Speaker 1: Flex and Frooms.
Speaker 2: Flex and fromes. This is the Flex and Frooms catch
Speaker 2: up podcast.
Speaker 1: It is Flexing Rooms on kater. If you've spent any
Speaker 1: time on the internet, I'm on, you would have noticed
Speaker 1: a trend popping up. It's called the sassy man apocalypse.
Speaker 1: It is what it says, sassy men and it being
Speaker 1: the end of what we consider to be the world
Speaker 1: as we know it now. For those of you who
Speaker 1: haven't encountered a sassy man or you're unfamiliar with what
Speaker 1: that might mean, it's a social phenomenon where men are
Speaker 1: observed behaving femininely or sassily. It's generally playful, but some
Speaker 1: are misogyny coded or people just making fun of men
Speaker 1: behaving like women. It's two or three prong depending on
Speaker 1: who's who's coming at you with it. So here are
Speaker 1: some examples of a sassy man being a passenger princess,
Speaker 1: your girls in the in the driver's seat, you're in
Speaker 1: the side seat on your phone, scrolling TikTok as assassin
Speaker 1: about that, him being moody when he's hungry. Sassy man
Speaker 1: behavior a ledge getting upset at youth, not getting a
Speaker 1: good photo of him. Sassy man behavior complaining about his
Speaker 1: friends not going to the restaurant he wanted sassy man behavior.
Speaker 1: Now you're wondering where are these examples coming from? I TikTok.
Speaker 1: I scrolled through the hashtag, through the trend, I thought,
Speaker 1: how deep does this really go? It's quite shallow, but
Speaker 1: I'll keep going. Him getting annoyed when his girlfriend stops
Speaker 1: rubbing his back, him saying you don't love him because
Speaker 1: you didn't text good morning. That's giving.
Speaker 2: That's like bordering into lack manipulation territory.
Speaker 1: But all right, cleyon. So basically what's happening is like cis,
Speaker 1: hetero men are going against their typical popular masculine coding
Speaker 1: and feeling and complaining and wanting to be perceived and
Speaker 1: to be noticed and to be acknowledged and to be
Speaker 1: given the same kind of considerations as their women counterparts would.
Speaker 1: And what's ironic about that is like women aren't liking it.
Speaker 2: I've heard of this, right, It's like when like when
Speaker 2: I went through my he's just not let in two
Speaker 2: faces and I was going on redd at heaps and like,
Speaker 2: but let's like ask men or something threads and they're like,
Speaker 2: have you ever like opened up to like. The question
Speaker 2: was like, what is something that everyone tells you should
Speaker 2: do that you do that backfight and it was like
Speaker 2: being like sharing my emotions with my girlfriend and then
Speaker 2: being like.
Speaker 1: Ill being emotionally vulnerable. And you might say, Okay, maybe
Speaker 1: this is just conjecture or correlation doesn't equal causation. It's
Speaker 1: not every woman that hates when a man is being
Speaker 1: openly vulnerable. And there's a difference between being openly vulnerable
Speaker 1: and being sassy. These things are definitely true. It did
Speaker 1: remind me, however, of a book that I was reading
Speaker 1: by a black feminist author called Belle Hooks, and the
Speaker 1: book is called The Will to Change, and it's about
Speaker 1: masculinity and how in order for us to better understand men,
Speaker 1: we need to understand masculinity in all forms, patriarchy, positive
Speaker 1: and toxic masculinity, and really start to lead with love
Speaker 1: when we have these conversations about men, and especially two men.
Speaker 1: But she talked about how we don't actually want men
Speaker 1: to be sensitive emotionally. We're a nuance. We often shame
Speaker 1: men back into their gender role. And so you have
Speaker 1: a man who's like, I don't feel cared for when
Speaker 1: you don't when you aren't physically affectionate, or I don't
Speaker 1: feel seen when you don't say good morning the first thing,
Speaker 1: and then we throw it back at them, Oh you're
Speaker 1: so sassy or you're being girly? What's this about? Like,
Speaker 1: why don't you just can't you emotionally soothe yourself? Aren't
Speaker 1: you masculine? Do you see the irony? It's not good, babe.
