On stage Mac Murad ‘26 performed as Javert in BHS’ “Les Misérables.” Off stage, he says, he sometimes performs another role. When I talked with Murad, he was shotgunning matcha – the trendy Japanese tea that has become synonymous with performative males. The green tea is just one of many ways “performative males” signal being different from mainstream masculinity – tote bags, wired headphones, layered jewelry, carefully curated outfits, the reading of feminist literature, an overall gentle-boyfriend vibe: all of this is intended to portray “I’m not THAT kind of guy, I’m a softer, more progressive guy.” 

“[The] Performative male trend is very common nowadays,” Murad said. “Men will take these alter egos to almost perform for sometimes either social standing and more popularity, or sometimes to attract a mate.”

The trend itself is an evolution of the “nice guy” who seems kind only as a means to attract women. The performative male is very similar, acting and dressing differently as a means to attract women by seeming less threatening. The trend really took hold when men started to pretend to be performative as a joke, quite ironically.

Today’s performative male is part joke, part identity and entirely a product of our Instagram culture. But behind the aesthetic is a real question: how should we teach students to “be a man”?

Former BHS English teacher Hayden Chichester taught a class called “Men and Masculinity.” The course syllabus said the class is about “what it means to be a boy, man, and/or masculine-identified person in American society today.”  

Chichester said that gender is something we learn.

“We are always teaching young people about gender, whether we know it or not,” Chichester said. “With our behavior or even our silence.”

Chichester believes that young men are receiving their messages about masculinity from social media and the internet and there is data to support this claim. A 2025 Common Sense Media Report said that nearly all boys aged 11-17 are online daily, 73% regularly see “masculinity content” and 69% of those kids encounter “problematic gender stereotypes” like “girls only date certain types of guys”, “girls use their looks to get what they want”, “boys are treated unfairly compared to girls” and “girls should focus on home and family.” The report says that this leads to boys feeling more pressure to avoid “unwritten rules” to avoid teasing, increased loneliness, bullying and more. 

Chichester said that when he was 16, he started to “really question” what it meant to be a man.

“On the one hand, I had some examples in my family that were not great, to be honest, men who had struggled with addiction or low achievement or even domestic abuse and violence. And it scared me how normal all of these behaviors [were], not just in my family, but among my peers as well,” Chichester said. “Talking about masculinity via stories with an adult would have been deeply nourishing to me at that age.”

Chichester said one of the most memorable activities for students from the “Men and Masculinity” class was called “The Man Box”. Students wrote down all of the qualities that a “real man” should have inside a box, and then wrote on the outside of the box all of the insults and behaviors people do to keep men inside of that box. 

“I still have the papers we used,” Chichester said. “I always felt like that activity framed the class better than anything else.”

Linnea Johnson is a sex educator from Planned Parenthood. They said that masculinity in our society is associated with power, violence, dominance, recklessness, and suppression of emotions.

“Being perceived as masculine by others (especially other male peers) often entails portraying outwardly harmful attitudes and behaviors like misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and gender-based violence,” Johnson said. “To perform masculinity, to put on this “man mask,” requires someone to eradicate their sense of empathy and compassion.”

Johnson said men and boys are pressured to bottle up their feelings, to never discuss them, to never ask for help, unless they want to be seen as weak. 

“But we need empathy. Empathy is crucial to all of us maintaining healthy and fulfilling relationships not only with others, but with ourselves,” Johnson said. “If we pretend that we are emotionless for too long, it results in overwhelming amounts of self-hatred, shame and self-harm.”

Avery Shearer ‘27, a self-proclaimed social critic, explained that the trend of performative males could stop men from actually being feminists if it’s now seen as just something to be made fun of. 

“I would say that that’s kind of an enforcement of more rigid cultural norms of masculinity,” Shearer said.

Lucas Sommerville ‘26 is a self-proclaimed performative male. He believes the impact of the trend isn’t so bad.

“But really with it being such a joke, I feel like that malicious intent is sort of entirely removed. At least in my eyes, and it’s more… just kind of funny,” Sommerville said.

Murad shared Sommerville’s more ironic take on “performative males”. In fact, Murad said that he has completed an online course in performative males that he admits was less than credible.

“It was in-credible,” Murad said. “In-credible.”

Still, Murad is aware of the possible damage the trend could cause. 

“If we are taking the more joking side of this performative male trend and saying, ‘oh, ha ha, any men who display these feminine traits are immediately performative males,’ then that could be easily damaging because that means men that cannot show their masculinity,” Murad said.

Johnson said the performative male trend might actually be a sign that our views of masculinity are changing positively.

“It shows that even if men and boys aren’t necessarily working on examining their behaviors in their relationships or the values they hold, they recognize on some level that being perceived as self-aware and critical of traditional masculinity is good,” Johnson said.

Murad shares Johnson’s hopes. He believes the trend could be beneficial to the feminist movement because it would allow men to understand the perspective of women.

“This could be a great flip of the coin compared to the issue that we had in 2023 and 2024 with the Andrew Tate alpha-male epidemic, where men were much more misogynistic,” Murad said. “This is a much better take on that, and we could see another rise in feminism.”

Johnson said that there are more examples of “healthy masculinity” in the media and that more men are “examining the messages they’ve received since childhood.”

Sommerville agrees that society could be moving in a new direction. 

“I think that as we go into the future, we’re going to see, or I’d like to see at least, a lot more emphasis on morality and just being good people in general and liking what you like instead of liking what your gender or what your sex dictates you liking,” Sommerville said. 

“Whatever your vision of masculinity is,” Chichester said, “if it brings you together with others, to fulfill a positive role, I think it’s beautiful. If it is held flexibly, like an offering to the world, rather than like a club to dominate it, that makes it strong.”

“My biggest piece of advice,” Johnson said, “is to give yourself the space and time to figure it all out. And talk to some trusted adults who you look up to about their journey with gender identity and expression, too. You’re not alone.”