I have an even blunter class struggle angle on this.
It's the liberal arts graduates hitting industries where they were a minority population before, with the amped up need for visible social-signaling as you mentioned the other day.
For the most part, being 1-dimensional was rewarded in the corporate world, so even bookish nerds would hide their power levels. I remember the first job I had, we could've probably run a classic literature seminar & film club with the gray matter involved, except this was during the great financial crisis and we were customer support for an adult entertainment website... and back in the day, if you raised your head you risked getting it chopped off.
Super interesting as always! Agree that cultural capital is given more importance by those who have "mostly that". And you name the performative male, but what would be the female equivalent? Would you say there are similar mechanics at work or do you see any difference linked to different social expectations?
Interesting point. I've come across such a 'female equivalent' though I don't know what we should call them. In this case, I think it's not even meant to 'perform' for men but rather to women themselves.. Maybe you can think of an apt name?
On another note, one bizarre effect of this collective consciousness/trend of the 'performative male' is that even reading has become feminine-coded and hence possibly performative!
Interesting take and you make a good case. Disagree about elites taking back education, they’ve always had it. With the consensus rapidly becoming that a Harvard degree is just a status symbol, recruiters will stop seeing it as positive signal. It’s already happening. Of course, there will be the old guard entrenched in the ways of the past, further enabling that bifurcation, but I do think that when that raw intellectual talent hits the open market it paves the way for new institutions to be built
Thank you for this great initiative. Looking forward to reading your thoughts and provocations and joining in the discussion.
I think it might be because I was in my twenties when the internet became omnipresent, but on first read I struggled with what you’ve put forward. When I was at uni in the late 80’s/early 90’s performative males showing off their niche knowledge to exert cultural dominance and win the class war was every social event I went to. All using the leverage that came from access to a world unknown to the rest of us, where opportunity and knowledge lay for the taking. The finance bros who knew how the stock market worked, the artsy kids who understood which of the European drama schools to audition for (Jacques Lequoc or Guild Hall - never RADA), the kids who planned their time at uni around ensuring they got a Rhodes scholarship…
It’s only on the second read it’s clicked. For you guys who grew up with that information sitting inside a search engine or being served to you by an algorithm, knowledge like that is much more homogeneous (let me google how the stock market works, I’ll read reviews and blogs on drama schools and watch videos of their workshops, my feed’s full of “my life as a Rhodes Scholar” content makers).
However, I know it’s a catchy title, but I’m still struggling to understand how it’s Class War’s fault that performative males have come back into vogue though. Is it that the only ones performing their analogue knowledge are those from the privileged class and that’s how they’re exerting their privilege?
This is going hand and hand with how the anti-intellectualism movement is experiencing a cultural cycle currently. We are shifting back to valuing knowledge and intelligence but in a very loud, commercialized way. Great read.
yep, this sums up out world now. "unlike what you wear, knowledge lives on the inside. So this internal accumulation has to be performed externally through taste, references, opinions. It echoes the boom of platforms like Goodreads or Letterboxd. We no longer enjoy knowledge silently. In a wider culture where value is tied to metrics and monetisation, knowledge that isn’t commercialised is treated as worthless"
love this. As a non-expert with no education in this arena, just someone witha. growing interest in culture, just wanted to say that even though this is grounded deep insight it is still extremely readable and digestible without losing meaning.
I have an even blunter class struggle angle on this.
It's the liberal arts graduates hitting industries where they were a minority population before, with the amped up need for visible social-signaling as you mentioned the other day.
For the most part, being 1-dimensional was rewarded in the corporate world, so even bookish nerds would hide their power levels. I remember the first job I had, we could've probably run a classic literature seminar & film club with the gray matter involved, except this was during the great financial crisis and we were customer support for an adult entertainment website... and back in the day, if you raised your head you risked getting it chopped off.
Is it possible the performative male is simply insecure?
Super interesting as always! Agree that cultural capital is given more importance by those who have "mostly that". And you name the performative male, but what would be the female equivalent? Would you say there are similar mechanics at work or do you see any difference linked to different social expectations?
Interesting point. I've come across such a 'female equivalent' though I don't know what we should call them. In this case, I think it's not even meant to 'perform' for men but rather to women themselves.. Maybe you can think of an apt name?
On another note, one bizarre effect of this collective consciousness/trend of the 'performative male' is that even reading has become feminine-coded and hence possibly performative!
Interesting take and you make a good case. Disagree about elites taking back education, they’ve always had it. With the consensus rapidly becoming that a Harvard degree is just a status symbol, recruiters will stop seeing it as positive signal. It’s already happening. Of course, there will be the old guard entrenched in the ways of the past, further enabling that bifurcation, but I do think that when that raw intellectual talent hits the open market it paves the way for new institutions to be built
Thank you for this great initiative. Looking forward to reading your thoughts and provocations and joining in the discussion.
I think it might be because I was in my twenties when the internet became omnipresent, but on first read I struggled with what you’ve put forward. When I was at uni in the late 80’s/early 90’s performative males showing off their niche knowledge to exert cultural dominance and win the class war was every social event I went to. All using the leverage that came from access to a world unknown to the rest of us, where opportunity and knowledge lay for the taking. The finance bros who knew how the stock market worked, the artsy kids who understood which of the European drama schools to audition for (Jacques Lequoc or Guild Hall - never RADA), the kids who planned their time at uni around ensuring they got a Rhodes scholarship…
It’s only on the second read it’s clicked. For you guys who grew up with that information sitting inside a search engine or being served to you by an algorithm, knowledge like that is much more homogeneous (let me google how the stock market works, I’ll read reviews and blogs on drama schools and watch videos of their workshops, my feed’s full of “my life as a Rhodes Scholar” content makers).
However, I know it’s a catchy title, but I’m still struggling to understand how it’s Class War’s fault that performative males have come back into vogue though. Is it that the only ones performing their analogue knowledge are those from the privileged class and that’s how they’re exerting their privilege?
This is going hand and hand with how the anti-intellectualism movement is experiencing a cultural cycle currently. We are shifting back to valuing knowledge and intelligence but in a very loud, commercialized way. Great read.
yep, this sums up out world now. "unlike what you wear, knowledge lives on the inside. So this internal accumulation has to be performed externally through taste, references, opinions. It echoes the boom of platforms like Goodreads or Letterboxd. We no longer enjoy knowledge silently. In a wider culture where value is tied to metrics and monetisation, knowledge that isn’t commercialised is treated as worthless"
love this. As a non-expert with no education in this arena, just someone witha. growing interest in culture, just wanted to say that even though this is grounded deep insight it is still extremely readable and digestible without losing meaning.
The irony of this comment above is almost better than the article.