I also really love these because often encounters with “That Guy” in real life can be deeply uncomfortable, isolating, and sometimes frightening experiences. These TikToks feel super joyful and communal, and point out just how ridiculous the patriarchy is, in addition to being a repressive and violent institution.
Agree completely with this! Some of the joy comes from being able to exclusively and completely point these "men" out as ridiculous, without fearing that they'll get scary towards you by doing so.
I have complete source forgetting about what clever woman said this where, but someone recently on something i was watching/listening too etc said that "creepiness" is the way we have to define something (to mostly other women) that someone (usually a man) is an implicit threat. That might seem so obvious that you're now thinking, duh, but when it was framed like that I was like RIGHT! That is what I have been saying! For social norm reasons you can't come right out and say your Volleyball coach is a potential threat, but you can say he's creepy and now every woman in that radius has their head on a swivel.
Loved these videos, horrified by the universal experiences we all have, but oh man, women are FUNNY.
Sep 13, 2023·edited Sep 13, 2023Liked by Anne Helen Petersen
That is a beautifully obvious and yet succinct version of what happens. It seems to me that possibility of *incorrectly* labeling someone as a potential threat is a far worse offense (in our culture) than actually being a potential threat, so you have to use a subtext.
I have been a professional actor for 20 years, and these tiktoks are some of the best improv I've ever seen. I laughed until I cried. The one woman who did the whole "that's not my son" monologue should be making a million dollars writing a TV show.
Totally. The other night I was thinking about how often women can accurately say, "but then I might die" at the end of a sentence. Like, "I could go for a walk at night, but that doesn't seem like a great idea" is actually "I could go for a walk at night, but then I might die".
Yes on all fronts but specifically, "women are FUNNY." I've seen a few of these videos in the wild and they are so poignant and funny, my thought while watching them has been, "I love being a woman." Despite the oppression, the threat, the necessity of the comradery, there's no other club I'd rather be in.
Yes! This also ties in for me with things like the Russel Brandt news "breaking" - without knowing that it's apparently been common knowledge for years that he is an actual and active threat, he was always "creepy" so of course it's not surprising when that's confirmed. But how much would we be laughed at or mocked if we actually said threatening instead?
Sep 13, 2023·edited Sep 13, 2023Liked by Anne Helen Petersen
Truly, the opportunity to dunk on cis-het men while performing a certain form of toxic masculinity is why I do drag as a king. It's both liberating and then I get to play with the character becoming sentient and aware of how his entitlement manifests. Many kings' characters are more genderqueer, but as a cis woman myself, I find it fun and fascinating to perform as exactly the dirtbag I encounter on a regular basis.
Mo B. Dick, someone I really admire as a drag king, has said, "Instead of being an angry woman, I became a funny man." That feels very true to this filter phenomenon.
Feel free to follow me @ScudMissel on IG or search #dragkingsofinstagram for folks who take this critique from TikTok filter to performance art.
Where was this adult summer camp?? Sounds awesome! I got started by just dressing up for Pride, Halloween, etc. and then showing up at drag shows in drag. That way producers get a sense of your vibe. Where are you based?
AHP curating TikTok for my specific interests and making it so I don’t have to rejoin is the best gift I’ve ever gotten from a stranger.
These memes make me feel exactly the way the guitar-on-the-beach-with-the-Kens scene made me feel in the Barbie movie. It was such a specific experience that everyone who has ever had it happen to them instantly recognized (and truly, “everyone” includes so many women), yet it appears innocuous to those who haven’t had that experience. It’s just such a perfect capture of the patriarchy and the lived experience of being a woman in the world.
I want to see more content about how so many men take up all the space, à la dude with a guitar. Men whistling in public. Men rattling their pocket change. Men not yielding to smaller people going in the opposite direction. Lecturing men. Men with Opinions. Men taking over the conversation. Men interrupting. Men having to crack a little joke at every last effing thing.
This comment reminded me of the Barbie movie when she describes Ken as playing the guitar “at me” instead of “for me” which is the most perfect description I’ve ever heard about men who play the guitar for you whether you want to hear it or not.
Once in college a man showed me his guitar and I said point blank to his face “Don’t you dare ever try to play that for me.” I’m sure he thought I was a bitch but if he’s allowed to want to play it unbidden, I’m allowed to say I don’t want to hear it.
High five across space and time! I remember a party where a bunch of us were having a wonderfully deep conversation, and then this guy who'd brought his guitar started playing it and everybody stopped talking. I don't even remember who he was, who I was talking to, what we were talking about, but I still resent That Guy and his ilk.
Dating myself by bringing up John Belushi smashing Stephen Bishop’s guitar at a toga party in Animal House. I feel that way every time I meet a guitar guy.
Men feeling the need to talk to female strangers all. the . fucking. time. We don't know if you're nice or a creep - just don't talk to us if you don't really need to.
This is the one that enrages me. I have a coworker who takes up so much space- if you're sitting next to him in a meeting his knee WILL be touching yours, period, and he's going to crack non-stop jokes. Non-stop. He doesn't care if they're acknowledged (they're not) or laughed at (they're certainly not). Why does it drain my life force? I don't know!
