Introduction

Traditional ideologies of masculinity have been constructed around qualities like control, autonomy, dominance, and physicality. These have been applied to limit men to restricted areas of action, suppress vulnerability, and enforce strict gender scripts of control, power, and autonomy. Traditional masculinity has also been associated with negative effects like higher rates of mental illness, suppressed emotional expression, and adverse relational outcomes. The emergence and popularity of social media platforms like TikTok have, in turn, destabilized such hegemonic readings successfully by enabling plural and heterogeneous gender expression. The algorithmically-enabled virality and consumable short-form bite-sized nature of TikTok has itself turned into a very influential arena where masculinities can be transmitted instantly and experimented with and re-written. Male TikTok influencers are also troubling masculinity because they are being vulnerable, actively advocating for self-care regimes, and self-consciously disrupting received gender norms. TikTok influencers are speaking to mass and generalizable publics and have particular influence on young publics at formative identity and self-definition points. This essay explores how TikTok has made this type of cultural shift possible and speaks to examples among male TikTok creators that undermine traditional masculine ideals through vulnerability, self-care, and gender-role transgression

Embracing Vulnerability

Male TikTok creators are especially redefining masculinity in the realm of vulnerability and debunking long-standing assumptions that vulnerability has anything to do with femininity or weakness. Vulnerability has been at the fringes of masculinity because men have been conditioned to conceal emotions in a bid to preserve perceived strength and hardness. TikTok offers such influencers a platform to openly share extremely personal issues like mental breakdowns, emotional break-down moments, personal failures, and relationship issues and make this public show of vulnerability the norm (The Atlantic, 2025). The influencers tactically use vulnerability to make other people care in a meaningful manner and introduce authenticity and sincerity amidst a media culture satirized ad infinitum for superficiality.

As O’Rourke et al. (2024) put it, not only does the acceptance of vulnerability by influencers resonate deeply with followers, but also profoundly shapes public sentiment overall and, specifically, among teenagers. As seen in their study, when adolescent boys see role models being openly and unapologetically emotional, it de-stigmatizes vulnerability with considerable potency and legitimizes the culture of emotional honesty as masculinity (O’Rourke et al., 2024). Yang’s (2023) TikTok analysis of the gender stereotype effect on Chinese youth similarly finds revolutionary promise in recording how the visibility of influencers discussing vulnerability is actively working to subvert traditional notions of masculinity. Such sentiments are also reflected in Cannon & Carrington (2024), whose research ascertains that TikTok provides a space for performing alternative masculinities and facilitates the ability of young men to convey traditionally stigmatized emotions in a healthy and positive way.

These influencers are also contributing directly to wider cultural discussions of men’s mental health awareness. They discuss how they manage, offer tips to other men who find themselves in their situation, and specifically try to eliminate toxic expectations of emotional suppression (The Guardian, 2024). Explicit vulnerability has the effect of encouraging audiences to seek support services, make emotional wellbeing a priority, and connect with traditional ideals of strength. Thus, these representations by TikTok influencers are ushering in a necessary and culturally relevant change toward more healthy and inclusive forms of masculinity.

Promoting Self-Care as Masculine

Aside from vulnerability, male TikTok influencers are also making self-care a part of masculinity and a necessity. Self-care practices – stereotypically feminized – like daily skincare routines, listening to one’s feelings, embracing meditation and general grooming are being adopted by increasingly more male TikTok influencers. GQ Magazine (2022) reports the trend of the growing popularity of the “Clean Guy Aesthetic.” Here, the influencers are bringing holistic self-care rituals into masculine culture. The influencers present self-care as not merely cosmetic care but one’s health and wellness that happens naturally, thereby transcending the restrictive model of traditional gender roles for men.

Diepeveen (2024) also mentions how this normalization of self-care in men affects adolescent boys. It breaks immediate assumptions that the subject’s masculinity is not interested in anything else besides toughness or roughness and instead substitutes that with a dialogue where self-care and mental health take precedence. Similarly, O’Rourke et al. (2024) illustrated how teenage boys’ exposure to men influencers engaging in self-care increased the chances of the latter adopting the same habits, associating them with responsible masculinity and mental and physical well-being overall. Such representations cause adolescents to adopt healthier, balanced lifestyles with the added perception that masculinity and being self-aware do not clash and involve physical maintenance and well-being.

