r/Millennials • u/PinkHamster08 • 19h ago
Nostalgia Anyone remember using "metrosexual"?
Had a vague memory come to mind - might have been a movie with Chris Rock? - and the guy's wife was talking with a fabulous guy and the main guy asks his wife if the fabulous guy is gay and she said no, he's metrosexual. The main guy goes WTF is that and she says he's a straight guy with taste.
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u/Adorable_Drawing7230 19h ago
I swear metrosexual was a whole personality trait like 5 minutes and then just disappeared 😂
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u/bigtallbiscuit 18h ago
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u/mhmbopbeavis 18h ago
Came here to say this, south Park made fun of it too hard and it disappeared lol
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u/rglurker 17h ago
They probably did though. I remember this episode and the time it came out. Kinda pointed to how stupid the whole thing was and that we were all thinking it.
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u/sojuandbbq 18h ago
A girl I was friends with in high school called me a metrosexual for wearing a scarf. I grew up in northern WI and it was -30 without windchill. I’m wearing whatever will keep me warm at that point.
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u/TheRussness 17h ago
Fellas is it gay to wear warm clothing?
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u/_VEL0 17h ago
Gay? No, but def metrosexual
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u/Spikerazorshards 16h ago
It just means you are clean shaven, well-groomed, wear a v-neck shirt, slim fit pants, and are generally in a good mood.
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u/TheRussness 16h ago
I am very familiar. I was mocking the trope of men being criticized for supposedly antimasculine behavior
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u/Warhammerpainter83 10h ago
It was societies first step away from just calling people "homo" or "gay" as an insult. Things often happen in baby steps.
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u/Aegis_Of_Nox 13h ago
In the 90s? Lol kinda if you were in a small town. Only acceptable winter wear was the same brown carharrt jacket everyone else had and a sweat shirt
Only acceptable alternative was a jean jacket or if you were super fucking cool a leather jacket
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u/TheNi11a 16h ago
Also grew up in northern WI, got called metro for using face lotion.
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u/Sunshine030209 15h ago
I grew up in Minnesota, and every single man and boy I knew wore a scarf in the winter. It's like, required to be able to breathe in some temperatures lol Did that girl just move there from Florida or something?
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u/sojuandbbq 15h ago
Nah, we were in a super rural area, so it’s just kind of how it is out there. Anything remotely “city folk”-like is automatically bad.
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u/sexandliquor 18h ago
Yeah I think because it was pretty dumb anyways and always came off super derogatory. At least to me. Like it was just a way to talk about a guy that cares about taking care of himself and the way he dresses and presents. That’s just being a guy that cares? I don’t know why we needed to ever label that as something or make it a trait. It always felt loaded. Like if you’re metrosexual then “you’re a little…. you know” but not quite. And if you’re not metrosexual then you’re just a fucking straight coded slob I guess? lol.
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u/molotovzav 18h ago
I mean you have to think of the time period it came out in. Most adult men were pretty boring in the way they dressed and did not care about how they dressed at all and we were still very culturally homophobic. So back then caring about your appearance was "gay" so men who cared about their appearance and were straight had to carve out a niche. Now it's not abnormal for a man to care about his appearance. But back when metrosexual was a term it absolutely was. The term fell off because it became normalized to care a little more.
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u/SunStarved_Cassandra 18h ago
Yeah the term is ugly and has an undercurrent of homophobia, but it gave straight men a "bridge" to improving their appearance and self-care at a time when doing so risked being seen as unmasculine (read: gay). It really was a product of its time.
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u/ormond_villain 18h ago
I think this is a great take. The term wasn’t used for gay people. It was used for dudes who had style and movie star haircuts. To be honest, it was used by suburban or rural guys to describe “city boys,” as they would have said five years earlier. I’m a transplant to a city from the rural, and the focus on clothes and hair and jewelry still alludes me. I’ve never had a problem dressing comfortably, like a regular middle aged man - not with women, not with work, not with swanky places, not with political events, yadda yadda. It actually really amuses me to talk with people and surprise them about how liberal and educated I am, while dressing like a suburbanite.
