On Labubus, Clairo and Matcha Lattes by Marline Brink

The oversimplification of social media gender archetypes

I, an Instagram Reels user, tend to lag behind a bit when it comes to internet trends. That’s why, when I first arrived at UCU, I didn’t understand what people meant when they joked about ‘performative males’. I quickly learned, however, that a performative male is an internet meme referring to a man who performs feminism, progressivism, and emotional sensitivity as a means to trick women into liking him. This man carries feminist literature in his Labubu tote bag, listens to Clairo on his wired earbuds, and drinks matcha lattes with soymilk. The performative male is the most recent addition to a long line of gender archetypes invented on social media. But what do these archetypes really say about us?

What even is your true personality when it’s influenced so much by other people’s ideas of you?

We humans love putting others in boxes, in an attempt to understand and compare them. An example of this is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which categorises all humans into 16 personalities, almost like zodiac signs. However, unlike zodiac signs, MBTI types are seriously used in professional and corporate spheres. Like all labels, these archetypes oversimplify the complexity of human personality. This is why MBTI is considered an example of psychological pseudoscience. Labels describe how people appear (or want to appear), instead of what they are really like. Besides that, these labels can become self-fulfilling prophecies or make people drastically change themselves. What even is your true personality when it’s influenced so much by other people’s ideas of you?

Labelling personalities can quickly turn sour. For example, the internet had a phase where it was popular to be ‘not like other girls’, to rebel against traditional female gender roles in the name of feminism. It was cool for women to dislike the colour pink, eat fast food and ‘wear Converse with your dress’. What began as uplifting women who denounced gender expectations soon turned into endless comparison between women. The internet switched from feminine girls hating on tomboys to the other way around. It turned out: making fun of women who like being girly is not actually feminist. And when everyone wants to be ‘not like other girls’, then who even are those ‘other girls’ you are supposedly fighting?

When everyone is different, it becomes cool to belong to the norm again. Recently, people have come up with the term ‘girl’s girls’ for women who support other women and their femininity. But of course, this was also taken to an extreme. Women started calling other women ‘mean girls’, not just when they were actually mean, but also when they were not traditionally feminine enough. Instead of ‘girlbosses’, ‘tradwives’ became popular on social media, with the message that it’s not just alright to be a stay-at-home mom with children, but that it is, in fact, a woman’s duty. While attempting to distance themselves from female gender roles, people keep returning to sexism anyway. We are running in circles endlessly hating each other, all in the name of feminism.

Most people are just trying to be themselves. Why can't we just believe people are honest instead of accusing them or labelling them as lacking authenticity?

When it comes to male archetypes, the idea of the ‘sigma’, ‘alpha’, and ‘Chad’ versus the ‘beta male’ or ‘soy boy’ has been around for a while. But these archetypes were also made fun of relentlessly by people who wished for less ‘toxic masculinity’ and more emotionally mature men. But when men are empathetic and/or feminist, they get shot down by the exact people who have been asking men to change. They get accused of being performative males. There is an assumption that a man could never genuinely enjoy feminine things or be a feminist; he must be doing it to deceive women. No wonder men turn to figures like Andrew Tate to reaffirm their masculinity when they get ridiculed for doing the opposite. 

Gender archetypes often carry the connotation that people constantly try to deceive each other. People are called ‘posers’, supposedly acting as someone they are not. Of course, there are always some people who deceive others, but most people are not playing a character their entire lives. Most people are just trying to be themselves. Why can’t we just believe that people are honest instead of accusing them and labelling them as lacking authenticity? Especially since these labels often reinforce the gender stereotypes we are so desperately trying to escape.

At the end of the day, it might not be that deep. It is just an internet meme. These archetypes are funny, and when they are just a joke, they are harmless. Yet, the way we talk about gender roles on the internet does influence how we perform them in our daily life. We can keep making jokes and stay critical of their underlying connotations at the same time. Let’s ensure that our memes don’t lead to hate. I, myself, still find the performative male trend funny, even though it’s already slowly dying. Whenever I see a matcha latte, I have a little chuckle, and you may do the same. But the next time you find a man reading Sylvia Plath, do not immediately jump to conclusions, but instead compliment him on his good taste in books, and get to know the genuine human being behind the archetype.