Additionally, self-care influencers also promote more open discussion about mental health awareness, discussing openly therapy, coping with stress, and emotional introspection (Yang, 2023). Not only does this de-stigmatize men to self-care in and of itself, but it also contextualises it within the larger aims of general wellness and emotional resiliency. In addition, they also negate the stereotype that interest in one’s sensation or over-grooming is a detractor from one’s masculinity, reinscribing these practices instead as necessary aspects of healthy and enduring masculinity.

Breaking Traditional Gender Roles

Male TikTok influencers are also leading the way in moving away from traditional gender roles, actively promoting gender-role fluidity and experimentation with alternative masculine selves. Sigma masculine influencers, as described by Tanner et al. (2025), provide a prime illustration of how contemporary Internet communities reformulate masculinity to accommodate independence, emotional independence, and individual authenticity rather than traditional gender conformity. Such TikTok influencers break away from competitiveness and dominance norms and instead identify self-awareness, personal growth, and emotional intelligence as the primary dimensions of masculinity.

Al Zamle (2024) contributes to this by pointing out how fitness influencers disrupt traditional masculine norms by introducing vulnerability and mental health advocacy into their discourse. Fitness influencers create content that combines physical strength and emotional vulnerability and personal introspection and set a good example through healthy holistic habits that dispel stereotypes of masculine physicality and stoicism regarding emotions. In addition, Cannon & Carrington (2024) states that TikTok provides a platform where men discuss openly domestic workloads, caregiving work, and emotional labour – issues that are culturally feminised. In this case, the influencers directly challenge expectations to adhere to traditional roles in this manner opening the spaces to masculine identity and performance. Yang (2023) similarly concurs that adolescents who have been exposed to influencers who enact non-stereotypical gender roles become more accepting and receptive to adaptive and receptive gender attitudes and, in doing so, cultivate a culture that permits and encourages diverse individual identities.

The influencers promote more equal domestic relationships, legitimize egalitarian instead of hierarchical relationships, and approve of empathy and cooperation as masculine ideals (Cannon & Carrington, 2024). By doing so, the influencers completely reshape the way society thinks about gender and popularizes a plural model of masculine expressions. TikTok platforms provide unprecedented exposure to tales of motivating men to take part in family and domestic responsibilities and to observe and support professional ambitions of their wives without hesitation in showcasing it on the open platform. In visibly breaking these gendered role expectations, the influencers drive a culture transformation that rebrands society’s expectations of men and increases acceptance of alternative masculine expressions. In breaking down classical gender norms, TikTok influencers promote greater society-level acceptance of diverse masculine expressions and open the stage to conversation about gender.

Even with the increasing support on TikTok towards more representative portrayals of masculinity, numerous critiques are questioning the authenticity and depth behind these shifts. Among the most widespread critiques is performative vulnerability, whereby influencers are accused of performing emotion mainly for engagement, monetisation purposes, or self-branding instead of sincere self-expression. The Atlantic (2025) calls this “McVulnerability,” noting how emotion can be capitalised and robbed of its genuineness when presented on the platform to gather likes, shares, and brand partnerships. In this context, vulnerability becomes an advertising strategy instead of an earnest challenge to masculine norms.

Consequently, critics claim that although some influencers seem to challenge conventional gender expectations, others reinforce them in more subtle ways through idealised constructs of masculinity that are still anchored on physical attractiveness, professional achievements, and mastery of one’s own image (SBS News, 2024). It makes it so that alternative masculinity is embraced only if it attunes to prevailing standards of influence, charisma, and traditional attractiveness, hence watering down its subversive power.

These criticisms must be counterbalanced against the changes in social opinion made possible by influencers who are substantively engaged in community and advocacy work. O’Rourke et al. (2024) argue that strategic performance itself can lead to positive social transformation when it demonstrates emotional literacy in viewing men who are not used to seeing men display emotion openly. From a sociocultural point of view, performance remains potentially transformational if it introduces audiences to alternative norms and behaviours around emotion. Additionally, Diepeveen (2024) highlights that consistent exposure to emotionally intelligent role models among men, wherever the motivation is strategic or sincere, can reconstitute the ways that boys and young men internalise and express masculinity.

