How To Simply Exist In A Performative Era

Performative. We’ve come across this word countless times in theories of gender, where philosophers argue that gender isn’t something fixed or inherent, but a process. A process of doing, of becoming, of performing who you feel yourself to be. A process of turning the inner self outward—through clothes, gestures, language, the small rituals that materialise identity.

But it’s not always such a liberating story. Sometimes, performing gender slips into something heavier: the quiet internalisation of societal standards. The weight of expectations pressed onto individuals who feel they must comply—just to appear acceptable, or worse, simply to be considered normal.

We’re a quarter way through the 21st century, and performative has taken on a life of its own. The word no longer lingers only in academic debates about gender—it’s seeped into the way we shape and brand ourselves. It’s become less about who we are and more about the version of ourselves we want to project, the character we want the world to applaud.

It’s not just male, female, non-binary. It’s the sub-genres of those identities, the curated playlists of personhood. Are you the one who fights for women’s rights and nods knowingly at the mention of period cramps? The one with a paperback novel open on the train, or perched on a weight bench between sets? Are you the activist with a megaphone in one hand and a matcha latte in the other, Lana Del Rey in your headphones, sneakers laced tight for a late-night run? Or maybe you’re the quiet aesthete, baggy jeans dragging on the pavement, bookish tote slung over your shoulder, a Labubu keychain jingling beside stacked silver rings.

@thesneakerlaundry We ran a Performative Male Contest in Sydney 😭🙏🏼 #performativemale #sydney #sneakerlaundry #matcha #aus ♬ Juna – Clairo

By curating your identity on the outside—wearing a t-shirt that shouts “Periods are evil” or “It’s time for Herstory”—you announce to the world the kind of person you want to be seen as. Your clothes, your slogans, your accessories become shorthand for your politics, your values, your taste in books and music, even the subculture you belong to.

On the surface, this performance of self feels harmless, even helpful. A quick and easy way to signal who you are, to navigate the chaos of a socially diverse world. But on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, this isn’t always read as innocent. It’s picked apart, magnified, sometimes even ridiculed—filtered through a lens that makes performance look less like self-expression and more like a carefully staged production.

Take something as simple as reading in public. Once a quiet, solitary act, now it’s under constant surveillance. When someone’s caught with a novel on the subway—or worse, when that moment makes its way to social media—the immediate accusation is that they’re not really reading. They’re performing. Pretending to be better, smarter, more cultured than everyone else in the carriage.

Posting books online has also turned into a guilty act; the assumption is you haven’t finished them, maybe haven’t even cracked them open—you’re just staging an image of literary intelligence.

@salamisammy all the tell-tale signs of a true expert @Bustopher Jonez #totebags #indie #fyp #outfit #reading ♬ original sound – ✞𝑳𝒖𝒄𝒌𝒚✞

And somehow, men with Sally Rooney novels have become the prime suspects. The popular belief: they don’t genuinely enjoy them, they’re just fishing for female attention. But then again—aren’t we, the girlfriends, often the ones gifting those novels in the first place?

This is where the paradox sharpens. Stare at your phone on public transport and you’re dismissed as a mindless scroller, wasting time on memes. Open a book and you’re accused of peacocking, faking intelligence, or choosing the “wrong” kind of book—too girly, too predictable, too cliché for your gender.

So what’s left? Look around? Maybe not. Because the moment your gaze lingers too long, someone could label you a creep.

And then there’s clothing—the most immediate stage for performance. Every outfit becomes a statement, every style choice an open invitation for criticism. Wear something trendy and you’re accused of trying too hard, desperate to stay relevant. Wear something ambiguous and you’re suddenly dressing for the male or female gaze. It doesn’t matter if it’s baggy jeans on a guy or a short skirt on a girl—someone, somewhere, will decide it’s a performance.

Right now, though, men seem to take the hardest hits online. Social media loves to mock their fashion choices, turning every pair of trousers into a punchline. But let’s be honest—aren’t we, the women, partly responsible for this? After all, we’re the ones who collectively rebranded skinny jeans into a denim red flag, calling it one of the biggest male “icks.” And not because of behaviour—like being rude to service staff, which is an actual sign of bad character—but simply because of fabric and fit.

And fashion is only the beginning. Next comes music, another minefield of performativity. Even choosing a track for your Instagram story feels risky: the wrong song says too much, or not enough. If a guy posts Lana Del Rey’s Ultraviolence, the assumption is he’s baiting female attention. If a girl listens to Pink Floyd or Nirvana, she’s dismissed as a fake fan, performing taste to impress men.

The same story plays out with activism. Stay silent, don’t repost about Gaza or skip a protest, and you’re branded indifferent, blind to the world around you. But speak up, share, march, post—and suddenly you’re performative. You’re not acting out of conviction, people say, you just want to look enlightened, to score moral points, to polish your brand as an “aware” citizen.

@adeletheestallion69 These bones dont lie diva #lamaran #lanadelrey #loveyou #diva ♬ Righteous x Yummy – Sped Up – Tazzy

So honestly—how are we supposed to behave, online or offline, when every choice gets dragged as insincere? When personal action is always recast as performance?

Well, this isn’t to say that everything we see online—or even offline—is entirely real. Social media pressures people to shape themselves into who society expects them to be, to conform so they can pass as “normal.”

People don’t always chase trends to look cooler; often, they just want to look acceptable, to avoid standing out in the wrong way, to dodge criticism for the very things that shape their outward identity. It’s not so different from the old internalisation of gender roles—only now, the norms are aesthetic, cultural, and digital.

And on social media, the stakes rise even higher. There’s a constant push to showcase your life as proof of success: the stable job, the designer purchases, the overpriced dinners, the holiday snapshots, the endless circle of friends. Achievements, hobbies, tastes—all carefully arranged to whisper: I’m doing just fine, please don’t think anything negative of me.

And maybe that pressure is often what makes people feel less authentic, less like themselves—and that’s why so much feels fake, or at least performative. Because performance has become the price of admission for appearing “okay.”

The only thing we know for sure—without any “maybes”—is that no matter what you do, someone will be ready to criticise it. They’ll call it fake, accuse you of performing, or insist you’re only doing it for attention.

So what’s the best move in this performative era? The simplest, yet hardest: stop living by other people’s opinions. Keep doing what you’re doing—or start doing what you’ve always wanted to do. If you’re a guy who wants to wear jewellery, wear it. If you’re a girl juggling two books on the subway, read them proudly. Perform your identity the way you want to perform it, just like we already do with gender. The key is to do it sincerely—not to dodge criticism, but to stay true to yourself.

Because in the end, society’s version of you will always shift. Trends change daily, and people are impossible to satisfy. But losing yourself? That’s the only real failure in this whole performance.

Words by Dana Shmyha