The performative male is a lighthearted stereotype and the biggest inside joke in the country right now. Sales of tote bags and wired headphones have never been higher as performative male contests pop up virtually everywhere. Now, when a friend shows up holding a matcha drink in their hand, we can’t help but poke fun at them for their “performativeness.”

But, really, this isn’t a new concept at all. Originally, the components of a performative male were a blueprint for what women appreciated. Carrying tote bags and reading books nonchalantly in cafes created an image of men that was feminising and, subsequently, more trustworthy. It was a fresh breakaway from the alpha male stereotype, something we all needed a breather from.

Once men caught on to the positive response, though, the meaning shifted—they started taking on the outward traits of this new model of a man without absorbing any of the internal character development. The result? Another manifestation of toxic masculinity. Now, men are scrambling to follow the new rubric of how they are expected to look and act without understanding why these expectations came about in the first place, defeating the entire purpose of it all.

But, before you look around you and start laughing at the next guy you catch listening to Clairo and staring idly at a Dostoevsky book, it’s important to realise that we are no better ourselves. Being performative has been around for as long as human emotion has and it isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

In every interaction, we present some altered version of ourselves, sometimes more authentically than others. Whether we like it or not, we care how we’re perceived, and the social choices we make are led by what we think will get others to like us. Maybe it’s the way we dress, the merchandise we attach to our bags or the trending buzzwords we incorporate into our everyday conversations. We do things for approval so often that the line between what’s authentic and not becomes blurred.

Wanting approval isn’t the problem. It’s when we purposefully and mindlessly start following the crowd that things start to take a bad turn. Like the performative males, we easily adopt new trends and discard old interests in order to fit in because sometimes what we like doesn’t coincide with what we think we should like. Albeit it isn’t always so daunting as creating iterations of toxic masculinity. I know I’ve definitely found myself hiding when I play my favourite games around the wrong crowd or picking a certain playlist to listen to when I’m with certain people.

But what happens when something that used to be considered cringe suddenly becomes mainstream?

At first, it would seem that having your interests become “cool” is the dream. One day, you’re a loser, the next, everyone thinks you’re trendy. Yet, for some, seeing others now earn praise for announcing their love for something like Hamilton when they once were bullied over it can feel like betrayal, a knife to the heart. Even more disappointing is when, say, a once socially taboo musical artist you like becomes popular, but when you bring it up to someone else, you’re met with “oh, I only know that one TikTok song.” If the subject was “Hamilton,” I wouldn’t be surprised if the original disdainful attitude returned upon hearing mention of any other musical.

Saying that you like something simply because it’s mainstream can be misleading for people who truly enjoy said thing, and it’s doing real damage to all of us. Rather than bringing people together, being performative pushes people further apart and creates a social barrier between those who simply like what’s trending and those looking for true enthusiasts to share their passions with. It worsens the already blurry distinction between an authentic personality and an artificial one.

The worst outcome of this wave of performativity is the idea of being “nonchalant.” It’s the ultimate form of cool in current times, and everyone is doing all sorts of things to be labelled as such. But is it really cool to not care? Sure, it referred to effortlessness in the beginning, but now, all I see is people pretending that nothing matters and nothing affects them. To me, it’s stripping us of something so vital to being human: passion. And frankly, it’s sad. We’re so starved for social acceptance that we’re willing to give up any ounce of enthusiasm for, well, life. Even if our lives are a constant social performance, there has to be some room for our true selves. Being performative to fill that space does us no good.

Performativity is killing our creativity and replacing it with a competition for who follows trends best, even if that means liking nothing at all. We may get a good laugh out of performative male contests, but we’re currently living in a performative contest of our own. That’s not to say we are stuck in it, though. No one is forcing us to conform. It certainly isn’t easy, but I believe that we’ll all truly be happier and more at ease if we embrace authenticity. If there’s one thing we should give up, it isn’t our interests. It’s performativity.