If you live in a major city, you might have seen what looks like a hipster drag show playing out in a park or on a sidewalk recently: a parade of young men strutting with tote bags, holding up feminist literature, and showing off their newly purchased vinyls.

That guess wouldn’t be totally wrong. Over the past month, Gen Z has been holding public contests all over the country, and even internationally, awarding the best impressions of a “performative male,” the latest meme taking off on TikTok.

The slang is a bit misleading. A “performative male” doesn’t perform traditional masculinity à la a “gym bro.” Rather, he’s curated a notably alt, intellectual, and, in Gen Z terms, “soft” aesthetic, often with the purpose of attracting progressive women. Other markers of a “performative male” include drinking matcha, reading bell hooks, listening to women singer-songwriters, and carrying emergency tampons. Think Jacob Elordi when he was photographed with three different books on his person, or Paul Mescal publicly admiring Mitski.

The trend seems to be largely in good fun, poking fun at men who do, in fact, genuinely like matcha and Mitski. It’s partially inspired by the slew of celebrity lookalike contests last year that highlighted people’s enjoyment of dressing up in silly costumes, as well as their desire for a public square. As Seattle’s “performative male” contest winner, Malik Marcus Jernigan, told me, most of the men participating, including himself, casually embody the joke.

“My friend had sent me the flyer saying I had a good chance at winning, so I decided to participate to make them proud,” says Jernigan, a 24-year-old musician. “I feel as if for the most part it is either ‘performative males’ poking fun at themselves or women poking fun at them online — all lighthearted in nature.”

But there’s also a darker interpretation: Maybe these men are not what they seem, and perhaps their tastes and behaviors are all a deception. The “performative male” has joined a group of suspicious masculine archetypes that came before it, like the two-faced “wife guy” and toxic “male manipulator.”

So how did these signifiers of a “performative male” come to fall under suspicion? Should you really be worried about dating a man who listens to Clairo? Is it so bad to be “performative,” when gender is inherently a performance?

How the internet’s nicest guys came to be suspect

From “hipsters” to “soft boys” to its more derogatory offshoot, “cuckboi,” the internet has long questioned the integrity of this genre of men who eschew traditional representations of masculinity, either through their personal style or consumption habits.

In the age of TikTok, the average person, even one who doesn’t live in Bushwick, has become a lot more familiar with men who embrace a sense of freedom around gender. According to Jordan Foster, assistant professor of sociology at MacEwan University, the app has given average men a “historically novel public visibility, making a significant difference to their public presentation and also their ability to play with their gender presentation.”

Still, this exposure to and wider acceptance of this genre of men hasn’t exactly made us less confused about them. On the one hand, they’re often assumed to be emotionally intelligent and “unproblematic,” politically progressive if not outrightly feminist. But is it really all an act?

It seems like the internet is caught in a perpetual cycle of glorifying and later questioning the integrity of these men whenever they gain publicity. Pop singer Harry Styles, for example, was once lauded for dancing with men in his music videos and wearing feminine articles of clothing. For a time, though, he also faced charges of “queer-baiting,” a term to describe the appropriation of queer aesthetics by straight, cis men for their own personal and professional advantage.

Foster finds that skepticism around men who don these aesthetics is partly a conversation around privilege. “The critique is that men are reaping the sort of social and symbolic set of rewards for participating in these feminized and sometimes queer aesthetics without bearing any of the costs that have typically circled around queer and marginalized men or women,” Foster says.

In his study on “radical” masculinities on TikTok, Foster found that the men who feel comfortable wearing dresses or drinking matchas are often men who already possess “masculine capital” — i.e., they’re cisgender, white, conventionally attractive, middle or upper class — allowing them to dabble in these aesthetics more securely. He adds that these “softboy” signifiers often have the reverse effect of “focalizing their conventional attractiveness.” Take, for example, Styles wearing a pink fringe vest that displays his six-pack abs, or actor Jeremy Allen White wearing tiny shorts that show off his muscular quads.

It isn’t just that these signifiers seem strategic or shallow, but rather, they can read as misleading. The MeToo movement showed us that even supposed “nice guys” could be capable of alleged manipulation and abuse — that in fact, they could use their enlightenment as a kind of shield. Now, the kind of guy who goes to therapy while also treating his partner badly has become flattened into a starter-pack-style meme. And the faux-enlightened man has become a frequent observation in pop culture.

In what could be read as an effort to rehabilitate his image following allegations of domestic abuse from his ex-wife Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt has taken on a more gender-fluid approach to fashion. Before actor Jonathan Majors received two misdemeanor charges in a domestic-violence case last year, he did a viral magazine shoot wearing all pink and discussed how his idea of masculinity involved “kindness” and “gentleness.” These were major celebrities with PR teams. Could their gender flexibility have been an attempt to ward off bad press? It’s impossible to say, but what observers have seen does color the discourse.