We have a short daily meeting by a white board at work, and there is one (youngish, able-bodied) guy that drags a chair 10 feet across the room so he can sit during the meeting while the rest of us stand. Every day. Incredible to be this guy.
I don't mean this as a "gotcha", but as a "maybe consider"--
I get assumed to be able-bodied about 99% of the time, and yet standing still, especially when shifting my weight/ otherwise moving around a bit is not socially acceptable, is pretty much guaranteed to make me woozy, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot.
You very well may be right that this guy is able-bodied, but maybe you're not. And I can say from experience that it really sucks to feel like you have to choose between disclosing a health condition (and then potentially being judged for that) and being judged by the people around you for "unnecessarily"/"selfishly"/"lazily" using a resource.
Totally fair to point out. This person did stand through the meeting when the meeting was led by the previous manager (a man). A new manager started about 6wks ago (a woman) and now this guy slides in 5 minutes late and sets up his lounging area. In this specific case it seems pretty pointedly a d*ck move, but I am open to being wrong.
JFC. This person only exists in my imagination (for me, not for you, of course!), but he fills me with rage. Can you imagine being permitted to go through your life with this little self-awareness, that you don’t feel like you have to account for treating male and female managers differently? I just feel like I’m so attuned to this kind of questioning—I literally have no idea what it sounds like in a person’s head if said person is NOT examining their choices and behavior in this way. Is it just … crickets in there?
Cf. that line “[Do xyz] with the unearned confidence of a mediocre white man.”
As a female raising boys, I’m sensitive to the fact that taking up space isn’t always necessarily a bad thing. But damn, how about a little self-awareness and space-taking equity, dudes?
Solidarity. I have absolutely said in my head (and out loud to another parent) "Please don't be that dude!" to my 5 year old. My strident heart says to him, "Don't let anybody make you feel small!" and then I watch him, confident that he can do literally anything, solve any problem, talk to anyone, ask for anything, and out loud I say, "Make sure everybody gets a turn, Bud."
This is what sells the whole thing for me, its the ubiquity of that goatee across race/class/gender lines "It works because a man who chooses this type of facial hair is almost always a man with a gap between his self-importance and actual importance...That fucking goatee is entitlement manifest." The women who post and the guys they are are all so different, and so accurate!
There's something I also want to tease out about the point that these men can't even make a reaction, because they don't see women as people. They're also so oblivious that they don't realize what their choice in facial hair tells us. We all know. They do not.
I have a coworker (in an office of mostly women) who is growing this exact facial hair and it 100% suits his personality. It's perfect for him. The amount of compliments he's been given from women who low-key hate him is amazing.
I just want to bring up that this can surface some underlying transmascuine/butchphobia and mess with those of us who date across gender spectrum. It also brings up the issue of assigning a certain facial characteristic with someone being nice or reliable. Many of us balking at the number of transphobic laws, need to be mindful that some of our critique can tow dangerously to that line. Also, some of us with PCOS who don't remove our facial hair, along with trans folks just growing out their hair, could easily be lumped in with these cis male goatee perpetrators.
I hope that the drag king community can grow, along with awareness that facial hair, even in a TikTok filter, can be euphoria to someone finally seeing themselves. Also appreciate others who have brought up other ways this brings out racism and sexism.
Thank you for this point — there's another corner of people playing with this filter who are talking more specifically about how it's creating gender euphoria. Like so many things on TikTok, there are so many conversations and elaborations happening here.
This has been niggling at the back of my mind too - I'm a kind of uncomfortable with the idea of "Let's make a woman look like a man! Won't that be hilarious and weird?" If it wasn't for the obvious power dynamic difference, I'd compare it to blackface.
Definitely could go this way — and yes, there are definitely people posting TikToks that are just "WOW, WOMAN AS MAN, SO WEIRD!" I haven't included those (in my collection of Toks or in this discussion) because they're doing the absolute least interesting thing you can do with the filter. What's more interesting is the way the videos themselves and the performance of a particular *type* of masculinity satirizes it and makes IT (the masculinity, not the masculine features) ridiculous.
Maybe, but my knee jerk reaction was a specific look coupled with certain kinds of interactions. Never thought about the gender spectrum in conjunction with these memes. I thought about my own experiences that aligned with these examples. But I do agree they can be extended to bigotry, and that’s why we all need to be thoughtful with speech.
I took so much glee and joy over watching these, but it was striking to me how I was so delighted to show them to my husband because I thought they were all so spot-on and hilarious and he just didn’t find nearly as funny. It really reinforced how different experiences are for people who present as women versus men.
I think it’s hard for a lot of men to find it funny because they often literally do not see these types of men in the wild. So they don’t recognize it enough to see the humor. If another man is present, even just nearby, many of these types of guys just don’t act like this.
I think you’re right! When I could tell he didn’t find them as funny I started looking for the mechanic one because I knew that was the one he could for sure recognize.
Still remember when my male boss sat at our service desk (where only one employee is male presenting) because we (female presenting employees) were being harassed by a male patron. Lo and behold, the male patron treated by male boss differently, and he didn’t actually witness any of the harassment.
