No one quite forgets their first semester at Yale. We make fast friends, join random clubs (looking at you, Neo-Amish Society), leave our homes behind, and find a new one. But not many first-years could say they became an instant campus celebrity during their third week here.
On September 6, Marco Getchell, DC ’29, was named the winner of Yale’s first performative male contest. As I ducked and weaved through a crowd of students coming to congratulate him after the contest, Getchell exchanged bright smiles, hugs, and high fives with his friends and new supporters. He beamed as I congratulated him: “Thank you so much!” he said. When I mentioned that I wanted to interview him about his win, he quickly pointed to the girl on his right. “You need to talk to her!” Standing beside him was Rishi Sultana, SM ‘29. I quickly discovered that Sultana helped Getchell put together his performative male outfit. The Law Roach to his Zendaya, if you will.
Yalies are no more resistant to fun internet trends than anyone else. Several hundred up to the Copola College Council’s Performative Male Contest on a muggy Saturday afternoon. The day of the event, performing performative males armed themselves with copies of The Bell Jar and wired headphones. Somewhere in this sea of contestants was Getchell, in a baggy dark green sweater and thrifted jeans from home.
When we met up outside the BowWow, Getchell stood out in his thin grey trench coat and dark blue jeans. The only hints of his previous look were traces of red nail polish on his left hand and the cup of matcha in his grip. Sultana sat beside him, eyes steadily meeting mine.
To Sultana, a performative male is “fake, disingenuous, simple minded —the performative male only acts to benefit himself, not to benefit women in a tangible way,” she said. In high school, Sultana had direct experiences with performative men: “He was a close friend of mine and dated my best friend for a while. He would mirror a lot of the things that she liked. And in the end, he ended up ditching her for this other girl.”
Sultana was the one who had encouraged Getchell to enter the contest. “I was like, Marco, you have to do this,” she said as she leaned forward, “he was really the only person I knew who would put everything he had into this.”
From the first time Sultana met Getchell , she was struck by his humour and ability to run with the bit. As they began preparing for the contest together, more and more friends offered to help, offering everything from advice to clothing. “We were all uniting under one person,” Sultana said.
***
Getchell, from rural New Hampshire, plans to major in economics and sociology. Sultana is from a small city in northern Louisiana.The two had met a few weeks ago by sheer chance. Sultana’s boyfriend Liam Drake, SM ‘29, had been in a summer program with Getchell years before and had introduced them. The two quickly became friends.
Getchell pulled out his phone to show his winning look. I looked at the photo, where he posed in front of a bulletin board on Old Campus. With an empty guitar case strapped to his back, he was carrying two tote bags, a chunky IKEA teddy bear, and several layers of accessories. The teddy bear was his, but almost everything else he wore—wired headphones, guitar case, carabiner—was borrowed from friends. During the contest, Sultana’s boyfriend, Drake, brought Gretchell water as he sweated through his oversized button-up sweater .
Getchell credits his friends for his unexpected win. “There were a lot of people who solely approached it like it’s this individual thing, and I don’t think it was,” he looked to Sultana.
They continued to collaborate as the competition proceeded. After each contestant had a moment to say their favorite feminist literature book, Cupola College Council announced the second round: each contestant had to perform a special talent. Thinking fast, Getchell remembered the speaker in his bag and the performative male playlist Sultana had made for the contest.
Getchell felt ridiculous, but it was something no one else had come up with yet, so he went for it: signaling to Sultana to press play, he began singing “My Love Mine All Mine” by Mitski. After a few chuckles, the crowd began to sway their arms to the music. Someone even turned on and waved their phone flashlight to show their support for Getchell. “Nothing in the world belongs to me…,” he intoned, “But my love, mine all mine…”
Though he sang about having nothing but love, Getchell was surrounded by friends who showed him he had much more.
”The CT state news described it as a nervous rendition, and I would probably agree, but I think it wasn’t,” he said, “it wasn’t the fact that it was good or anything. It just was the fact I…just did it.”
