Holy shit, i was trying to articulate this theory to my GF a couple months ago. My gen x performativly masculine boss got me a craft beer man crate for christmas. all the branding and instructions and stuff were all like huge block letters, manly etc. the instructions had a bunch of shitty sarcastic self-aware 'jokes.' but all i could think about was who this kit was made for: probably a man in his 30s who in his 20s though of himself as a tough dude/ladies man/big boy. Now though, he's had a couple of kids, put on some weight and spends his life at an utterly dehumanizing (therefore emasculating) job. Therefore, he buys products that sell a masculine lifestyle so he can try to buy back the pieces he's lost.
That's interesting. I guess the increasing awareness of other identities has forced people to stop taking masculinity for granted and thinking of it as simply "being normal", and forced them to turn it into an aesthetic that one intentionally cultivates. Thus the extra level of consumerism.
Holy shit, i was trying to articulate this theory to my GF a couple months ago. My gen x performativly masculine boss got me a craft beer man crate for christmas. all the branding and instructions and stuff were all like huge block letters, manly etc. the instructions had a bunch of shitty sarcastic self-aware 'jokes.' but all i could think about was who this kit was made for: probably a man in his 30s who in his 20s though of himself as a tough dude/ladies man/big boy. Now though, he's had a couple of kids, put on some weight and spends his life at an utterly dehumanizing (therefore emasculating) job. Therefore, he buys products that sell a masculine lifestyle so he can try to buy back the pieces he's lost.
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That's interesting. I guess the increasing awareness of other identities has forced people to stop taking masculinity for granted and thinking of it as simply "being normal", and forced them to turn it into an aesthetic that one intentionally cultivates. Thus the extra level of consumerism.
This is a mainstream view in the social sciences, I think you're dead on.