alumnae – The Concordian

TikTok’s newest music meme does more harm than good

Picture it: you’re at a house show (pre-pandemic obviously), you get approached by a ghostly guy in Dickies and Vans sneakers, boasting a small rolled-up beanie with a cigarette behind his ear. He introduces himself and then leans in to sarcastically ask you if you know the band that’s playing, because they’re really experimental y’know, you probably wouldn’t get it.

While I’m sure this brand of interaction has happened to many women in alt music scenes (I’ve definitely met my share of pretentious music bros), this sort of exaggeratedly misogynistic conversation has become more of a meme than anything. Online spaces love to continue rehashing the “indie music bro”/“softboy” archetype that’s been popular for around five or so years now. However, recently he’s gotten a more nefarious makeover: the male manipulator.

The hashtag “male manipulator music” has 18.6 million views on TikTok, so what exactly are the teens talking about?

Trying to pin down what artists are considered “male manipulator music” is a fool’s errand. When going down the rabbithole of TikToks and Spotify playlists, additions of bands like The Smiths may lure you into a sense of understanding. The band is largely connected to media portrayals of the so-called male manipulators in 500 Days of Summer and High Fidelity, not to mention frontman Morrisey’s fascistic tendencies.

But as you go deeper, you’ll see acts with otherwise tame public reputations such as Radiohead, Neutral Milk Hotel and Slowdive, taking up a bulk of the spots. Go even deeper, and you’ll encounter the truly baffling additions of female fronted acts such as Metric, Beach House and Phoebe Bridgers.

What do any of these acts have in common? Basically, just some indie cred and a completely arbitrary label used to ascribe immorality to music taste.

Many of the videos under the TikTok hashtag follow a similar format. They include either joking skits or videos flipping through records with the caption “POV: you manipulate women.” Also common is a trend of ranking bands and singing along to audio of so-called male manipulator music containing Mac DeMarco, My Bloody Valentine and Tyler, the Creator, to name a few.

While it may all seem in good fun, there is something very sinister about manipulative relationships and even gaslighting being mapped onto music taste.

Firstly, the notion that you could determine which men are “safe” and which are “red flags” simply by their style and music taste is incredibly harmful. There is no singular archetype of a person who is abusive and toxic, and pretending like you can guess which men pose a threat from outside indicators can lure women into a false sense of security. Honestly, a man who listens to EDM is just as likely to be a jerk as one who listens to shoegaze. A lot of the posts under this TikTok hashtag come from teenage girls and young women, and it could be giving false notions of how relationships should look.

On top of that, the mere idea of ascribing morality to music taste is slippery at best. For the most part, in the manipulator music discourse, this isn’t a case of separating the art from the artist. Sure, some “male manipulator music” comes from toxic men, such as the aforementioned Smiths or Sorority Noise, but the majority of artists given this title are labeled such for seemingly arbitrary reasons.

There is an argument to be made that if a consumer continues to support artists they know to be bad people, part of that blame gets conferred onto them. Yet, how has that argument gotten twisted into ascribing malintention when supporting squeaky clean artists with a subjective “red flag” vibe?

Further, this puts female music fans in a tricky situation. When Joy Division, for example, becomes music for gross men, where does it place us women who hold a tenderness for it? Labeling these artists as “male manipulator music” ultimately labels them as for men.

The issue of male manipulator music may seem inconsequential, but labels can be impactful. As a culture, we’re already so steeped in the notion that the media you consume tells deeper secrets about who you are as a person. Rather than leaning so heavily into that notion, let’s try taking a step back and not micro-labeling and psychoanalyzing Spotify playlists.

Graphic by Lily Cowper.

Concordia students were particularly well represented at Queerement Quebec

Queerement Quebec is always a favourite among the public of Image+Nation. The Montreal LGBTQ+ film festival has been organizing the Quebec short film night for 19 years now. This year’s edition was held at the Phi Centre, on Nov. 26.

Out of the eight filmmakers who presented their work that evening, six were Concordia students or alumnae.

“Thank you, Concordia,” said Charlie Boudreau, the director of the festival. “Every year this school produces great filmmakers who end up having a well-deserved place either here at Image+Nation, or in the wider Montreal festival circuit.”

Boudreau mentioned that Image+Nation received four times more submissions than the number of films they were able to show at Queerement Quebec. “This proves that Quebec cinema is very much alive, and that every year there are new queer voices which we try to put out there,” she said.

The last film of the evening, Delphine, by Chloé Robichaud, was probably the best directed. Ever since Robichaud graduated from Concordia 10 years ago in film production, she has become one of the most prominent queer directors in contemporary Quebec cinema, having directed two feature films and many television series episodes, in French and English.

Her last picture won the best short film prize at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) earlier this year. Inspired by the play Delphine de Ville Saint-Laurent, it tells the story of Delphine, a Lebanese immigrant who arrives in Quebec at 10 years old. She starts going to a Montreal elementary school, very shy, not knowing a word of French. Her difficulties are told through the narration of Nicole, a classmate, who seems more at ease with her environment. The last scenes of Robichaud’s short, situate her characters years later, in high school, where Delphine appears as a changed girl, fearless, almost aggressive, as she begins to have to embrace her homosexuality.

“It is one of those films which are queer and feel queer, but don’t explicitly mention their characters’ sexuality, and rather let them be,” said Robichaud.

As the director stood on the Phi Centre stage to talk about her film, she also talked to Zachary Ayotte, who is currently studying at Concordia, and also presented a film that evening.

The two generations of Concordia filmmakers presented very different pictures. Mon père travaille de nuit is Ayotte’s very first film. He made it two years ago in a film production class. While it was not made to be a comedy, it was the funniest film of the selection. Depicting a teenage boy’s strange relationship with a fellow student whom he meets in swim practice, it was awkward yet very entertaining. Ayotte showed skillful cinematography, considering that it was his first attempt at filmmaking.

“I learned so much in the process of making this film,” said the young director. “I am also very moved by the reaction of the audience tonight, I never would have thought such a personal story could have an impact.” Ayotte said his main character’s experience of sexual discovery had been inspired by his own, a few years back.

While this year’s selection didn’t always showcase the best quality films, compared to last year, for example, it still felt important. Not only did it represent the first film festival experience to many of the feature filmmakers, it also gave the Montreal public the chance to see how the young are portraying queer issues and relationships on screen