The Manfluencer

Thanks to the brilliant vision of food manufacturers, I can now buy yogurt without worrying that reaching for that carton in the supermarket will emasculate me. Some article I read mentions that companies are making items traditionally associated with women, like yogurt, appeal more to men. Thus we get the genius of Powerful Yogurt, a brand with very masculine red and black packaging.

I don’t eat yogurt all that often but you can sign me up for six cases of this.

There’s also some coffee place that is serving black, cold coffee, which is more appropriate for men than some hot latte. I mean, if you drink hot coffee, you might as well head straight for the maxi-pad aisle. The cold coffee (because you can’t just make cold coffee at home by brewing it and waiting) is served in a beer bottle so real masculine manly men can drink it openly. This will really expand the coffee market. I don’t know any men who drink the stuff now.

Why are these companies doing this? It’s because I’m a “manfluencer,” a man who is responsible for at least half the grocery shopping in his house. (Technically, a man is also responsible for our other half.) We men are making great strides these days, doing retail shopping and not restricting our chores to just chopping down trees for firewood.

Do you get it? Do you get what the term “manfluencer” signifies? It’s “man” combined with “influencer.” So it’s a man who influences something. Did you get that? Right now, you gasp in happy surprise at the cleverness of this invented term. You are right to gasp since this is the most amazing combination of “man” and “other noun” yet. Mankini, man hide, mandals, mancession … none of them ever get old. But I digress.

The reason it is so revolutionary to make manlier supermarket products is that they cater to people like me, who are completely enslaved by gender norms. I mean, I adhere to traditional gender norms at all costs, no matter how trivial. If a product logo has even a hint of softness or pastel, I refuse to go anywhere near it, no matter how masculine or gender-neutral the actual product. If I have a catastrophically clogged tub and the only option to unclog it is a bottle of Liquid Plumber in a light blue bottle, no sale. If the only shaving cream has a logo that, if you stare long enough, looks slightly vaginal and not sufficiently phallic, well then I’ll just have to start growing a beard.

Because I certainly wouldn’t want to face the demeaning snickers of the cashiers as I scan my pansy purchase at Acme. This is a real issue that I, and surely many other men, think about all the time. We’ve all had that feeling that the eyes of the world are upon us and our testosterone is leaking out of us because we are buying the wrong thing. I certainly don’t want strangers thinking I’m some kind of Nancy Boy.