Just chiming in as a cis het white man to say that I feel these are definitely accurate but a lot less funny for me than it seems to be for most reading (but they’re still funny!) Maybe the difference, like I think you and others may be saying, is that it’s got to be way more unpleasant to interact with these kinds of guys as a woman. A good reminder for me of the crud that women-presenting folks have to deal with. Ugh.
My partner too—didn’t think it was very funny and couldn’t watch very many of them. I think he got grossed out and upset by the reminder that we women all have these experiences, and have had to interact with at least some of these guys.
Yes! My husband seemed not amused but more horrified that I found this so funny and easy to relate to. Kind of like at the end of The Sexy Getting Ready as Song from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Like how we’ve all just accepted this is the way things are and then when men get a glimpse into it they’re really taken aback.
This was my partner's experience too. He has a hard time laughing at this kind of stuff because it upsets him that we have to deal with it. Part me is like, "boo-hoo, get over it and laugh with me!" but the other part of me, obviously, is glad that I partnered up with someone so empathetic.
And someone who’s in more of a position to meaningfully challenge “this guy” and other manifestations gendered norms (which are truly EVERYWHERE!) So, no one asked, but to him and other cis men on this thread/interacting with these memes and finding them distressing in some way, I’d suggest you pause, sit with that discomfort, notice where it lives in your body, see what it needs from you (and only you), how can you comfort/witness/integrate that feeling…and then, decide that creating and maintaining more expansive notions of masculinity is important and fucking DOOO SOMETHING meaningful with it!!!! Give $ to an abortion fund, DV org, queer/trans supporting organization, don’t laugh at sexist jokes, tell your femme work counterpart how much money you make, volunteer to coach a parks dept team to mentor boys/young masc folx and so a mom doesn’t have to-literally endless ways to make the lives of femme folx better! Ps obvs not a commentary on your guy at all, I’m a therapist and masculinity researcher and do a lot of “mens engagement work,” and I find that there are so many loving, empathic men who stop at “gosh that’s shitty you have to deal with that…” and don’t move past that. I suspect that that’s often a) it’s hard to turn towards the suffering of others (esp those we love and extra extra especially if we may be implicated, even if indirectly, like in this case) and b) they are confused about “what to do” and may already feel shamed and then are like “well, what’s the perfect thing to do?!” And these not a “perfect thing,” and rather than reaching out and asking those that matter (because that’s vulnerable-read: not masculine), they then don’t do anything except distance themselves from “those guys” (#notallmen) and THAT FEELING of distress, confusion, shame, hurt. It’s an understandable response. It’s also, not helpful.
I whole heartedly believe women have learned you can laugh or cry at most situations ...channeling our fear and their creepiness and we laugh (or scream, but I'd prefer laughter). Cishet men have never had to learn this maneuver.
I think in addition to what's been said, the thing that takes these from "hehe that's funny" to full on laugh-crying is the catharsis element. If you haven't experienced these types, catharsis can't happen.
My friends and I have marveled at the specificity! With the filter, one friend looks like she might explain bitcoin in a condescending tone, while I look like I might explain what ACTUALLY happens during menopause.
Yes the specificity!!! “highly specific + also somehow universal” = a recipe for humor, imo! Not just that filters make people look funny or even the masterful acting, but mostly how it hits that time-tested sweet spot for a certain kind of observational humor. I think lots of things are funny in this way if you zoom out (including lots of things created by men!) anyway your comment just made me ponder why the specificity itself is so funny (in addition to what ahp said) and got me thinking!
I too laughed until I cried at these, and I think there's a sort of catharsis there. In real life, when you're confronted with "that guy" you can't laugh at him to his face, because there's real danger in that. So all these coping mechanisms we've developed as women don't allow for the ridiculousness of what these guys are, and the relief of now being able to laugh at them in a safe way....catharsis.
My husband is super lazy about shaving, so he has a regular beard to clean-shaven cycle, and when he's engaging in the monumental work of shaving, he often comes out at intervals with different configurations of facial hair to make me laugh.
One time it was something not too dissimilar from this and I cracked up and said he was doing Uncle Ernisimo from Sesame Street and posted a picture on Facebook with that observation. I learned I accidentally had my status set to public when some random guy started yelling at me in comments, accusing me of being "misandrist (hate to men) , racist and highly unrespectful about individual dignity." It was definitely a lesson in how defensive men can get about the mocking of facial hair.
Honestly one of the first things I noticed about this post is how much work/space/writing AHP had to do at the end of the piece to exhort men to simply behave themselves. Certainly because Men On The Internet have time and again proven to be fragile, shallow, angry monsters liable to fly into a rage at the slightest perceived insight and certainly incapable of self insight or absorbing criticism.
Luckily I really don't think we have too many (or any!) That Guys — and I also understand the immediate feeling that you need to differentiate yourself from Those Guys, but I didn't want this conversation to be.....that
I should have known better, but honestly I first read the coda as asking women to "behave ourselves" and not get "too mean" or snarky towards "That Guy." Which again, I should know AHP wouldn't do, but I'm just so used to being asked to leave space for and center mens' feelings even in conversations about toxic masculinity that it's where my head went... Ugh.
