On Sept. 5, 2025, hundreds of Temple students gathered at Cecil B. Moore Skate Park to see who would take home the title of most “performative male,” a term popularized on TikTok used to describe a man who falsely boasts female-centered interests to gain women’s attraction. Some of these interests include reading feminist literature, wearing tote bags, drinking matcha, and listening to female indie pop artists like Clairo and Beabadoobee.
“I have a friend who is to a T a performative man,” sophomore advertising major Tori Chan said. “He wears pants in the middle of summer, a tie, and constantly drinks matcha. He’s a man that’s like, ‘I do all these things, I’m so cool,’ and I’m like, ‘…Okay?’ It’s his whole personality.”
The term gained popularity on social media, and after the boom of celebrity lookalike contests in the summer of 2025, the performative male contests emerged. In Temple’s case, it started with a YikYak post followed by an Instagram account called “temple.luvs.performative.males.” The account posted a promotional poster with the time and place of the contest as well as photos of Temple’s mascot, Hooter, edited to be holding a matcha and a tote bag.
The woman behind the event, sophomore statistical science and mathematical economics major Calista Aguinaldo, started the competition by asking each contestant a question about famous women, female history, or female anatomy. If they got it right, they stayed, but if they got it wrong, they were out.
“It started off as a joke, I didn’t think it would go further than a poster on YikYak,” Aguinaldo said. “But then, a lot of people started to recognize it and wanted the event to happen, so we thought that we could get a community of people together, maybe have some light-hearted fun.”
The second round consisted of open-ended women-centered questions, with the crowd then selecting the top 3 finalists. It was in this section that the competition took a turn for the sincere — the contestants used the opportunity to speak up about real-world issues, criticizing the Trump administration and abuse against women in the modern world. The most outspoken student turned out to be the eventual winner of the contest, junior psychology major Caleb Brutus.
“When you get the moments to, just say it, speak on it. That’s all we have to do, we have to speak out when we can, and that’s the only way anything is gonna get done. It’s supposed to be a democracy. We’re facing a tyranny right now. Honestly, if I could have said more, I would have said ‘Free Palestine,’ too.”
But that’s not all that made this contest different from others. Aguinaldo and her friend Abdel Hassouna organized donations to be collected at the event for Women Against Abuse. They collected toiletries, feminine hygiene products, diapers and children’s books in an effort to help women who have faced domestic violence get back to some semblance of normalcy.
“A lot of people were speaking up on a lot of issues, not just women’s issues, and that’s a good thing, especially in this climate we’re living in right now with everything that’s going on, politically or socially,” sophomore civil engineering major Hassouna said. “It’s good to acknowledge stuff like this, and it’s definitely a good step in the right way.”
The event was a major success, not only for gathering a large crowd, but for the donations that were received and the sincere words of protest against oppression shared by the contestants. Despite starting out as a silly TikTok trend, a performative male contest may have been just what Temple students needed to speak their minds in a safe environment.
“Keep on educating yourself, keep on speaking out, and maybe performativeness can become genuine,” Aguinaldo said.