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Flex and fromes. This is the Flex and Frooms catch up podcast.
It is Flexing Rooms on kater. If you've spent any time on the internet, I'm on, you would have noticed a trend popping up. It's called the sassy man apocalypse. It is what it says, sassy men and it being the end of what we consider to be the world as we know it now. For those of you who haven't encountered a sassy man or you're unfamiliar with what that might mean, it's a social phenomenon where men are
observed behaving femininely or sassily. It's generally playful, but some are misogyny coded or people just making fun of men behaving like women. It's two or three prong depending on who's who's coming at you with it. So here are some examples of a sassy man being a passenger princess, your girls in the in the driver's seat, you're in the side seat on your phone, scrolling TikTok as assassin
about that, him being moody when he's hungry. Sassy man behavior a ledge getting upset at youth, not getting a good photo of him. Sassy man behavior complaining about his friends not going to the restaurant he wanted sassy man behavior. Now you're wondering where are these examples coming from? I TikTok. I scrolled through the hashtag, through the trend, I thought, how deep does this really go? It's quite shallow, but
I'll keep going. Him getting annoyed when his girlfriend stops rubbing his back, him saying you don't love him because you didn't text good morning. That's giving.
That's like bordering into lack manipulation territory.
But all right, cleyon. So basically what's happening is like cis, hetero men are going against their typical popular masculine coding and feeling and complaining and wanting to be perceived and to be noticed and to be acknowledged and to be given the same kind of considerations as their women counterparts would. And what's ironic about that is like women aren't liking it.
I've heard of this, right, It's like when like when I went through my he's just not let in two faces and I was going on redd at heaps and like, but let's like ask men or something threads and they're like, have you ever like opened up to like. The question was like, what is something that everyone tells you should do that you do that backfight and it was like being like sharing my emotions with my girlfriend and then being like.
Ill being emotionally vulnerable. And you might say, Okay, maybe this is just conjecture or correlation doesn't equal causation. It's not every woman that hates when a man is being openly vulnerable. And there's a difference between being openly vulnerable
and being sassy. These things are definitely true. It did remind me, however, of a book that I was reading by a black feminist author called Belle Hooks, and the book is called The Will to Change, and it's about masculinity and how in order for us to better understand men, we need to understand masculinity in all forms, patriarchy, positive and toxic masculinity, and really start to lead with love when we have these conversations about men, and especially two men.
But she talked about how we don't actually want men to be sensitive emotionally. We're a nuance. We often shame men back into their gender role. And so you have a man who's like, I don't feel cared for when you don't when you aren't physically affectionate, or I don't feel seen when you don't say good morning the first thing, and then we throw it back at them, Oh you're so sassy or you're being girly? What's this about? Like, why don't you just can't you emotionally soothe yourself? Aren't
you masculine? Do you see the irony? It's not good, babe.
I like to think I wouldn't do that, but but yeah, I think.
And yet we have to be mindful about how we reinforce these gender roles because it's very like covert. But the quote that uh, she's the quote in particular is it stands to reason then that the masses of women committed to the sexist principle that men who express their feelings are weak really don't want to hear men speak, especially if what they say is that they feel hurt
or that they feel unloved. The cracks of the sassy man apocalypse is men letting you know that they are whole people, and the women who are on the other end of this behavior like be less whole because now I have to be accountable to you in some way, and I don't want to do that. If you have any thoughts on the sasi Amount Apocalypse. I'd love to hear it because I'm not done speaking about it, but you know, we've got more of a show to do
this podcast. Yes, yes, If you have more thoughts about the sas Amount Apocalypse, definitely hit us up on Instagram. It's Flex and frooms.
There's a polar guist outside of the studio. There's a light turning on and off. Is this like an emergency?
They say?
Definitely?
Not all not all men. Yes, how do you feel about sax Amount Apocalypse?
For me?
Have you heard about this trend?
No?
Have you seen it in action?
Or have I seen in action? Like I've always had guy friends that have been able to like have conversations with me, like you know how Like the typical idea is like people like, oh, I'm only friends with guys, you know that whole rhetoric like they pick me, Oh yeah, Like I would say that this might be meta meta pick me with me to say, but like, oh, I was a drama girl, so I had heat of guy friends.
I don't even know.
What I'm trying to say. So I was like friends a lot of drama guys. That would be definitely very much in the sassy camp.