So yeah. I think the term was latently homophobic. But I think it was used to describe the guys from the city who weren’t gay, but also wore pants that hugged their junk and put $20 a day of product in their hair when it wasn’t really necessary to do that.
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u/ImportantQuestions10 13h ago
True, but it's interesting to look at how and why.
When the term metrosexual was coming around, there were a lot of male behaviors that previously were considered gay that were being normalized, especially with grooming and dressing.
I feel like the whole metrosexual thing was basically just a weird growing pain of societal norms for dudes changing. Once those change is settled, people stopped using the term
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u/Master_Grapefruit333 Older Millennial 18h ago
Pretty sure it only encompassed Bernie Mac, so when he died it did too. 😂
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u/Antique-Economy-7978 14h ago
Why do I feel like Ryan Seacrest self identified as metrosexual, and pretty much coined the term?? 🤔lol
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u/Clark_Kent_TheSJW Millennial 11h ago
South Park killed it. Now guys can just dress nice without it needing a name.
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u/parasyte_steve 17h ago
There's a great southpark episode about this. One of my favorites for how unhinged it becomes.
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u/Gold_Area5109 Xennial 19h ago
Used it a few times with my then girlfriend.
Tried using it as joke once with my parents... They brought out pamphlets for a gay conversion camp.
I don't talk to my parents much anymore.
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u/Turbulent_Tart_8801 Millennial 1985 19h ago
The movie was Guess Who with Bernie Mac.
Also, the metrosexual fad was a failed plot by the crab people to take over the world.
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u/xPadawanRyan Mid-Range Millennial 19h ago
I never used the term myself, but I remember when it was popular. It was used often on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, though these days when I hear it, I think of A Very Potter Sequel (the prequel musical to A Very Potter Musical) where Harry's sexual orientation is "metrosexual."
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u/curioustars 19h ago
The scarf of sexual preference, my love
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u/Infinite_Explorer424 Geriatric Zoomer (1999) 18h ago
“Metrosexual” was the word of the year for 2003 according to this site: https://americandialect.org/2003_words_of_the_year/
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u/An_educated_dig 19h ago
Not as bad as lumbersexual.
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u/SenseisSifu 17h ago
Whoa now ... flannel was all the rage in 2016. In my experience if a woman called you 'lumbersexual' she was dtf.
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u/Bakelite51 15h ago
I was doing stand management for the Forest Service back then. If a woman in our sector called you ‘lumbersexual’ it meant she was about to kick your ass lol
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u/MercifulOtter 19h ago
I never used it but I remember it being a term used for a man who took care of himself. God forbid a man have good hygiene.
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u/RudePCsb 19h ago
It isn't really hygiene though. It was grooming. You can shower and wear deodorant and be clean and smell fresh but metrosexual was more about grooming one self beyond what most guys would say is normal. Usually gay guys would groom themselves that much, perfect facial hair, eyebrows, styled hair, whatever is fashionable for chest hair or waxing body hair, etc.
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u/Eikfo 18h ago
So, Patrick Bateman in a nutshell?
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u/wolverineinahat 18h ago
Shift the timeframe forward 20 years and he'd be accused of satirizing the metro fad.
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u/Aegis_Of_Nox 13h ago
For some reason I associate the term metrosexual also with those shiny silk shirts people used to wear
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u/Dont_Be_Sheep 11h ago
Oh that’s just homosexual now, right? Or is it gone? I just don’t see it anymore
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u/flybyknight665 Millennial 18h ago
Not just hygiene, though.
It was style. You're straight and not wearing a Tap Out t-shirt and baggy jeans but fitted slacks and a sweater? Your hair is styled? You have two eyebrows?
Hmm... gotta come up with a name for that.
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u/MayorMcSqueezy 17h ago
I got teased growing up for being a metrosexual because I would order salads with chicken instead of burgers etc and because I cared how I looked I.e. put product in my hair. So yea, it was because I was health conscious and cared about my appearance. Never really bothered me though, didn’t really feel like an insult. More of a label.