These are hilarious! I'm working on half a thought regarding why the reverse ("that gal") doesn't work: Beyond the patriarchy flattening all women to a limited range of personality-free attractiveness, I wonder if even women would have a hard time coming up with "that gal" without clothing/accessories (earrings, glasses, etc.)? I have seen folks do really well-rendered reels of highly specific female 'characters' (e.g. different kinds of moms at drop-off) but they involve outfits and body language etc. But I can't quite articulate why one's face alone isn't enough the way it is with the multiplicity of dirtbags from this one filter.
I feel like you're on to something. Maybe it's how much more effort it takes as a woman to perform a specific identity? Because everything requires more effort as a woman?
I think it’s because women rarely are granted the luxury of being oblivious to how we affect other people with our actions (and where we are granted that luxury tends to be with our families, which is why the flip side is hyper specific jokes about husband/wife or mother/child interactions)
Delaney Rowe is doing *such* a good job of playing women in roles written by men, which feels similar to me--they’re essentially all the same archetypes we see over and over. She’s on Instagram if you’re interested!
Key and Peele's SNL sketches convincingly portrayed a wide variety of women. Instant recognition of Meegan personality type in the Meegan and Andre series, the grandmas in church, the white women getting abducted unknowingly-they were brilliant, more by imitating manners of speech, not a face
I think Bo Burnham's "White Woman's Instagram" song/bit comes close to the 'that guy' energy, but it's also not about an actual person, it's about a persona projected on social media. Women really are mysterious creatures I guess, lol!
That’s really interesting cause of course my mind also went to all the feminine “characters” depicted in TikToks/reels (whatever the gender of the creator) BUT I think you’re right that soooo much of those seem to land more through gesture or vocal tone or props in those cases, somehow? Hmm
Brian Jordan Alvarez can do a lot with just a wig or a filter, I feel like his women characters get at some of what you’re talking about here. Although he does add a layer to it with a different voices/accents and speaking styles. It’s fascinating and so so funny. I especially love Your Rich Southern Aunt character
I’m thinking this through in real time and unsure whether I believe what follows: women in our culture are 100% accustomed to being objectified and evaluated, so when a woman is posing for (ostensibly) male pleasure, nothing about that seems weird or comical. This kind of posturing-as-an-object is less of a default mode for men (though maybe evolving in that direction as social media saturates everything). But because it’s less familiar, it’s funny to see “men” (even fake men conjured by a photo filter) engaged in self-objectification. If you ever saw the Killing Me Softly documentaries, they used this technique to defamiliarize women’s objectification by restaging commercials with men in place of women. (I remember one for Lubriderm lotion that featured a naked woman writhing around on a white background with ... an alligator crawling nearby. Because dry skin = alligator skin, I guess. The absurdity became unignorable when the conventionally attractive woman is replaced with an ordinary-but-not-unattractive hairy dude in the same scenario.) So I think the hilarity of these comes from 1) the frisson of the weirdness of male objectification, followed by 2) the shock of recognition when the text tells us that in fact we recognize this “type” at a deep level. (Stipulating that nothing improves a joke like someone trying to explain why it’s funny 🙄)
Sep 13, 2023·edited Sep 13, 2023Liked by Anne Helen Petersen
I find it interesting that early 2000's - mid 2010's R&B is the overarching theme music for the TikToks. The Usher/Tank/Ashanti soundtracks are doing some heavy lifting here too. It's especially funny because Usher was causing all that static with Keke Palmer earlier this year, lol. Maybe the goatee + soul patch is an attempt by That Guy™️ to be cool and sexy like an R&B singer, but failing? Idk I havent had coffee yet
I'm curious about how much of this is just TikTok style (like, everything, EVERYTHING, is seemingly set to songs from the 2000s right now, whether it's dances or memes) and how much is exactly the Usher of it all
I also really love these because often encounters with “That Guy” in real life can be deeply uncomfortable, isolating, and sometimes frightening experiences. These TikToks feel super joyful and communal, and point out just how ridiculous the patriarchy is, in addition to being a repressive and violent institution.
Agree completely with this! Some of the joy comes from being able to exclusively and completely point these "men" out as ridiculous, without fearing that they'll get scary towards you by doing so.
This is such a good point
It's the whole, "men are afraid women will laugh at them, women are afraid men will kill them" thing - we get to laugh without the fear.
And really highlights the power of laughter! lol I keep thinking about the riddikulus spell in Harry Potter.
!!! Oh my gosh, YES. Well said.
It also reminds me a little of my discomfort around how drag is *sometimes* done, poking fun at women as a group.
I really appreciate that you lurk in the depths and the shallow waters of TikTok so I don't have to. ❤️
Second this! It has confirmed that I would indeed love TikTok so much that you'd never hear from me again if I downloaded it.
Yes yes 100x yes to this!!
yes, same!
I have complete source forgetting about what clever woman said this where, but someone recently on something i was watching/listening too etc said that "creepiness" is the way we have to define something (to mostly other women) that someone (usually a man) is an implicit threat. That might seem so obvious that you're now thinking, duh, but when it was framed like that I was like RIGHT! That is what I have been saying! For social norm reasons you can't come right out and say your Volleyball coach is a potential threat, but you can say he's creepy and now every woman in that radius has their head on a swivel.
