What is a ‘performative male’ and how can you spot them?

A person uses a cell phone in Ottawa on July 18, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

“Performative male” is the new meme, but according to one expert, this internet joke could be starting important conversations.

A performative male is a man who “engages insincerely in certain activities or behaviours to appear safe/sophisticated/feminist,” according to the Merriam-Webster’s slang dictionary.

Like other memes, it can be easy to dismiss “performative male” as mere “brain rot,” which was Oxford’s Word of the Year for 2024.

However, “performative male” starting trending on google in July, and it’s pushing people to reconsider themselves and others, one University of Toronto academic told CTV News in an interview.

“We tend to write it off as all brain rot,” said Professor Kate Maddalena, of U of T’s Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology. “But a lot of (the jokes are) also pretty substantive as far social commentary and social critique goes.”

“The word performative, the way it’s being used in this meme, is to say that it’s a performance and it’s not real,” she said, adding that it gives women a “fun, cute way” to call out men who might be trying to deceive them.

More of a joke than something to stay up at night over

“it’s already been reappropriated, like it’s been Halloween costumes, right?” Maddalena said. “The dudes are in on the joke, too.”

Maddalena appears to be right, as there are a variety of social media posts playing on the meme.

Maddalena suggested that there aren’t that many men using deception to attract partners, but suggested that if two people aren’t a good fit, that will come out naturally over the course of a date.

‘It isn’t performing’

Maddalena wondered if men might become worried to be perceived as performative, or fake, for reading or doing things that they have a genuine interest in. She said it would be “an unfortunate outcome of this meme,” if men became worried about “reading (about) feminism in public.”

“And I’m saying we because I also need to read feminism in public, like we aren’t naturally good, right? We’re improving ourselves by doing this reading so, if you’re actually reading it, it isn’t performing, it’s honest.”