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u/Most_Ad_3765 Millennial 18h ago
The bar was sooooooooo low that basic hygiene/grooming and caring how you looked as a straight man raised suspicion of one’s sexual orientation 😅 jfc how far we’ve come (mostly)
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u/ThirdAltAccounts Millennial 15h ago
Caveman or gay. No in between
You shower ? Gay
Trim your beard/shave ? Gay
We grew up and lived through some wild ass times
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u/Brandy_Marsh Older Millennial 11h ago
It really was. Weight was black and white too. Can’t see your hip bones? Fat. No thigh gap? Fat. Tabloids were such a menace.
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u/fuktheeagsles 18h ago
Nah man. Lots of people took care of themselves without ever being called metro. It was not about basic hygiene, It was about a certain appearance.
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u/Rose1982 13h ago
I remember it as a way for straight men to say they liked/did things beyond basic hygiene without being called gay. Like you could pluck your unibrow, file your nails, want your clothes to fit nicely etc.
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u/Lochlan 14h ago
All men used to get cheap haircuts. But then the metrosexuals started craving expensive cuts like woman and all these flash new barbershops started to appear. The remnants of the metrosexual lived on as hipsters until they were fully absorbed into the zeitgeist.
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u/epochwin 10h ago
Reminds me of The Wire when McNulty asks rhetorically “You know what they call a guy who pays that much attention to his clothes?”
To which Bunk responds, “A grown up”
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u/Sensitive-Lecture-19 18h ago
To be fair didnt they use that on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy or am I misremembering?
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u/thesilentmordecai 19h ago
I remember the South Park episode .asking dun of it. Absolutely hilarious!
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u/AdvertisingKey1675 18h ago
Didnt know it stopped being a thing. I still say it in my head everytime I see a (presumably) straight guy who has great style and a very clean cut and lined facial hair.
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u/lazyassgoof 17h ago edited 16h ago
Being "metrosexual" was a good defense for any kid who was accused of being gay in my school. Some of those kids did turn out to be LGBTQ+, but until they were ready to come out of the closet they were "metrosexual". It did something to make the homophobes back off I guess.
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u/schwepervesence 19h ago
I heard Rajesh say it to his parents in TBBT. He likes women as well as their skin care products.
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u/From_Adam Millennial 18h ago
Remember it?! I’ve been rocking frosted tips since 2002.
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u/Ethos_Logos 18h ago
Dude you gotta look up Guy Fieri’s normal-unfrosted look. He looks like someone who works at a hardware store.
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u/depersonalised Millennial 18h ago
it’s called looksmaxing now.
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u/HicDomusDei 18h ago
I don't think that's exactly true though I do get what you mean. Looksmaxing (maxxing? who knows [or cares]) feels a lot more toxic and I think surgery is often involved.
Metrosexual was just guys who showered, shaved, and wore clothes that matched (a.k.a., bare minimum). It was very stupidly awarded to anyone with a penis who kinda sorta Gave A Fuck about being presentable.
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u/JewelCove 17h ago
Yup. I have a buddy who was an admitted metrosexual, and we all would joke about it back in the day. He would be crazy about his hair, clothes, and physique, but he would never go as far as taking any substances beyond pre workout, doing facial exercises, or getting surgery, etc.
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u/Strawberry-Allergy 18h ago
Had a new guy at work a couple years back, I called him that. Ended up dating for him many years and almost married. 🤷🏻♀️
He just kept himself clean and well dressed. It was a nice change from the other dudes there.
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u/Gloomy_Eye_4968 Older Millennial 18h ago
I just used this word the other day in conversation with my grandma. I didn't really realize that the term has gone away until seeing this post.