Loved these videos, horrified by the universal experiences we all have, but oh man, women are FUNNY.
That is a beautifully obvious and yet succinct version of what happens. It seems to me that possibility of *incorrectly* labeling someone as a potential threat is a far worse offense (in our culture) than actually being a potential threat, so you have to use a subtext.
I have been a professional actor for 20 years, and these tiktoks are some of the best improv I've ever seen. I laughed until I cried. The one woman who did the whole "that's not my son" monologue should be making a million dollars writing a TV show.
And they do it with 5 seconds. Just incredibly impressive.
Totally. The other night I was thinking about how often women can accurately say, "but then I might die" at the end of a sentence. Like, "I could go for a walk at night, but that doesn't seem like a great idea" is actually "I could go for a walk at night, but then I might die".
Women are SO funny! And creative! I was so impressed by all of these videos.
Yes! And when do men have to say, "I went on a date and she was kind of creepy"? Never.
"I went on a date and couldn't tell whether she was going to murder me." You're right- never.
“I’m going home with this new guy and I’m going to send you my location in case he’s a serial killer” etc
I’d smash the heart on this comment a hundred times if I could
Yes on all fronts but specifically, "women are FUNNY." I've seen a few of these videos in the wild and they are so poignant and funny, my thought while watching them has been, "I love being a woman." Despite the oppression, the threat, the necessity of the comradery, there's no other club I'd rather be in.
Yes! This also ties in for me with things like the Russel Brandt news "breaking" - without knowing that it's apparently been common knowledge for years that he is an actual and active threat, he was always "creepy" so of course it's not surprising when that's confirmed. But how much would we be laughed at or mocked if we actually said threatening instead?
Truly, the opportunity to dunk on cis-het men while performing a certain form of toxic masculinity is why I do drag as a king. It's both liberating and then I get to play with the character becoming sentient and aware of how his entitlement manifests. Many kings' characters are more genderqueer, but as a cis woman myself, I find it fun and fascinating to perform as exactly the dirtbag I encounter on a regular basis.
Mo B. Dick, someone I really admire as a drag king, has said, "Instead of being an angry woman, I became a funny man." That feels very true to this filter phenomenon.
Feel free to follow me @ScudMissel on IG or search #dragkingsofinstagram for folks who take this critique from TikTok filter to performance art.
Within two videos I was like "omg TikTok made drag kings go viral!" and that's 50% of why I love this trend.
I did a drag workshop at adult summer camp last month and I found it SO empowering. Would love to do more drag king stuff but no idea how to start.
Where was this adult summer camp?? Sounds awesome! I got started by just dressing up for Pride, Halloween, etc. and then showing up at drag shows in drag. That way producers get a sense of your vibe. Where are you based?
“Camp Wildfire” in the U.K. - I’m in Bristol, SW England
AHP curating TikTok for my specific interests and making it so I don’t have to rejoin is the best gift I’ve ever gotten from a stranger.
These memes make me feel exactly the way the guitar-on-the-beach-with-the-Kens scene made me feel in the Barbie movie. It was such a specific experience that everyone who has ever had it happen to them instantly recognized (and truly, “everyone” includes so many women), yet it appears innocuous to those who haven’t had that experience. It’s just such a perfect capture of the patriarchy and the lived experience of being a woman in the world.
I want to see more content about how so many men take up all the space, à la dude with a guitar. Men whistling in public. Men rattling their pocket change. Men not yielding to smaller people going in the opposite direction. Lecturing men. Men with Opinions. Men taking over the conversation. Men interrupting. Men having to crack a little joke at every last effing thing.
The sheer soul-destroying nature of it.
This comment reminded me of the Barbie movie when she describes Ken as playing the guitar “at me” instead of “for me” which is the most perfect description I’ve ever heard about men who play the guitar for you whether you want to hear it or not.
Once in college a man showed me his guitar and I said point blank to his face “Don’t you dare ever try to play that for me.” I’m sure he thought I was a bitch but if he’s allowed to want to play it unbidden, I’m allowed to say I don’t want to hear it.
High five across space and time! I remember a party where a bunch of us were having a wonderfully deep conversation, and then this guy who'd brought his guitar started playing it and everybody stopped talking. I don't even remember who he was, who I was talking to, what we were talking about, but I still resent That Guy and his ilk.
Every single person in this thread has been at that party and hated that guy.
Dating myself by bringing up John Belushi smashing Stephen Bishop’s guitar at a toga party in Animal House. I feel that way every time I meet a guitar guy.
That is my all-time favorite gif and one I use as much as I can-- it's the epitome of Man Thinks He's Main Character.
Men feeling the need to talk to female strangers all. the . fucking. time. We don't know if you're nice or a creep - just don't talk to us if you don't really need to.
And it’s like...men are socialized to interpret my niceness as flirting. So if I am nice to him, he will just continue to bother me.
I feel like that’s quite a common feature of the ‘this guy’ descriptions - some way of taking up space that is unwanted.
Having to crack a joke at every! Last! Effing! Thing! !!!!!!
This is the one that enrages me. I have a coworker who takes up so much space- if you're sitting next to him in a meeting his knee WILL be touching yours, period, and he's going to crack non-stop jokes. Non-stop. He doesn't care if they're acknowledged (they're not) or laughed at (they're certainly not). Why does it drain my life force? I don't know!