Is there too much distrust between the sexes?

Still, it’s also important to recognize the extent to which these immediate judgments can impede young people’s social lives. Playboy editor Magdalene J. Taylor, who also writes the sex and dating newsletter Many Such Cases, says that the “performative male” trend is “aligned with much of the hostility we’re seeing in dating writ large: we don’t trust that anyone’s intentions are good.”

This hostility is visible in the level of suspicion, surveillance, and arbitrary rules that factor into dating right now. From the amount of hyperspecific and downright nonsensical dating requirements that are discussed on TikTok to whisper-network apps that mainly encourage gossip rather than safety, it seems like many people have lost sight of what a healthy level of discernment in dating looks like.

Taylor says, out of all the legitimate warning signs that men can display, someone’s style of dress or tastes in books is perhaps not the thing to focus on. And doing your best to attract a potential partner isn’t inherently deceptive.

“While lying and obfuscating your identity for sexual ends is, of course, wrong and potentially even assault, reading a book you believe women will find appealing is not a lie,” she says. “It’s an entirely normal, well-established social practice of attempting to relate to the opposite sex.”

Overall, though, Taylor says that the level of humor men and women are injecting into the “performative male” trend may suggest that people are slowly pushing away from the idea that a man’s appearance and interests, especially regarding things that are woman-coded, require further inspection. A lot of dudes might just wear and consume a lot of the same basic stuff right now, and if it just so happens that progressive women love it, so be it.

“It’s not a counterattack to ‘wokeness’ per se, but a realization that some of the rhetoric of ‘wokeness’ around heterosexual dating relations imposed new restrictions that did not actually liberate us,” Taylor says. “We’re circling back to a place where it’s okay to admit that you are a person with desires, and that you might act accordingly.”

Seemingly out of nowhere, a pale green drink has become a staple in my life. In recent months, the matcha latte has become my primary source of energy throughout the day and my favorite indulgence at night. I order it at coffee shops without missing a beat. I take “aesthetic” photos of the milk swirling with the vibrant green liquid. I can now explain the dubious difference between “ceremonial” and “culinary” grades of the finely ground, lightly caffeinated green tea powder.

Yet something about my newfound appreciation for the Japanese delicacy feels a bit uncanny. Matcha isn’t new (to say the least), and I admittedly didn’t love it at first try. What changed, and why now? It feels like it was muscled into my kitchen by some invisible force, and my taste buds have magically adjusted to its flavor.

Clearly, I’ve been influenced. It’s not just that my TikTok feed is filled with women showing their matcha orders or tutorials on how to achieve the perfect matcha foam. The powder and its flavor are nearly impossible to avoid in public life. Signs outside coffee shops and bars tout matcha concoctions and cocktails. At bakeries and sweet shops, it seems like every dessert can be made as a matcha hybrid. It’s the hottest ingredient across a wide spectrum of products, from skincare to candles to butter to ramen; the Crumbl cookies of beverages that have been popular for more than a thousand years.

That I could succumb to such an enormous trend isn’t really the strange part. What’s strange is that it feels like we’ve already done this trend before — and quite recently, too. In the mid-2010s, matcha seemed to achieve its cultural peak in the US — although, it turned out to be more culty than mainstream. Almost a decade later, matcha is suddenly everyone’s favorite drink, for real. According to Grand View Research, the tea market generated $391.1 million in revenue last year and is expected to reach $599.5 million by 2030. Now, there are reports of a matcha shortage due to increased demand and limited production.

Unlike many trends that have reentered the zeitgeist, it doesn’t seem like we’re consuming matcha out of nostalgia. Rather, it’s almost like we forgot we were ever introduced to it in the first place. It raises some questions: What ever happened to the “matcha people,” and what does it mean to be a “matcha person” this time around?

2014 was a major year for matcha in the US, signaling the advent of a new, nutrient-rich beverage trend. Sales for the green tea powder grew more than 50 percent, while sales for ready-to-drink matcha products more than doubled. Brands responded quickly. In the mid-2010s, you could shop an assortment of matcha products, from bottled drinks to Trader Joe’s baking mix to matcha waffles. Starbucks added it to its instant drink line. The tea craze hit New York City particularly hard, including with the opening of the first matcha-themed cafe in the US in 2014. This trend was partly met with an eyeroll. Critics lamented that Americans were bastardizing the ancient Japanese specialty by giving it the “pumpkin spice latte” treatment.