A second issue concerns the algorithmic bias of the platform, amplifying some kinds of material to the detriment of others. The Guardian (2024) writes that TikTok’s algorithm prefers sensationalist and provocative material and sometimes promotes material put out by exploiters of gender rather than thinkers on gender issues. This tends to distort the definition of positive masculinity and silence smaller influencers whose subtle messages are not so successful in driving engagement. However, even when operating under these conditions, many influencers have been able to break harmful stereotypes and reach mass audiences with messages of acceptance, sympathy, and reflection.

Moreover, it is vital to consider the global and cultural limitations of these trends. As Yang (2023) demonstrates, this online resistance to traditional masculinity does not necessarily translate across cultures because political, religious, and historical influences vary. Therefore, although TikTok offers an international stage, local reception and impact can vary widely under culture.

These criticisms highlight the nuances of utilising a commercial platform to promote cultural transformation. They also show how TikTok influencers are subversive in bringing other ideas of masculinity to the forefront where change occurs gradually or where it takes on contradictions simultaneously. Greater visibility for men performing emotional expressiveness, self-care behaviour, and other masculine forms is destabilising traditional masculinity irrespective of whether it is performative in nature or whether it is a lived experience.

Conclusion

The rise of male TikTok influencers embodying nontraditional masculinity represents a fundamental cultural shift of gendered attitudes and representations. By the enactment of vulnerability, self-care practices, and rejecting traditional gendered ideals, the influencers are attempting to dismantle centuries of gendered identification with affect control, bodily violence, and social hardness. Where there are valid points to be raised about how precisely such issues of performativity and platform bias are to be addressed, they do not take away from the broader influence that such influencers are having in questioning what it is to be a man in the age of today.

Most importantly, these changing representations offer teenage boys and young men challenging models of masculinity in authenticity, empathy, and overall well-being. Mass daily consumption of these rival masculinities through social media platforms like TikTok has exposed masculinity and men to experiment and to feeling. It has created room for men to be strong, successful, and to have a sense of self outside traditional masculine scripts and pressure. As this cultural conversation persists, it increasingly becomes clear that the virtual world, as commodified as it may be, is indeed a real space in which social change is possible.

Finally, male TikTok influencers are at the forefront of reclaiming and redefining masculinity, creating room for more vulnerable, inclusive, and socially aware selves. They are a necessary voice, albeit sometimes tense and conflicted, to a decades-long cultural negotiation of gender that can have positive mental health outcomes, enable empathy and make society more equitable and just.

Reference List

Al Zamle, A. (2024). The role of fitness influencers in shaping hegemonic masculinity among young men (Capstone project). California State University, Monterey Bay. https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2877&context=caps_thes_all

Cannon, Z.,  & Carrington, J. (2024). Playing with gender: Patterns of identity expression on TikTok. University of North Texas.

Diepeveen, S. (2024). How does social media influence gender norms among adolescent boys? Key evidence and policy implications. ALIGN Platform.

GQ Magazine. (2022, May 12). Clean guy aesthetic: Meet the male TikTokkers redefining self-care as masculine. GQ. https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/lifestyle/article/clean-guy-aesthetic-tiktok

O’Rourke, F., Baker, C., & McCashin, D. (2024). Addressing the impact of masculinity influencers on teenage boys: A guide for schools, teachers, and parents/guardians. Dublin City University Anti-Bullying Centre. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14102915

SBS News. (2024, June 14). From ‘himfluencers’ to toxic masculinity: How social media is shaping young men. SBS News. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/from-himfluencers-to-toxic-masculinity-how-social-media-is-shaping-young-men/23wwkketj

Tanner, S., Pyke, S., & Langlois, G. (2025). Toxic communication on TikTok: Sigma masculinities and gendered disinformation. Social Media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251313844

The Atlantic. (2025, January 6). Beware the weepy influencers. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2025/01/mcvulnerability-crying-tiktok-youtube-instagram-influencers/681475/

The Guardian. (2024, February 6). Social media algorithms ‘amplifying misogynistic content’. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/feb/06/social-media-algorithms-amplifying-misogynistic-content

Yang, M. (2023). A research of impact of TikTok on gender stereotypes in China. Communications in Humanities Research, 15(1), 30–34. https://doi.org/10.54254/2753-7064/15/20230536