It’s because he’s an energy vampire. (So indebted to What We Do In The Shadows for the character of Colin Robinson)
100% he is an energy vampire.
For some guys, that was a defense mechanism against other guys. If you can't dominate, try being entertaining. It wears thin.
We have a short daily meeting by a white board at work, and there is one (youngish, able-bodied) guy that drags a chair 10 feet across the room so he can sit during the meeting while the rest of us stand. Every day. Incredible to be this guy.
I don't mean this as a "gotcha", but as a "maybe consider"--
I get assumed to be able-bodied about 99% of the time, and yet standing still, especially when shifting my weight/ otherwise moving around a bit is not socially acceptable, is pretty much guaranteed to make me woozy, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot.
You very well may be right that this guy is able-bodied, but maybe you're not. And I can say from experience that it really sucks to feel like you have to choose between disclosing a health condition (and then potentially being judged for that) and being judged by the people around you for "unnecessarily"/"selfishly"/"lazily" using a resource.
Totally fair to point out. This person did stand through the meeting when the meeting was led by the previous manager (a man). A new manager started about 6wks ago (a woman) and now this guy slides in 5 minutes late and sets up his lounging area. In this specific case it seems pretty pointedly a d*ck move, but I am open to being wrong.
JFC. This person only exists in my imagination (for me, not for you, of course!), but he fills me with rage. Can you imagine being permitted to go through your life with this little self-awareness, that you don’t feel like you have to account for treating male and female managers differently? I just feel like I’m so attuned to this kind of questioning—I literally have no idea what it sounds like in a person’s head if said person is NOT examining their choices and behavior in this way. Is it just … crickets in there?
Oh absolutely!
Men with LOUD cars.
But... don't you know it's the subwoofers that power the car?? (Just kidding!)
Cf. that line “[Do xyz] with the unearned confidence of a mediocre white man.”
As a female raising boys, I’m sensitive to the fact that taking up space isn’t always necessarily a bad thing. But damn, how about a little self-awareness and space-taking equity, dudes?
I frequently tell my boys to have a little less main character syndrome
I want to like this a million times.
Wow. I am going to be thinking about that framing for a while. 😮
Solidarity. I have absolutely said in my head (and out loud to another parent) "Please don't be that dude!" to my 5 year old. My strident heart says to him, "Don't let anybody make you feel small!" and then I watch him, confident that he can do literally anything, solve any problem, talk to anyone, ask for anything, and out loud I say, "Make sure everybody gets a turn, Bud."
This is what sells the whole thing for me, its the ubiquity of that goatee across race/class/gender lines "It works because a man who chooses this type of facial hair is almost always a man with a gap between his self-importance and actual importance...That fucking goatee is entitlement manifest." The women who post and the guys they are are all so different, and so accurate!
There's something I also want to tease out about the point that these men can't even make a reaction, because they don't see women as people. They're also so oblivious that they don't realize what their choice in facial hair tells us. We all know. They do not.
I have a coworker (in an office of mostly women) who is growing this exact facial hair and it 100% suits his personality. It's perfect for him. The amount of compliments he's been given from women who low-key hate him is amazing.
I just want to bring up that this can surface some underlying transmascuine/butchphobia and mess with those of us who date across gender spectrum. It also brings up the issue of assigning a certain facial characteristic with someone being nice or reliable. Many of us balking at the number of transphobic laws, need to be mindful that some of our critique can tow dangerously to that line. Also, some of us with PCOS who don't remove our facial hair, along with trans folks just growing out their hair, could easily be lumped in with these cis male goatee perpetrators.
I hope that the drag king community can grow, along with awareness that facial hair, even in a TikTok filter, can be euphoria to someone finally seeing themselves. Also appreciate others who have brought up other ways this brings out racism and sexism.
Thank you for this point — there's another corner of people playing with this filter who are talking more specifically about how it's creating gender euphoria. Like so many things on TikTok, there are so many conversations and elaborations happening here.
This has been niggling at the back of my mind too - I'm a kind of uncomfortable with the idea of "Let's make a woman look like a man! Won't that be hilarious and weird?" If it wasn't for the obvious power dynamic difference, I'd compare it to blackface.
Definitely could go this way — and yes, there are definitely people posting TikToks that are just "WOW, WOMAN AS MAN, SO WEIRD!" I haven't included those (in my collection of Toks or in this discussion) because they're doing the absolute least interesting thing you can do with the filter. What's more interesting is the way the videos themselves and the performance of a particular *type* of masculinity satirizes it and makes IT (the masculinity, not the masculine features) ridiculous.
Maybe, but my knee jerk reaction was a specific look coupled with certain kinds of interactions. Never thought about the gender spectrum in conjunction with these memes. I thought about my own experiences that aligned with these examples. But I do agree they can be extended to bigotry, and that’s why we all need to be thoughtful with speech.
These absolutely killed me and made my day yesterday.
They also reminded me that vigilance can breed creativity--and I needed that reminder because vigilance also exhausts me to the point of immobility.
