I Actually Don’t Think That Anyone Should Enjoy Anything
Across Mediterranean Europe and in some scattered parts of Australia, a natural phenomenon called Pouyannian mimicry occurs. The process describes wild orchids that effloresce across these foreign grasslands and indulge in sexual trickery. When in bloom, the purple and blue lengths of petal that shawl the flowers’ bulbs spread apart to reveal, to the male bee, what appears to be a ready-to-mate female. Within the confines of the deceitful chrysalis, the male desperately mounts and wriggles on the imposter’s fuzzy grooves, blanketing its body in the plant’s potent dander in the process. Unable to fornicate, ashamedly, the male buzzes off, swearing to God that this never happens, and thus beginning the process of pollination.
Assuming that the gender roles have been reversed, paradoxically, we’re seeing a similar spectacle taking place in most major American cities. Their mustached lips often suckle at paper straws, drawing up chilled, ceremonial-grade matcha. Inside their totes you may expect to find a freshly acquired vinyl, a “dispo” camera, a copy of Women, Race and Class by Angela Davis, or other paraphernalia that may hint at artistic interest or an overall SFW (safe for women) demeanor. The pants are huge and the tees are tiny. Maybe a headscarf and ballet-flat-style sneakers. A little hoop earring. A soccer jersey. Jorts. Minimalist wine bars. Plant dads forthcoming about their healing journey by way of cognitive therapy, dropping lines about “how everyone should be in it.” They’ve been really into interior design lately.
The performative male.
You’re likely familiar with the trope by now, because the online discourse surrounding this faction of interest harvesters is a benign but bloated lump, sagging from the belly of our social media timelines, that, with any luck, will spew open or be cauterized within the next two weeks. And here I am dumping more steaming garbage into the landfill.
Is it easier to replicate than it is to introspect? The obvious answer is, yes. There is nothing more mortally debilitating than having to find yourself. Many of us get it out of the way early. Awkwardly careening between different hobbies, social tribes, and dress, that ultimately equate to a spectrum of failure whose range is measured by depth—sometimes soul-smashing, shudder-inducing, or soft to the touch in nature—before redirecting tends to dominate the experience of youth. The point at which someone finds an acre for themselves in the infinite wood of the world is different for everyone. As we decarbonate and descend into our respective selves, paths unfurl. No one is immune to this vicious cycle, and everybody runs through that same snarling grinder of trying on personalities. But what if you become trapped within the grinder? Can your own misdirection shackle you to an endless state of reduction? Can your own desperate sense of confusion render you buoyant enough to blindly float around forever? And, if so, what does that make you? Probably, just like someone else. A rough charcoal sketch. A shadow’s shadow. A guy divided by a guy divided by a guy.
The internet seems to believe that, one, there’s a sudden abundance of these shapeshifters walking the streets, and two, the root cause is sex. While there’s some truth to be feigned from this broad categorization, it’s not entirely accurate. As I see it, imposters have always been alive, well, and actively grifting, it’s just that we used to call them posers. Every youth culture throughout modern Western society has always come complete with its own set of fraudulent human hangnails; people who want it but will never be it, whatever that it may be. This is nothing new. Typically, these individuals are sniffed up and snuffed out from their respective scenes if an individual commonality unites the herd. This methodology of weeding has become deregulated through the onslaught of the performative man. The modern Renaissance men, as I’m sure they’d like to see themselves, for a moment, skated by largely unchecked, multiplying and metastasizing at freakish rates, undetected in the outskirts of any number of artistic, intellectual, or fashionable lanes.
Well, it’s always about fucking in some capacity, isn’t it? While I’m sure that this newly labeled but culturally timeless character originated with the hopes of being laid as a potential perk, I can’t say that I believe is his express purpose. I believe these guys are simply amorphous human smoothies, boneless wanderers, puddle people, who lack the ability or willingness to earnestly lean in, enjoy, embrace, or comprehend much beyond what immediately serves their image. They dip their toes and pray to look sopping. For partners hunting on aesthetics alone, the ploy may prove functional. Beyond this, however, exposure looms in the brush.
Supposedly, a roach can endure nuclear fallout. These bluffs are just as savvy. They’ll use their irony to continue their phony mission, which, in some instances, does actually seem to be well humored, i.e., Performative Male Contests taking place in a major city near you. They’ll be encouraged by their algorithms, the new heartbeat, and, to catch one in the wild, all you have to do is head to Ray’s in New York City, the hypercurated bar, meticulously crafted to look like a working man’s dive charged by grit.
As the setting sun bows to a stoic horizon, I strap on a VR headset and contemplate a most righteous solution forward. I dream of a planet where the ingenious tech oligarchs might join forces with the ever-altruistic pharmaceutical emperors and necessary bureaucrats of Washington to concoct a mandatory digestible mainframe, a beautiful once-a-day pellet; one that neuters us of any lingering interests, earnest desires, or recognizable autonomy. In my hallucination an Amazon drone buzzes overhead, and drops off a Huel shake right into the palm of my hand. “Thanks, Jeffy,” I say, before ingesting the perfect capsule of Buddhism 2.0. The performance can finally end.
