Listening to Lana Del Rey does not make a guy a 'performative male'

The questions included: ‘Have you read Raven Leilani books?’ Yes.

‘Do you like Lana Del Rey?’ Yes, and I even have her albums on CD because I’m old school.

‘Do you use wired headphones?’ Yes, I get annoyed with Bluetooth because, well, see previous.

‘Do you own a Labubu?’ No (I had to Google this to find out it is a soft toy).

The results came back with an apparently damning assessment that I am a 75 per cent ‘performative male’. More Googling was required.

An AI result helpfully came back that the term is given to “men who adopt specific, often feminine-coded, behaviours, tastes, and aesthetics”. What’s more, the man is apparently pretending to take an interest in appearing approachable and unthreatening to a woman with the goal of sleeping with her.

And then there were more examples of tropes, all of which seemed to apply to me: He wears tote bags, listens to Clairo, loves Greta Gerwig (Frances Ha is in my top ten of all time), reads “in public” (what else do you do on the Tube?), and lives in east London (Walthamstow, in my case). It went on and on until it dawned on me that I, unwittingly, am a stereotype.

Previously, a lot of these things fell under the umbrella of being “hipster”, a term which felt a bit quaint but forgivable. “Performative male” feels a bit more sinister.

Suddenly, half my record collection (and even having a record collection at all) feels like something to be ashamed of - as if I’m one of these guys now being mocked on TikTok and Instagram, ready to mansplain about the importance of the Bechdel test.

Talking about going to Coldplay’s tour and not Oasis, for example, now feels like it should be delivered with an “I’m not a performative male,” caveat, like rapper Macklemore feeling the need to put that he is straight on his pro-LGBT hit Same Love a decade ago.

Apparently, enough men stuck on page one of The Bell Jar are making eyes at women across a coffee shop for the stereotype to have become established. But having been a fan of Lana Del Rey for the best part of 15 years, it now feels annoying to be lumped in with guys who carry a teddy bear. And what’s this got to do with wired headphones?

Have we really not moved on from the days when blokes were expected to read Loaded magazine and blast Lynyrd Skynyrd?

Enjoying Greta Gerwig, Beabadoobee, and, if you must, matcha tea shouldn’t, mustn’t, be seen as a bad thing; or necessarily mean a man has ulterior motives.

____________________

William Mata is a writer and SEO editor for LBC.

LBC Opinion provides a platform for diverse opinions on current affairs and matters of public interest.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official LBC position.

To contact us email opinion@lbc.co.uk