Yes, THIS, such a good reminder
I took so much glee and joy over watching these, but it was striking to me how I was so delighted to show them to my husband because I thought they were all so spot-on and hilarious and he just didn’t find nearly as funny. It really reinforced how different experiences are for people who present as women versus men.
I think it’s hard for a lot of men to find it funny because they often literally do not see these types of men in the wild. So they don’t recognize it enough to see the humor. If another man is present, even just nearby, many of these types of guys just don’t act like this.
THIS IS SUCH A GOOD POINT OMG
I think you’re right! When I could tell he didn’t find them as funny I started looking for the mechanic one because I knew that was the one he could for sure recognize.
Still remember when my male boss sat at our service desk (where only one employee is male presenting) because we (female presenting employees) were being harassed by a male patron. Lo and behold, the male patron treated by male boss differently, and he didn’t actually witness any of the harassment.
Just chiming in as a cis het white man to say that I feel these are definitely accurate but a lot less funny for me than it seems to be for most reading (but they’re still funny!) Maybe the difference, like I think you and others may be saying, is that it’s got to be way more unpleasant to interact with these kinds of guys as a woman. A good reminder for me of the crud that women-presenting folks have to deal with. Ugh.
My partner too—didn’t think it was very funny and couldn’t watch very many of them. I think he got grossed out and upset by the reminder that we women all have these experiences, and have had to interact with at least some of these guys.
Yes! My husband seemed not amused but more horrified that I found this so funny and easy to relate to. Kind of like at the end of The Sexy Getting Ready as Song from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Like how we’ve all just accepted this is the way things are and then when men get a glimpse into it they’re really taken aback.
This was my partner's experience too. He has a hard time laughing at this kind of stuff because it upsets him that we have to deal with it. Part me is like, "boo-hoo, get over it and laugh with me!" but the other part of me, obviously, is glad that I partnered up with someone so empathetic.
And someone who’s in more of a position to meaningfully challenge “this guy” and other manifestations gendered norms (which are truly EVERYWHERE!) So, no one asked, but to him and other cis men on this thread/interacting with these memes and finding them distressing in some way, I’d suggest you pause, sit with that discomfort, notice where it lives in your body, see what it needs from you (and only you), how can you comfort/witness/integrate that feeling…and then, decide that creating and maintaining more expansive notions of masculinity is important and fucking DOOO SOMETHING meaningful with it!!!! Give $ to an abortion fund, DV org, queer/trans supporting organization, don’t laugh at sexist jokes, tell your femme work counterpart how much money you make, volunteer to coach a parks dept team to mentor boys/young masc folx and so a mom doesn’t have to-literally endless ways to make the lives of femme folx better! Ps obvs not a commentary on your guy at all, I’m a therapist and masculinity researcher and do a lot of “mens engagement work,” and I find that there are so many loving, empathic men who stop at “gosh that’s shitty you have to deal with that…” and don’t move past that. I suspect that that’s often a) it’s hard to turn towards the suffering of others (esp those we love and extra extra especially if we may be implicated, even if indirectly, like in this case) and b) they are confused about “what to do” and may already feel shamed and then are like “well, what’s the perfect thing to do?!” And these not a “perfect thing,” and rather than reaching out and asking those that matter (because that’s vulnerable-read: not masculine), they then don’t do anything except distance themselves from “those guys” (#notallmen) and THAT FEELING of distress, confusion, shame, hurt. It’s an understandable response. It’s also, not helpful.
I whole heartedly believe women have learned you can laugh or cry at most situations ...channeling our fear and their creepiness and we laugh (or scream, but I'd prefer laughter). Cishet men have never had to learn this maneuver.
Good point I was shrieking with laughter and my husband thought it was funny but not the way I did.
I think in addition to what's been said, the thing that takes these from "hehe that's funny" to full on laugh-crying is the catharsis element. If you haven't experienced these types, catharsis can't happen.
My friends and I have marveled at the specificity! With the filter, one friend looks like she might explain bitcoin in a condescending tone, while I look like I might explain what ACTUALLY happens during menopause.
Yes the specificity!!! “highly specific + also somehow universal” = a recipe for humor, imo! Not just that filters make people look funny or even the masterful acting, but mostly how it hits that time-tested sweet spot for a certain kind of observational humor. I think lots of things are funny in this way if you zoom out (including lots of things created by men!) anyway your comment just made me ponder why the specificity itself is so funny (in addition to what ahp said) and got me thinking!
I too laughed until I cried at these, and I think there's a sort of catharsis there. In real life, when you're confronted with "that guy" you can't laugh at him to his face, because there's real danger in that. So all these coping mechanisms we've developed as women don't allow for the ridiculousness of what these guys are, and the relief of now being able to laugh at them in a safe way....catharsis.
My husband is super lazy about shaving, so he has a regular beard to clean-shaven cycle, and when he's engaging in the monumental work of shaving, he often comes out at intervals with different configurations of facial hair to make me laugh.
One time it was something not too dissimilar from this and I cracked up and said he was doing Uncle Ernisimo from Sesame Street and posted a picture on Facebook with that observation. I learned I accidentally had my status set to public when some random guy started yelling at me in comments, accusing me of being "misandrist (hate to men) , racist and highly unrespectful about individual dignity." It was definitely a lesson in how defensive men can get about the mocking of facial hair.
