The rise of the performative male

The rise of the performative male

An unread novel plucked from the feminist canon, a Labubu dangling from a tote bag, and an "oak milk matcha" – spot them all, and you may have encountered an archetypal "performative male", said Ellie Violet Bramley in The Guardian. "Likened to the poser of the 90s" keen to convey their rarefied cultural tastes to the world at large, the performative male's "posturing" has a more targeted end goal: "to woo women they hope will be attracted by th…

Bros, Stop Flexing: India’s Performative Male Epidemic Explained

There’s a line in a popular Hindi song: “Mard ko dard nahi hota.” Translated, it means, “A man doesn’t feel pain.” But if you’ve scrolled through Instagram lately, you know that Indian men are definitely feeling something and performing it for the algorithm. Somewhere between the rise of scented candles, Instagram reels about “self-care Sundays,” and carefully curated playlists titled Rainy Day Vibes, a new figure has emerged in modern dating cu…