When When Everything Becomes ‘Performative’

“She's so performative.” Of course, you’ve heard it or said it, even. I have at least. 

It is either hearing people call each other performative or watching TikToks of people judging “performative things” other people do, and it is tiring. I’m not perfect; in fact, I may be part of the problem. Recently, I have come to realize that we continue judging each other on this simple pretext: Performative this, performative that. Yet I wonder, isn’t life a performance? 

You may have a different audience each day, but it can be argued that every single thing you do is performative in a way. It is like the everyday scene of waking up in the morning, tired, having slept 5 hours, and still managing to act joyful and energetic when you feel like crap. It doesn't even have to be as complex as that; simply making a joke, which is, in a way, for the enjoyment of others, but also for the personal satisfaction of knowing that you caused an impact, can be a way of somehow proving yourself. Whether we acknowledge it or not, most of our actions come with an ulterior motive, one that most times can be linked to what society determines as ‘performance’.

Of course, there is a difference between doing things just because and doing them in an attempt to fit into a certain idea. When you do not know who you are, when you are finding your purpose, and when you have lost your interests and overall sense of self, as it often happens in teenage years, playing around with trends, jokes, ideas, likes, and dislikes becomes an easy way out. I mean, if you have no idea who you truly are, who can tell you that you are acting unlike yourself, because who is yourself? Not only that, but having constant pressure to fit in doesn’t help either.  For instance, people constantly call pilates and drinking matcha performative, but as a trend (which is essentially a scapegoat towards being “cool” or fitting in), it has a major impact on the reasoning as to why so many people choose to follow it. 

In other cases, you can find yourself giving in, within discussions, since although it is fun to have a very personal and unique perspective on each topic, it is not so fun to have to constantly defend it. In this manner, clashing with everyone’s ideas so often can be uncomfortable, so we change how we think in front of others simply to not generate a large debate. This, too, is labeled as performance even if it is overall rooted in self-preservation.

I’m not trying to say that nobody does things for their own enjoyment, because we do try to do things we enjoy. Nevertheless, having this term to pinpoint this natural and continuous action humans take towards change has pushed society towards overusing it and focusing more on judgment than on true growth.