Are Men Reading Books for Attention?

Meet the new performative male, now the current subject of online mockery. He’s carrying a Daunt Books tote bag, there’s a copy of Intermezzo by Sally Rooney in his back pocket, and he’s walking his matcha latte and Birkenstock Boston clogs all the way to a reformer pilates class. Over the past month, this arguably modern evolution of the hipster has been lovingly ridiculed in memes and tweets for allegedly using progressive women’s hobbies to lure them into a romance they’ll almost certainly regret when his knowledge of fashionable fiction runs out.