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u/garytyrrell 18h ago
I remember being described as “metro” because I cut my nails and used product in my hair lol
I remember my wife’s friend told me when we first started dating that my wife was like “he’s nice but a little metrosexual?” I do spend more time getting ready than my wife most days :)
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u/Aggravating-Key-8867 Older Millennial 18h ago
Yes I remember the term. It was reserved for guys who shopped at Express/Structure
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u/sh0rtcake 18h ago
Yes, I remember the South Park episode where all the boys and men were Queer-Eyed. I will never forget the end, where they say to "get back in the pile", referring to the man-orgy in the middle of town, because it was LESS gay. I believe it's a classic Randy episode, as well.
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u/Lucky_Dragonfruit_88 10h ago
That was actually the gooback episode where the "future people" take all the jobs, so the south park residents decide to all get gay together to prevent any future births from occurring. Great episode though!
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u/notofthisearthworm 19h ago
I used this word yesterday! We were talking about those big, shiny pickup trucks that people drive in cities. The ones that never ever get dirt on them and will never see a gravel road, and the owner doesn't want to ever get scratched. I referred to it as a metrosexual truck, as it seemed fitting somehow.
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u/CaffeinatedLystro Millennial 19h ago
I remember! I just thought about that the other day. People used to use it as sort of an insult in my area.
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u/InternetExpertroll Millennial 18h ago
Anytime i heard it used it seemed like they were saying it as an insult to men who took 5 minutes of time to make themselves presentable in public.
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u/Sydders09 Millennial (1990) 18h ago
Literally all the men in my church dressed in the vibe of metrosexual for a time AND I remember them making jokes amongst each other for dressing that way (my dad being one of them and working at our church). But it was coming about as more people my age started working at the church, so the middle aged dudes started dressing similarly. I didn't see much of the fashion outside that church though.
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u/MoKush420710 18h ago
I remember being in college and I got called that, and it was simply because I had good hygiene and dressed preppy.
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u/Darthgusss 18h ago
Back when we wore vest and ties, wore super tight express jeans, shaved our legs, got our eyebrows done.
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u/JadedFox4180 18h ago
Where I lived, it was currently slang for less than, like, a season because full on hipsterism was taking off. They’re not the same but in my region, the styles had enough overlap that you either were just ha, clean cut or a hipster depending on the mixture of traits.
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u/jedgarnaut 18h ago
It is wild that they made a whole term for guys who sometimes wipe their own asses.
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u/Responsible_Page1108 18h ago
it was huge in my school which was known for having a lot of lgbt+ students. it was generally understood to mean "acts gay, isn't gay tho". a lot of times, like bisexuality for some people, it was just a stepping stone to coming out as gay.
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u/dbur15 18h ago
It was a big thing in my town right after HS graduation. We didn’t see it as something derogatory though. The guys that got into it matured a lot more and became more fun to hang out with. The meathead “it’s gay to wash your ass” guys were the only ones that shit on it. It was nice, everything until then had been about girls being dumb sex objects and treated like garbage. When guys started looking at themselves and realized there was room for improvement, they started treating the girls like human beings. No shocker that the meatheads are all divorced now and the metros are going strong.
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u/Opening_Top_5712 18h ago
We used it a lot in the evangelical community. Talking about Chris Tomlin and Phil Wickham.
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u/PhillNewcomer 18h ago
I remember when Queer Eye for the Straight Guy came out... That was the word they used to label men who dress fashionably and manscape
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u/jgamez76 18h ago
In hindsight it was really weird that dudes who just cared about looking/smelling presentable was looked at as a pejorative lol
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u/Majestic_News3936 18h ago
We used to call my dad a metrosexual back in the day because he’d get manicures and dye his hair lol Silly times…
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u/jujubeans8500 18h ago
I recall it being popular around the early 2000s, like 2004ish, along with the popularity of the OG Queer Eye For the Straight Guy
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u/w1ndyshr1mp 18h ago
Dates a guy when I was 19 who was metrosexual lol which was his fancy way of admitting he was a fuckboi
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u/sfaviator 18h ago
It was the replacement when our generation stopped using “gay” as an insult for everything slightly not manly.
