He enjoys reading, buys flowers and strums the ukulele. The perfect guy or could it be pretend?

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With sanitary pads in his pockets and a tote bag full of gender equality texts, the competitor knew he was ready to take part.

Over the weekend in a central London location, he walked confidently against several other contestants - and female participants with drawn-on moustaches - in a style showdown to find the city's best "performative male".

The Online Phenomenon

This internet concept absorbs various clothing fads and aesthetic choices, but most importantly, such individuals is attempting to convey a clear message - that he understands your struggles and is willing to pay attention to you.

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The period items show his understanding and readiness to help; the books showing he understands about the structural barriers of male-dominated systems.

The Total Package

The shoulder bag will have an adorable toy attached (he's fun-loving, you see); the jeans will be loose-fitting (comfort rules); the coffee drink will be matcha (popular concoctions are for men too); the photographic equipment will use analog (it seems more real).

The 22-year-old musician admits he has particular passions that match up with stereotypes about theatrical men, but doesn't see himself as one. His friends insisted he participate in the competition.

Contest Setup

In the square, enthusiastic spectators voted for their preferred contestant after they were made to undergo a range of challenges, which covered aspects from explaining their choice of reading material to singing love ballads.

The competitor picked a song that rose to fame on video platforms, where videos about such individuals have been widely liked and distributed in recent weeks.

I mastered basic ukulele skills for a track by Clairo called Sofia, explains the contestant, who claims to be truly a enthusiast of the soft rock singer.

The novel he chose was by writer Cecelia Ahern. "PS, I Love You is actually a really good read."

Spectator Feedback

At a certain moment the young man began distributing flowers to enthusiastic supporters in the gathering. "I do tend to get floral arrangements often, he mentions, whether for my companions - or for my girlfriend."

An audience member in the assembly - and it was predominantly women - was a young woman.

She says that the young man's self-assurance, which included humorous non-answers to difficult inquiries about gender topics, stood out above the other performative men.

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He was among those that I really wasn't sure if he was creating a persona, to be like more of a performative male, or if he was being himself - but in any case he did it perfectly.

The spectator, twenty-two, thinks the participant should truly deserved the winning position, along with its monetary award. He came in third.

Deeper Meanings

Although the contestants at the event were a humorous exaggeration of the styles and mannerisms you see among particular individuals, the spectator thinks there exists a deeper reason why they set themselves apart as they do.

I believe they are working to outwardly show their resistance against particular viewpoints, she states, indicating they don't belong of the rising population of anti-women, right-wing, ideologised men you see at the minute.

Contemporary conversations have raised the alarm about particular online figures influencing young males and adolescent males into extreme misogyny in a way that is rather frightening.

The observer feels that, overall, a political gap has developed between male and female youth and that, for some of the latter, it's particularly significant their romantic interests are definite regarding where they position themselves on certain moral and social issues - like reproductive rights, women's rights and same-sex relationships.

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Sincerity Doubts

I can't ignore that there's a lot of people who dress this way just for the female gaze, states the contestant, and I think that many individuals are only feigning to do these things even though they're not really interested in feminism… mainly for female attraction.

Another woman in the gathering was the creative professional the observer, who found the event rather therapeutic.

The contest was genuinely excellent, notably because someone who has found themselves on a date with such a man attempting to determine if he genuinely believes naming women's rights writers was going to lead to intimacy - or if he was being humorous.

A few years ago, the observer, who is African-American, also began seeing individuals mentioning women of color advocates they had read during dialogue.

They would inform me complete details about the author and the scholar, as if they had read all their books while locked up during lockdown. So it was satisfying to joke regarding these ludicrous encounters at the event.