Got it right.
It's giving in touch with the emotions, and I I liked it. I feel like I've grown up with like my dad, for example, is very like masculine vibes, but
also he's actually really sensitive. So I've kind of seen the dichotomy of like having a feeling and then expressing it in a certain way, like and then how it kind of like comes through the prism of the way he's been socialized when he just has the same like emotional vibes as me, like very emotional, very like quick to feel an emotion and like respond, did I use the economy right? There? Is it not quite right?
It doesn't matter. I got your vibe.
Yeah. And I remember my uncle used to teach me when I was a kid, don't go their girlfriend and you're doing. And I don't think that was him because like, I feel like for a long time, the whole sassy thing has been used in a way that is like what's it called, uh not, what's it called when you discriminate against LGBGQI plus men homophobic? Like I feel like a lot of this kind of like sassy was very
early two thousands homophobic coded like movie style stuff. So I think we're getting beyond it, but I do wonder if there is a hangover for people in our generation where we've grown up with these movies that are like like I've watched in early two thousands of movie the other day and I was like, on the plane back from New York, I was shocked by how many jokes about a man being gay there was, like it was open slaver. And so I wonder if there's like kind
of this like hangover of thinking that, Yeah, don't. I don't know what I'm trying to say.
I will say, sassy men in my type personally, and all my favorite men are by this definition sasy men being raised by women, being emotionally aware, being able to engage with me like I engage with them. It's the same thing. Or maybe I'm like more masculine, you know what I mean? Who knows? All our coding is confusing, But I will say why. I think I think it's ironic that we're phrasing this kind of like emotional sentience of men as an apocalypse, like that phrasing the sassy
men apocalypse. We're not talking it. We're not talking it but sorry, we're not saying it's patriarchy two point zero or positive masculinity or modern masculinity. It's been called the
sassy man apocalypse. It's being inferred that it's silly and that it's juvenile, and that it's reactive, and that it is not to be taken seriously, and that I think is really tricky because if I was to use any of these phrases I said earlier, these quotes or these identifies being a passenger princess, being moody when you're hungry. But I said it was a woman who did it. You tay, Oh, that's that's the woman experience. Like we
are living life, that's just what we're doing. But I feel like it's kind of ironic that we can't see it for what it is when the shoe is on the other foot. I'm not just moody when I'm hungry for no reason. I've maybe assessed in the dynamic that you're I'm your responsibility and you've let it go for too long and now I'm annoyed. Or let's say I
got annoyed that you didn't send me a good morning text. Isolated, you might say, oh, that feels like a little bit emotionally an adminipulative, But no, there's a responsibility between two people who are in a partnership for you to check on me and me to check on you. When if I can imagine, if I said, oh, this is this is a woman existing, you'd be like, oh, yeah, I
can see those sensitivities. I can understand. But as soon as a man wants that same consideration, I don't think we're really well equipped to dole it back in a way that's respecting of how they'd want to receive love and partnership and to be acknowledged. And that I think is really it's lame number one, and it proves how
much progress we haven't made, especially in feminism. Like when modern women talk about feminism, it's still very women centered, as it should be, but we have to interact with heaps of non women and we don't know how to yet, and so we're encouraging all this behavior. We just want men who can tell us how they feel and who aren't afraid to just be themselves and be comfortable, and then when they do, we're like.
Ah, doing it wrong, You're.
Doing it wrong. Can you that with like less feeling and you have your back up straight, definitely chest out. You know, that would be really really good if you could do that. And just like maybe don't cry when you're upset because that makes me feel kind of weird. But like tell me, but don't say you're sad, because I so you're going through.
We didn't even bring up IX. This is what that is. This is completely related. Yeah, it's the same.
Thing, just people expressing their human behavior. And I do think the sassy Man Apocalypse is going to backfire in a really bad way. People are already teetering too close to fem cell in Cell, you know, we're already onto two of the most extreme extremes there is.
Can we do an episode on theem cell because I hadn't really heard that before. Yeah, we can. I'll write it down.
Thank you?
Cell. Did that make sense at all?
When it always makes sense?
Okay? Yeah, I hope you guys knew what I meant you ate with flexrooms. You've been listening to The Flex and Froom's daily podcast. For more, tune into cater on DAB or stream it on iHeartRadio.