23rd August 2025 – (Hong Kong) There is a new performance on the global stage of masculinity, and Hong Kong’s men are playing their part with gusto. The “performative male” — a term that has spread from TikTok satire to the pages of serious newspapers — is no longer confined to the universities of London or the café culture of Brooklyn. Here in Central, Sheung Wan and the Mid-Levels, he can be spotted juggling a Labubu figurine, a canvas tote, and perhaps even an Hermes Birkin, all while trying to look as though he has just stepped out of a Sally Rooney adaptation.
To understand the phenomenon, one must first see it as a reaction. For years, men were told to abandon the suffocating strictures of “toxic masculinity”: the gym selfie, the supercar, the Jordan Peterson soundbite. The new currency, especially in the dating marketplace, is sensitivity. But in the social media age, sensitivity itself has become a performance. The playbook is easy to spot: a Labubu toy dangling from a designer bag, New Balance 550s on the feet, a copy of The Bell Jar or bell hooks in hand, a matcha latte nearby, and a Spotify playlist that alternates between Joni Mitchell and Lana Del Rey. In Hong Kong, this aesthetic has become so widespread that it is almost a uniform.
Labubu, the rabbit-like figure from Hong Kong’s own designer toy scene, has become the perfect symbol. Childlike yet ironic, cute yet expensive, it functions as shorthand for a man’s supposed playfulness and cultural literacy. To carry a Labubu is to signal that one is plugged into global trends while still rooted in local cool. It is no coincidence that the same men often pair it with an Hermes bag, a luxury trophy that reassures everyone that the performance is underwritten by money. The sneakers, often New Balance, finish the look: practical, normcore and seemingly unpretentious, though as carefully chosen as any Rolex.
The critique, of course, is that none of this is genuine. These men are not reading Sylvia Plath because they are haunted by her words; they are reading her because women might be impressed. They are not carrying tampons in their bags out of deep solidarity with female colleagues; they are carrying them because it looks enlightened on Instagram. The accusation is that this is not masculinity evolved but masculinity rebranded: a mating dance in which feminism, sensitivity and irony are merely exotic feathers to be displayed.
Yet one must resist the temptation to dismiss the phenomenon entirely. As academics remind us, gender has always been performance. The “performative male” is simply a new script for an old truth. Where once the Hong Kong banker’s plumage was a Porsche and a watch the size of a dim sum basket, today it is a Labubu keychain and a tote bag with a feminist slogan. The medium has changed, but the instinct — to attract attention and approval — remains the same.
There is also a paradox at work. The very men being mocked for their posturing are, in some cases, genuinely trying to escape the prison of toxic masculinity. They know that the gym selfie and the barroom swagger no longer play well. They are aware that progressive women are wary of the alpha male pose. So they attempt a softer guise, even if clumsily. To read Joan Didion in a coffee shop while sipping oat milk is hardly the most dangerous form of manipulation. Indeed, it may be a clumsy step in the right direction.
In Hong Kong, the performative male has found especially fertile ground. This is a city obsessed with appearances, where status symbols are as carefully curated as Instagram grids. The Hermes bag is not just a fashion choice; it is an economic statement. The Labubu is not just a toy; it is an investment piece. In such a culture, it is hardly surprising that masculinity itself has become another commodity to brand and display. Social media accelerates the process, with men eager to prove on dating apps and Instagram reels that they are both worldly and woke.
The satire, however, is biting. On local forums and global platforms alike, women share stories of men who interrupt dates to quote Audre Lorde incorrectly, or who insist on explaining the Bechdel test while wearing wired headphones as if irony were a cologne. Competitions parodying the archetype have sprung up in cities from Seattle to Sydney. It is only a matter of time before Hong Kong stages its own, perhaps on a rooftop in Causeway Bay, with contestants judged on the quality of their matcha and the condition of their tote bags.
By labelling all men who engage with progressive culture as “performative,” we risk reinforcing the very gender traps we claim to dismantle. If every man who reads a woman writer is dismissed as fraudulent, what incentive remains for men to explore alternative masculinities? The danger is that we push them back into the arms of the very toxic archetypes we are trying to escape. It is easy to mock the banker in Mid-Levels carrying a Labubu; it is harder to accept that he might, in some fumbling way, be trying to reject the hyper-masculine scripts of his predecessors.
At the same time, authenticity remains elusive. As the philosopher Slavoj Žižek once wrote, even if we keep an ironic distance, we are still doing the thing. The Hong Kong man who insists he is above performance because he mocks it is still performing, only on a higher level. The self-awareness is just another layer of costume. The only truly radical act, perhaps, would be to stop caring entirely — but in a city defined by status and surface, that is unlikely.
So where does this leave us? The rise of the performative male is both a symptom of our times and a mirror of our anxieties. In a world where masculinity is said to be in crisis, where traditional roles are dissolving and new scripts are needed, performance offers a way to experiment. It may be awkward, insincere, or even laughable, but it at least gestures towards possibility. Better a man fumbling with a Labubu and a Sylvia Plath paperback than one clinging to outdated machismo.
Hong Kong, with its love of fashion, toys and conspicuous branding, may simply be providing the world with the most vivid stage on which this new masculinity plays out. The sight of a man in Central, Hermes bag on one arm, Labubu dangling from the strap, New Balance on his feet, leafing through The Bell Jar in a café, is both absurd and strangely hopeful. It shows that men are aware they must change, even if they do not yet know how.
The performative male may be a caricature, but caricatures exist because they capture a truth. And the truth is that masculinity is, and always has been, a performance. In mocking these men, we should beware of mocking the attempt itself. For if the choice is between the banker who recites feminist slogans insincerely and the banker who sneers at them altogether, the future may be brighter with the former. Hong Kong’s performative males may be playing to the gallery, but at least they are playing a different tune.