Tales of Overcompensation! Or: Ur So Hemingway

So, long ago and far away, in a mystical land known only as This Monday, I wound up having a conversation about Katy Perry's landmark! first! single! "Ur So Gay" and its success or failure in identifying the telling signs of a certain sort of semi-hip urban male"effeminacy" that mostly consists of not being a fratty dumbfuck with an IQ of 73, a sneering sense of entitlement, and an emotional unavailability that may or may not be due to not having any actual feelings. ("Hungry" and "boner," for the record, do not count.) Our conversation went like this:

DUDE: "Wish you were in the rain reading Hemingway?"

ME: I know! She doesn't even know what people read! Like, if you wanted him to be a "sensitive dude" cliche, why not Leonard Cohen? But she was like, "People who read are pussies, so.... Hemingway! That's, um, an author! An author who rhymes with 'gay', no less! God, Katy, you are GOOD."

DUDE: I mean, Hemingway. Yeah, that's an author I identify with gay people!

ME: Right? Like, he's so into this cartoonish overcompensatey traditional masculinity...

DUDE: Like, yeah, hunting and sports and war... not that there's anything wrong with that! I respect people who are into that! But it's totally, like...

ME: Uber-straight, uber-male, uber-ultra-traditional-masculine. The last dude you'd name-check in your "I have severely limited expectations so you are a Nancy" hit single.

So, um, in related news? Hemingway's mom used to dress him like a lady. Just want us all to be clear on that.