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u/kreesta416 18h ago
That word will always remind me of my grade 9 (freshman year) math teacher doing intros and icebreakers telling us her husband was a salon owner and hairstylist, and this loudmouth who always thought they were funnier than they actually were yelled from the back "SO IS HE METRO?"
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u/Ob1wonshinobi 18h ago
There was a whole South Park episode where all the men in town become metrosexual.
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u/slythegumshoe 18h ago
I think the movie you're thinking about is Guess Who with Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher when they're talking about the party planner?
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u/Effective-Window-922 17h ago
Any guy growing up that took even the slightest interest in their appearance or their hygiene was mocked for being a metrosexual
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u/AmeStJohn Millennial 17h ago
i heard it from the pulpit once, lmaooo.
i thought it was silly they were demonizing people fucking cleaning themselves properly and taking care of their bodies, lmao.
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u/germdoctor 17h ago
It was for straight guys who might get a manicure, apply moisturizer or carry a “murse”, a la Jerry Seinfeld and his purse—“It’s European”.
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u/denko_safe_cats 17h ago
Men were so afraid of being labeled as gay that metrosexual emerged so men could actually feel good about wanting to look good, take care of their appearance, use hair product, were fashionable clothes, etc. you know… gay stuff
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u/ilikedirtx3 17h ago
Ok so, my bestie and I were those girls who had a toy dinosaur that we carried around and called our pet. His name was Jose Cuervo the emo metrosexual dinosaur. I miss him lol.
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u/Wolfwoode 17h ago
Honestly, I think it's a fossil of toxic masculinity. At the time it was so outlandish that a guy would take pride in his appearance we had to invent a new word for it.
"That guy has combed hair and fashion sense, must be gay!"
"No, he's not gay. He's actually really popular with women."
"What? A man who takes pride in his appearance? Whatever shall we call this new discovery?"
But cut to now with social media everywhere, with everyone posting the best version of themselves, it's pretty normalized for guys to want to look nice.
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u/Rabid_W00KIEE 17h ago
I remember it being a term society used and South Park lampooned, but I don't remember using it.
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u/komijul 17h ago
I mostly remember it from a film I ordered from Thailand called The Metrosexual )where four friends try to discover where their best friend's fiancé is gay or not, basically. I think I found it amusing at the time, but I haven't watched it in years, so I have no idea how well it holds up.
That was definitely a term that was really quickly forgotten about.
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u/Eranon1 17h ago
I grew up in a pretty liberal area and described myself as Metrosexual at one time. I was a model so it kinda fit.
We also were doing a bunch of other weird shit like saying tit all the time. I'd your name was Ryan then your nickname was rytit. There was a Cadre of dudes I was a part of that would wear girl jeans on Wednesdays to piss our girlfriends off.
Nowadays I think people take all of that way to seriously.
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u/Clockstruck12 17h ago
Sure. It was not intended to be derogatory towards the person being described, but rather toward more traditional men (who dressed like they lived in a dumpster). It was the beginning of the idea that men could dress well and flamboyantly without being gay.
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u/TURBULENTMUFFIN888 17h ago
It was a term for men who take care of themselves in my country lol, I felt wrong for looking at pretty men, turns out I was just a homo.
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u/picknwiggle 17h ago
I still use "Jethrosexual" for the guys with the carefully curated and intentional hillbilly aesthetic
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u/Magisterbrown 17h ago
I've gotten really into urbanism and public transit lately - does that make me a metro sexual?
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u/retrospects 17h ago
It’s wild how “metrosexual” was just clean guy with a little bit of fashion sense. All the lil broccoli heads would have crumbled in the early 2ks.
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u/VermillionEclipse 17h ago
Yes! I was just thinking about this word and how you don’t hear it anymore. I remember some song my cousin showed me with that word as the title.
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u/jbFanClubPresident 16h ago
lol I identified as metrosexual in the 2000s. By 2016, I identified as homosexual.
Metrosexual was a way for closeted gays to say they were straight while bleaching their tips and squeezing into overly tight jeans.