Speaker 2: I like to think I wouldn't do that, but but yeah,
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: And yet we have to be mindful about how we
Speaker 1: reinforce these gender roles because it's very like covert. But
Speaker 1: the quote that uh, she's the quote in particular is
Speaker 1: it stands to reason then that the masses of women
Speaker 1: committed to the sexist principle that men who express their
Speaker 1: feelings are weak really don't want to hear men speak,
Speaker 1: especially if what they say is that they feel hurt
Speaker 1: or that they feel unloved. The cracks of the sassy
Speaker 1: man apocalypse is men letting you know that they are
Speaker 1: whole people, and the women who are on the other
Speaker 1: end of this behavior like be less whole because now
Speaker 1: I have to be accountable to you in some way,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to do that. If you have
Speaker 1: any thoughts on the sasi Amount Apocalypse. I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear it because I'm not done speaking about it, but
Speaker 1: you know, we've got more of a show to do
Speaker 1: this podcast. Yes, yes, If you have more thoughts about
Speaker 1: the sas Amount Apocalypse, definitely hit us up on Instagram.
Speaker 1: It's Flex and frooms.
Speaker 2: There's a polar guist outside of the studio. There's a
Speaker 2: light turning on and off. Is this like an emergency?
Speaker 1: They say?
Speaker 2: Definitely?
Speaker 1: Not all not all men. Yes, how do you feel
Speaker 1: about sax Amount Apocalypse?
Speaker 2: For me?
Speaker 1: Have you heard about this trend?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Have you seen it in action?
Speaker 2: Or have I seen in action? Like I've always had
Speaker 2: guy friends that have been able to like have conversations
Speaker 2: with me, like you know how Like the typical idea
Speaker 2: is like people like, oh, I'm only friends with guys,
Speaker 2: you know that whole rhetoric like they pick me, Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: Like I would say that this might be meta meta
Speaker 2: pick me with me to say, but like, oh, I
Speaker 2: was a drama girl, so I had heat of guy friends.
Speaker 1: I don't even know.
Speaker 2: What I'm trying to say. So I was like friends
Speaker 2: a lot of drama guys. That would be definitely very
Speaker 2: much in the sassy camp.
Speaker 1: Got it right.
Speaker 2: It's giving in touch with the emotions, and I I
Speaker 2: liked it. I feel like I've grown up with like
Speaker 2: my dad, for example, is very like masculine vibes, but
Speaker 2: also he's actually really sensitive. So I've kind of seen
Speaker 2: the dichotomy of like having a feeling and then expressing
Speaker 2: it in a certain way, like and then how it
Speaker 2: kind of like comes through the prism of the way
Speaker 2: he's been socialized when he just has the same like
Speaker 2: emotional vibes as me, like very emotional, very like quick
Speaker 2: to feel an emotion and like respond, did I use
Speaker 2: the economy right? There? Is it not quite right?
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. I got your vibe.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I remember my uncle used to teach me
Speaker 2: when I was a kid, don't go their girlfriend and
Speaker 2: you're doing. And I don't think that was him because like,
Speaker 2: I feel like for a long time, the whole sassy
Speaker 2: thing has been used in a way that is like
Speaker 2: what's it called, uh not, what's it called when you
Speaker 2: discriminate against LGBGQI plus men homophobic? Like I feel like
Speaker 2: a lot of this kind of like sassy was very
Speaker 2: early two thousands homophobic coded like movie style stuff. So
Speaker 2: I think we're getting beyond it, but I do wonder
Speaker 2: if there is a hangover for people in our generation
Speaker 2: where we've grown up with these movies that are like
Speaker 2: like I've watched in early two thousands of movie the
Speaker 2: other day and I was like, on the plane back
Speaker 2: from New York, I was shocked by how many jokes
Speaker 2: about a man being gay there was, like it was
Speaker 2: open slaver. And so I wonder if there's like kind
Speaker 2: of this like hangover of thinking that, Yeah, don't. I
Speaker 2: don't know what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1: I will say, sassy men in my type personally, and
Speaker 1: all my favorite men are by this definition sasy men
Speaker 1: being raised by women, being emotionally aware, being able to
Speaker 1: engage with me like I engage with them. It's the
Speaker 1: same thing. Or maybe I'm like more masculine, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Who knows? All our coding is confusing,
Speaker 1: But I will say why. I think I think it's
Speaker 1: ironic that we're phrasing this kind of like emotional sentience
Speaker 1: of men as an apocalypse, like that phrasing the sassy
Speaker 1: men apocalypse. We're not talking it. We're not talking it
Speaker 1: but sorry, we're not saying it's patriarchy two point zero
Speaker 1: or positive masculinity or modern masculinity. It's been called the
Speaker 1: sassy man apocalypse. It's being inferred that it's silly and
Speaker 1: that it's juvenile, and that it's reactive, and that it
Speaker 1: is not to be taken seriously, and that I think
Speaker 1: is really tricky because if I was to use any
Speaker 1: of these phrases I said earlier, these quotes or these
Speaker 1: identifies being a passenger princess, being moody when you're hungry.