Honestly one of the first things I noticed about this post is how much work/space/writing AHP had to do at the end of the piece to exhort men to simply behave themselves. Certainly because Men On The Internet have time and again proven to be fragile, shallow, angry monsters liable to fly into a rage at the slightest perceived insight and certainly incapable of self insight or absorbing criticism.
Luckily I really don't think we have too many (or any!) That Guys — and I also understand the immediate feeling that you need to differentiate yourself from Those Guys, but I didn't want this conversation to be.....that
I should have known better, but honestly I first read the coda as asking women to "behave ourselves" and not get "too mean" or snarky towards "That Guy." Which again, I should know AHP wouldn't do, but I'm just so used to being asked to leave space for and center mens' feelings even in conversations about toxic masculinity that it's where my head went... Ugh.
These are hilarious! I'm working on half a thought regarding why the reverse ("that gal") doesn't work: Beyond the patriarchy flattening all women to a limited range of personality-free attractiveness, I wonder if even women would have a hard time coming up with "that gal" without clothing/accessories (earrings, glasses, etc.)? I have seen folks do really well-rendered reels of highly specific female 'characters' (e.g. different kinds of moms at drop-off) but they involve outfits and body language etc. But I can't quite articulate why one's face alone isn't enough the way it is with the multiplicity of dirtbags from this one filter.
To me, it is because the folks in these TikToks are adhering to the oldest rule of comedy: punch up
THIS
not to be confused with the first rule of showbiz: never work with children or animals.
I feel like you're on to something. Maybe it's how much more effort it takes as a woman to perform a specific identity? Because everything requires more effort as a woman?
I think it’s because women rarely are granted the luxury of being oblivious to how we affect other people with our actions (and where we are granted that luxury tends to be with our families, which is why the flip side is hyper specific jokes about husband/wife or mother/child interactions)
Oooh love this part.
Delaney Rowe is doing *such* a good job of playing women in roles written by men, which feels similar to me--they’re essentially all the same archetypes we see over and over. She’s on Instagram if you’re interested!
Key and Peele's SNL sketches convincingly portrayed a wide variety of women. Instant recognition of Meegan personality type in the Meegan and Andre series, the grandmas in church, the white women getting abducted unknowingly-they were brilliant, more by imitating manners of speech, not a face
Thank you for reminding me of the hilarity and joy in Key and Peele's sketches! Oh Meegan and Andre...
I think Bo Burnham's "White Woman's Instagram" song/bit comes close to the 'that guy' energy, but it's also not about an actual person, it's about a persona projected on social media. Women really are mysterious creatures I guess, lol!
That’s really interesting cause of course my mind also went to all the feminine “characters” depicted in TikToks/reels (whatever the gender of the creator) BUT I think you’re right that soooo much of those seem to land more through gesture or vocal tone or props in those cases, somehow? Hmm
Brian Jordan Alvarez can do a lot with just a wig or a filter, I feel like his women characters get at some of what you’re talking about here. Although he does add a layer to it with a different voices/accents and speaking styles. It’s fascinating and so so funny. I especially love Your Rich Southern Aunt character
I’m thinking this through in real time and unsure whether I believe what follows: women in our culture are 100% accustomed to being objectified and evaluated, so when a woman is posing for (ostensibly) male pleasure, nothing about that seems weird or comical. This kind of posturing-as-an-object is less of a default mode for men (though maybe evolving in that direction as social media saturates everything). But because it’s less familiar, it’s funny to see “men” (even fake men conjured by a photo filter) engaged in self-objectification. If you ever saw the Killing Me Softly documentaries, they used this technique to defamiliarize women’s objectification by restaging commercials with men in place of women. (I remember one for Lubriderm lotion that featured a naked woman writhing around on a white background with ... an alligator crawling nearby. Because dry skin = alligator skin, I guess. The absurdity became unignorable when the conventionally attractive woman is replaced with an ordinary-but-not-unattractive hairy dude in the same scenario.) So I think the hilarity of these comes from 1) the frisson of the weirdness of male objectification, followed by 2) the shock of recognition when the text tells us that in fact we recognize this “type” at a deep level. (Stipulating that nothing improves a joke like someone trying to explain why it’s funny 🙄)
Love this analysis!!!
Since I’m not on TikTok, I found a similar filter on insta, and the man I discovered is “nobody’s favorite member of the boy band.”
I find it interesting that early 2000's - mid 2010's R&B is the overarching theme music for the TikToks. The Usher/Tank/Ashanti soundtracks are doing some heavy lifting here too. It's especially funny because Usher was causing all that static with Keke Palmer earlier this year, lol. Maybe the goatee + soul patch is an attempt by That Guy™️ to be cool and sexy like an R&B singer, but failing? Idk I havent had coffee yet
I'm curious about how much of this is just TikTok style (like, everything, EVERYTHING, is seemingly set to songs from the 2000s right now, whether it's dances or memes) and how much is exactly the Usher of it all
I think you’re totally right. This is probably why white guys who try to work this style often end up with an SNL “Dick in a Box” vibe.
Oh THAT'S exactly the facial hair!
there's something to this!