro banknote. The performative male is perhaps the missing link in modern masculinity. In trying not to be as toxic as his predecessors, he has invented a new form of toxicity. After all, evil does not die: it simply re-invents itself. Today’s performative male is just the recycled version of yesterday’s hipster and the indie boy before that. At the very least, we should acknowledge the effort. Better to read Sally Rooney just to look cool than never open a book at all.