The Meme-ification of Male Behaviour
TikTok didn’t stop at identifying him. University campuses have taken the joke further with tongue-in-cheek performative man contests, where students nominate classmates caught in their “peak aesthetic” moments. Think a guy journaling on a patch of grass at golden hour, a lad playing chess alone outside a café, or someone reading Camus under a tree as if an arthouse director yelled action.
It’s playful, harmless fun—until it quietly becomes something else.
The more viral the trend becomes, the easier it is to accuse someone of being performative simply for existing in a way the internet has now claimed as a trope. It’s almost like we’ve created a new character archetype just to mock people who are living a little too romantically for our taste.
When Normal Men Become Content
And yet, people can sincerely enjoy quiet, introspective hobbies without constructing an entire persona around them. Not every guy reading in public is doing method acting for a role nobody cast him in.
Although, to be fair, I once saw a man in the smoking area of a club reading a paperback under the heater’s dramatic orange spotlight. He wasn’t tucked away either—he’d picked a prime, eye-catching location, and every few moments he glanced up at the crowd with the subtlety of someone waiting to be noticed. It was funny, and yes, wildly performative, but it also made me realise how tightly we now scrutinise behaviour through the “is he doing it for attention?” filter.
Maybe that’s the real problem: everything and everyone is now viewed as potential content.
When Trends Blur Into Reality
The performative man trend has become a shorthand for analysing male behaviour, but it risks flattening real personalities into memes. Once a hobby becomes aesthetic-coded, the people who genuinely enjoy it get lumped into a stereotype that may not fit them at all.
Reading, journaling, liking quiet music, dressing well—these existed long before TikTok decided to categorise them. And as the trend grows, the danger is that men get labelled as “performative” simply for being themselves. Ironically, we may be forcing people into performance by constantly accusing them of it.
Why Personal Green Flags and Red Flags Matter More Than TikTok
At some point, we have to step away from internet-wide diagnostics and come back to ourselves.
Your personal green flags and red flags matter far more than what TikTok decides is suspicious this week. The internet can turn almost any interest—books, fitness, hobbies, cooking into a red flag if you scroll long enough.
But dating isn’t collective. It’s personal.
If someone’s behaviour feels genuine to you, trust it. If something feels wrong, trust that too. You don’t need a trending label to confirm your instincts. Trends shift every few months, but your boundaries and feelings are far more reliable.
Let People Be Human Again
So yes, laugh at the memes. Share the campus contest photos—they’re funny. But in real life? Look past the performance, real or imagined. People are more complex than TikTok categories, and sincerity still exists, even if it now competes with a world where everything looks curated.
Sometimes a guy is reading a book in a club because he wants attention.
Sometimes he’s reading because he’s genuinely weird.
And sometimes—rarely—he’s just a human being doing something without thinking about how it looks online.