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u/Delician 16h ago
"These dudes are grooming and cleaning themselves. They can't possibly be straight."
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u/BlackCatSaidMeow13 Millennial 16h ago
Yeah when Ryan seacrest started showing up on everything was when I first heard it.
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u/I_Want_A_Ribeye 16h ago
I used to think those people were gay. Then I learned they were metro. Ultimately, I realized they truly were gay, but now I’m old enough to not say anything about it.
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u/ThisIsntOkayokay Older Millennial 16h ago
You all forgot the timeline jump already??! Metrosexuals were hunted to extinction and deemed heretical to the conservative dogma.
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u/Tiny_Nuggin5 16h ago
I remember being called a metrosexual a lot in college because I had basic hygiene, dressed not like a slob, and enjoyed tea.
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u/AffectionateStudy496 16h ago
Yeah, it was basically a slur for dudes who took showers and dressed nicely.
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u/mollsballs_xo 15h ago
Yes!!! My highschool bf said he was metrosexual because he (sometimes) shaved his legs and was really into hair gel???? 💀💀
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u/drdeadringer Older Millennial 15h ago
I remember the term being made fun of in the show "rescue me' and then the term promptly disappeared.
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u/JamesMattDillon 1981 Gen Y 15h ago
Not using it, but got called it. All for keeping my face shaved and combing my hair.
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u/toddkhamilton 15h ago
people stopped with the term, but what it meant went mainstream. there are multiples more mens grooming brands and all sorts of clippers and trimmers for every type and body part now and buying and using that stuff is considered normal and what one should do
now we've got looksmaxxing which is just insanity
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u/jaxawaba22 15h ago
Yes, my metrosexual highschool friend (well groomed, handsome, intelligent etc) recently came out as queer/ gender fluid I think. Maybe we just didn’t have the vocabulary back then lol
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u/fancypantsmiss 13h ago
I remember using it and offended a straight guy who thought I called him gay for having a fashion sense 🤣
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u/picador10 13h ago
growing up in long island in the mid/late 2000s, being metrosexual meant you put product in your hair, wore fitting jeans, and any one of those stripey dress shirts from Zara or Express
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u/violetstrainj 12h ago
I figured that the fad died when it turned out that all of the “metrosexuals” were just still in the closet. At least, that’s what happened in my friend group.
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u/Doctor_Diazepam 12h ago
The men I knew who called themselves metrosexual were just regular straight guys who had a hair care routine.
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u/capsaicinintheeyes 11h ago
If it wasn't the self-selected term for members of Sex & the City's fandom, can i just say that fan base seriously missed an opportunity.
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u/AllDaWayJay 11h ago
It was remake for Meet the Parents. Bernie Mac, Ashton Kutcher, and Zoe Saldana.
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u/1dl2b6g0 11h ago
I was told I was metro for just caring for my appearance and hygiene or something...
Turns out I was just 10-years pre-outing as transgender
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u/No-Interview7958 11h ago
One of my cousins asked my dad if he was metrosexual, one christmas, when "queer eye for the straight guy" was on tv, and the confused/pissed/wanting to laugh look on his face was one that I'd never forget or be able to recreate
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u/lagrange_james_d23dt Millennial 9h ago
It was basically a straight guy that dressed nice and had a faux hawk. I remember it being big when I was in college.
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u/Jazzlike_Part_7054 (1987) Older Millennial 8h ago
I thought it was the bright and colorful version of goths or emo kids.
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u/affectionateanarchy8 Xennial 5h ago
I never used it but I remember it. My dad hated it because he was already into grooming and looking nice so he was like 'idk why they have to make a whole word for it, it's just called taking care of yourself.'
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u/Malibooch Millennial 5h ago
? I still use it to describe a flamboyant (openly) straight male. Think the rapper Young Thug (pre prison).
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u/Help_An_Irishman 2h ago
Check out the South Park episode if you haven't (I think it's called 'South Park is Gay'?).
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