Copyright standard
There’s a long and fruitful tradition of women expressing disdain for men, but the discourse has reached a new frontier: men are, on an inherent level, just incredibly cringe. The last few weeks in particular have dealt some pretty devastating blows to mankind’s PR. The viral Vogue article, “Is having a boyfriend embarrassing now?” has been the water cooler chat du jour. The piece argues that just having a boyfriend is mainstream and bad for street cred – posting pictures of them is even worse. Boyfriends have joined Labubus and Dubai chocolate on the trash heap of content we have been oversaturated by, and so it stands to reason then that boyfriend-obsessed women come across as “quite culturally loser-ish”. This must be a glass of cold water to the face for the boyfriend class, who were getting used to being described as “golden retrievers”. And the discourse is having real-world impact: the author of the piece, Chanté Joseph, shared a DM from someone who said she dumped her boyfriend after reading the article. Why are men giving us the collective ick? It seems like part of the problem is that they are stepping on our turf and ruining it. In an interview with Bella Freud on the Fashion Neurosis podcast, Alexa Chung, that bellwether of good taste, expressed her dislike for men who are “too trendy”. “It’s almost a bit vain,” she said, her nose wrinkling. “I don’t necessarily love the idea of them shopping for things – it seems undignified or something”. Chung said she has dated men “who don’t have the best style,” which she claims not to mind. “I really love a brain.” Pity the poor lambs who see this and try to focus on being less vain and more brain. Chung is a big fan of the cult author Joan Didion, so perhaps they’ll give her a go. But when men read Didion they’re dubbed “performative males” – that matcha-loving, tote-bag swinging breed of guys who are trying, in a very tragically affected way, to cater to the female gaze; a 2025 update on the “This is What a Feminist Looks like” T-shirt. Right, so The Year of Magical Thinking is off the table. Men should just focus on being less vain, then. But wait! Wasn’t it only a couple of months ago that Emily Ratajkowski was on Subway Takes, staring dead in the camera as she addressed men thus: “I want y’all to look better. Get the hair plugs, do whatever, get the facial.” So who to believe? A performative male would probably say that while he respects Emrata as an important voice in the feminist literary canon, Alexa Chung is more his vibe. But it’s not just appearance – men can’t really do anything without being described as cringe and posturing. In another recent Subway Takes, a female guest said that men shouldn’t be gynaecologists, because “I honestly think it’s a bit performative in a way, like, they could study anything in the human body and they’re choosing the one part they don’t have.” The clip has 92,000 likes. The male ick epidemic is being fuelled by a newly minted soundtrack. “It must be nice to be a man and make boring music just because you can,” sings Florence Welch in One of the Greats, a song on her new album which came out last week. It came hot on the heels of Lily Allen’s searing account of betrayal by a sex addicted coward of a husband who has the vibe of a basement-dwelling incel, with lyrics such as “what a sad, sad man / it’s giving 4chan stan”. It’s funny to think how much the narrative has changed. Disdain for the less fair sex used to be targeted at manosphere figures like Andrew Tate and weird tech bros like Elon Musk – now, it’s heterosexual mankind as a whole. Serious, head-nodding discussions about the men’s mental health crisis feel like a distant memory. Tongue-in-cheek misandry is much more amusing. So what can men do? Read books, but don’t do it in public. Wear clothes that are nice, but not, like, overtly trendy. Accept that matcha is for women. Don’t let your girlfriend out you online. Or, just ride the wave – the cringe-sincerity cycle will keep churning. Soon, it’ll be post-ironic to be a man, and having a boyfriend will become an act of bold iconoclasm. In the meantime, stay strong, brothers.
