Fear and loathing at the performative male competition

I first heard about the performative male contest from friends. Several of them, all from different walks of life, had sent me the announcement across Instagram and TikTok, all with the message that I should compete. I knew this would happen, partly because I do fit the bill of what is deemed to be a performative male: I drink matcha, brew my own coffee from almost exclusively third wave beans, read a lot of “feminist” literature (without doxxing myself, I have written several reviews for Felix on Virginia Woolf, who was my favourite author when I was 19), and have several Clairo songs on my top 25 all time played on Apple Music. For the record, Sling is my favourite album and is vastly underrated.

One of my close friends, who is extremely competitive, and self-describes as a performative male herself, decided we needed to lock in for this. In essence, I was going to perform this time, by caricaturing myself. We didn’t even need to buy anything specifically for the competition either, instead collating our own items to put in my trusty Daunt Books tote bag. I brought several books: Pride and Prejudice, The White Album, and Porn: An Oral History, which may sound like a joke, but is actually a Nell Dunneque discussion with different people about the social and sexual context in which porn operates in their lives (see, I’m good at this). My friend brought Ariel by Plath, The Yellow Wall-Paper, and Flush by Woolf. To add to my costume, I brought my two sage green notebooks, my planner, my friend’s red notebook, some third wave coffee, my Hario coffee grinder and AeroPress, my Polaroid 600, and my friend’s Olivetti Lettera 32 vintage typewriter. And also, my tobacco, menthol filters (because I’m a sensitive young man who cannot bear the taste of regular tobacco), and random bits and bobs I always have, like a carabiner. I used to have a Vivienne Westwood orb carabiner, but that unfortunately broke in a random act of tomfoolery. Go big or go home was our ethos, and we knew we had a winning candidate in myself.

Unfortunately, there was no fear, but lots of loathing at the performative male contest. Like its subject matter, it seemed to be full of depth and opportunity but fell extremely flat and vacuous. Based in Soho Square, the general audience was full of mostly teenagers and university students. Several other performative men I met had bought items just for the contest, not to honour our kind, but rather to perform and gain some form of social clout, and, let’s be real, to try and shag someone from the audience. A contestant had very clearly visited Rough Trade to buy a copy of Brat, although we doubted he was self aware enough to realise that was more performative than saying you listen to Brat. They hadn’t read the books they brought, although some of them could play the guitar; failing to do that, they could operate a Bluetooth speaker with which they’d blast Clairo songs, but only her lead singles from either Immunity or Charm. Nor were there any of the cool, indie, artsy people we thought we may meet, although I did find a networking opportunity with a journalist covering the event.

The contest itself was poorly organised. Created by what can probably be described as another startup, pushing another dating app, except this time with Pinterest board collages as profiles, which – very interestingly – was marketed to the audience as an app to meet friends, probably because 60% of them were under 18, but also to mirror how the performative man archetype operates almost exclusively through the most disturbing situationships known to man. They ran only two competitions, forcing candidates in a mad bid to grab a number tag so they could compete. The winners won because they were tall and conventionally attractive, and thus deemed most shaggable by the audience. I came here in good spirits, to be mocked, not to be objectified, which is ironic, and as I write this, deeply funny in hindsight. How the turntables turn, at least for the straight ones. As a consolation (to gain marketing material), the remaining performative men were told they could do a performative man catwalk, as most of the audience dispersed. They even took a group picture, which I refused to be in, because I refuse to not be compensated for my effort.

At least my tasteful Instagram stories got lots of likes and several people asking if I competed, with a delicious boost to my ego with the common retort of “oh well, you would have won anyway.”