Speaker 1: But I said it was a woman who did it.
Speaker 1: You tay, Oh, that's that's the woman experience. Like we
Speaker 1: are living life, that's just what we're doing. But I
Speaker 1: feel like it's kind of ironic that we can't see
Speaker 1: it for what it is when the shoe is on
Speaker 1: the other foot. I'm not just moody when I'm hungry
Speaker 1: for no reason. I've maybe assessed in the dynamic that
Speaker 1: you're I'm your responsibility and you've let it go for
Speaker 1: too long and now I'm annoyed. Or let's say I
Speaker 1: got annoyed that you didn't send me a good morning text. Isolated,
Speaker 1: you might say, oh, that feels like a little bit
Speaker 1: emotionally an adminipulative, But no, there's a responsibility between two
Speaker 1: people who are in a partnership for you to check
Speaker 1: on me and me to check on you. When if
Speaker 1: I can imagine, if I said, oh, this is this
Speaker 1: is a woman existing, you'd be like, oh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: can see those sensitivities. I can understand. But as soon
Speaker 1: as a man wants that same consideration, I don't think
Speaker 1: we're really well equipped to dole it back in a
Speaker 1: way that's respecting of how they'd want to receive love
Speaker 1: and partnership and to be acknowledged. And that I think
Speaker 1: is really it's lame number one, and it proves how
Speaker 1: much progress we haven't made, especially in feminism. Like when
Speaker 1: modern women talk about feminism, it's still very women centered,
Speaker 1: as it should be, but we have to interact with
Speaker 1: heaps of non women and we don't know how to yet,
Speaker 1: and so we're encouraging all this behavior. We just want
Speaker 1: men who can tell us how they feel and who
Speaker 1: aren't afraid to just be themselves and be comfortable, and
Speaker 1: then when they do, we're like.
Speaker 2: Ah, doing it wrong, You're.
Speaker 1: Doing it wrong. Can you that with like less feeling
Speaker 1: and you have your back up straight, definitely chest out.
Speaker 1: You know, that would be really really good if you
Speaker 1: could do that. And just like maybe don't cry when
Speaker 1: you're upset because that makes me feel kind of weird.
Speaker 1: But like tell me, but don't say you're sad, because
Speaker 1: I so you're going through.
Speaker 2: We didn't even bring up IX. This is what that is.
Speaker 2: This is completely related. Yeah, it's the same.
Speaker 1: Thing, just people expressing their human behavior. And I do
Speaker 1: think the sassy Man Apocalypse is going to backfire in
Speaker 1: a really bad way. People are already teetering too close
Speaker 1: to fem cell in Cell, you know, we're already onto
Speaker 1: two of the most extreme extremes there is.
Speaker 2: Can we do an episode on theem cell because I
Speaker 2: hadn't really heard that before. Yeah, we can. I'll write
Speaker 2: it down.
Speaker 1: Thank you?
Speaker 2: Cell. Did that make sense at all?
Speaker 1: When it always makes sense?
Speaker 2: Okay? Yeah, I hope you guys knew what I meant
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