By the end of the 2010s, though, matcha’s relatively low-key boost wasn’t the “in” thing: Americans wanted to be jacked up on cold brew and energy drinks. One of the harbingers of our current health and fitness obsession has been the rise of sugar-free, wellness-branded caffeinated beverages, like Celsius and Red Bull Editions.

But in the wake of health concerns and complaints about highly caffeinated energy drinks, matcha has come back around as a more sustainable, less jittery option. In addition to its relatively lighter caffeine content, matcha has a high concentration of the amino acid L-theanine, which induces a calm, focused mindset. But that only partially explains why it’s become so unavoidable, even if it’s not your literal cup of tea.

Erika Weiss, a marketing expert and professor at Loyal Marymount University, says the growth of social media over the past decade as a driving force in consumer trends has catapulted matcha into a new stratosphere of popularity. It helps that matcha contains the one attribute that matters the most on apps, like TikTok and Instagram: It’s “aesthetic.”

“It’s a product that’s so well-suited for promotion through these social-media platforms,” Weiss says. “It’s a beautiful, bright color. You go to an interesting place to find your matcha.”

Outside of discovering matcha at different grocery stores and cafes, the act of preparing the tea is heavily documented on social media. There’s the visual part of the ritual — the whisking, the frothing, the pouring, the setting of the table. On TikTok, there’s a large emphasis on making the drink itself look pretty, adding different foams and fruits for color. For the most part, though, the attention to detail and aesthetics resembles traditional tea ceremonies in Japan.

“There’s a great deal of energy put into expressing one’s aesthetic taste and meticulousness, including toward the implements, the tea itself, and the surroundings,” says Stephen Roddy, who teaches Japanese literature at the University of San Francisco.

Online, though, a lot of matcha-making is done alone, often included in users’ morning routines. That’s an aspect of the current matcha wave that feels very Westernized, the fact that it’s become an individualized, self-improvement ritual. “Individual tea performance [in Japan] is not as good as doing it for others,” Roddy says. He describes tea ceremonies in Japan as “very much a social activity that enables people to express solicitude, thoughtfulness, and appreciation for one another.”

“There’s a strong sense of historical connection and continuity of the ceremony (‘chanoyu’) going back to the 16th century and even earlier,” he says.

Regardless of whom you’re enjoying matcha with, Weiss says this “highly experiential” element is exactly why the drink is taking off. She differentiates the tea trend from the much-mocked “pumpkin spice latte” phenomenon, saying that it feels like a more authentic discovery and practice for its consumers.

“This isn’t owned and pushed by a big corporate brand like Starbucks,” Weiss says. “There are lots of independent tea shops or coffee shops that are putting this forward. There’s the history, the authenticity, the ritualistic nature of what it is, and the fact that it’s something that could be enjoyed all through the year. It’s not this sort of made-up thing.”

The appeal of matcha seems clear enough: It’s pretty. It’s healthy. It’s fun to try out. And yet, it stands to reason that a grassy, chalky, somewhat bitter drink would be more of an acquired taste than an immediate obsession — because it did take ten years.

Weiss had another expert in mind to help explain the matcha resurgence. Her 16-year-old daughter, Kaia, who’s witnessed the trend among her friends and classmates, had a rather simple theory: You can be a matcha drinker without really enjoying — or even experiencing — matcha flavor.

“You can just add so much sugar,” Kaia says. “It basically just tastes like a sugary drink. People who don’t actually like the taste of matcha will just go to Starbucks and order the lavender matcha because they want to experience a different flavor profile.”

This is probably why matcha has recently exploded in the form of a latte. Consumers can dilute the taste as much as they want with milk, sweetener, and whatever added syrup. TikTok shows an endless array of matcha fusions and customizations you can make for yourself or order at cafes, some of which border on the absurd. From lemonade to soda to eggnog to espresso, it seems that, for a lot of people, making a “good” matcha involves overcoming the natural taste of it with other ingredients. You could argue this is probably the case with many coffee drinkers. But the even more juvenile options at Starbucks look quite simple compared to the current spectrum of matcha variations.

The current matcha craze is maybe the most literal representation of the tension between our actual tastes and what we feel the pressure to crave in a hyper-consumerist culture. It also seems born out of a reality that seems to partly define the current generation of chronically online youth: isolation.

As Bloomberg reporter Amanda Mull writes about the current flurry of random social media trends, including Labubus, Dubai chocolate, and yes, matcha, a need for community and tangibility is maybe what’s simply behind the need to buy into everything on display. “If nothing else, the new ubiquity of a toy or snack is like a signal of some kind of consensus reality bubbling up in spite of algorithmic isolation,” Mull writes.

Overall, it seems like being a matcha person in 2025 is just about wanting to be a person.