***
Getchell, a first-year, came to Yale to find community. “I’m a firm believer that people in real life don’t do things just by themselves, like there can be truly excellent people who thrive on their own.” He grew up in Grantham, New Hampshire, a small town with a population less than the number of undergraduates at Yale. Most of his classmates split their time between vocational school and high school. “There were only three things to do in New Hampshire: some outdoors thing, drink, or focus on your studies” he said.
“In New Hampshire, I had an intimate environment, but I didn’t feel webbed into the community.” Getchell said, “I love watching documentaries. But I would never find anyone else in that same boat. Learning about weird new stuff has always been a passion, and that just isn’t reflected everywhere else around me.”
He then sat up, eyes wide and bright as he reflected on his first few weeks at Yale: “by having those little odd connections where you see each other in the dorms or just out and about in classes, where I can sit with them and feel comfortable. One degree up from being a stranger.”
By high school, Getchell’s mind was already halfway out of his hometown. “I was already thinking about my new environment. “What’s the point of dedicating myself to my old environment?” After a moment, though, he backtracked, “Of course I met some wonderful people—and not everyone needs to be me. What a terrible world that would be,” Getchell laughed.
Coming from his small town, he couldn’t imagine himself at Yale just a few years ago. He credits his family for giving him the support to take these steps out on his own: “I come from a culture of hard work,” he said. Getchell’s mother is from Venezuela and built a life in New Hampshire after immigrating to the United States: “She learned English by standing in the line at Dunkin’ Donuts and ordering,” said Getchell, “she had grit, and she made it here.”
“My dad’s always emphasized work hard and things pay off for you. I take that seriously.” Together, Getchell and his dad would hike through New Hampshire, climbing the highest mountains in the state. “He is the most influential person all my life,” said Getchell, who added that his father had grown up in a traditional 80s household, where men had a “path laid out for them.” “
Reflecting back, Getchell’s father chose to raise his own son in a different way. “My dad is trying to do his best to reflect on and break off of his own experiences,” Getchell recalled. For example, he would apologize to Getchell when he made a mistake, something Getchell’s grandfather never did.
Neither of Getchell’s parents expected him to go to Yale, instead teaching him to prioritize his happiness. “It’s given me the assurance I need to chase the things that I want to do, first and foremost,” said Getchell.
It was his drive to step into a bigger world that led him to Yale. He credits his family for giving him the support to take these steps out on his own: “My dad’s always told me that if you feel like you don’t have anything else to learn in a room, you need to find a bigger room. And this is the biggest room I could find,” said Gretchell.
Now, he’s surrounded by people who seem like they are larger than life. People who have million dollar startups and Coca-Cola Scholarships. Getchell doesn’t think he has as much to say for himself, but he does know who he wants to be for others: “I just want to be somebody who people can reach out to and be helpful with.We’re all kind of lost.” He leaned forward, “I’m willing to offer an arm so at least we can walk through the darkness together.”
***
As the audience and contestants fought for air space, the sea of guitar cases and vinyl covers quickly disappeared with each round of elimination. A finalist brought his dog and promised to have him neutered. Another brought a match IV drip made out of a coat rack, decorated with All About Love posters. Things got more heated as the day wore on: one contestant was booed out for interrupting a woman. Another dumped a cup of matcha on themselves in a bid to stay in the running. But Getchell stayed cool and collected. He promised to make regular pilgrimages to the women’s table to become a better listener. At that point, he felt like he had talked enough: “Why am I talking as a man?” he asked the crowd to a round of applause. He stepped back, and the attendees casted their votes.
***
Being the best performative male isn’t something he can put on a resume.Between the club rejections and chaos of first semester, life has moved quickly for Getchell. “I’ve been telling my friends this every so often: I feel like this is going to be the one thing I get here. I’m not going to be able to get into a club or anything like that, where I feel like I’m doing impactful things.”
But he has expanded his community at Yale through it. These days, he often gets stopped for a quick photo or the question: “are you the performative feminist guy?” He doesn’t mind—it’s an easy icebreaker, making meeting people much easier, he said. Recently, he was able to connect with someone in his economics class about his reputation as the “performative male”. “We both had econ, and he said he was struggling with some stuff, and I asked if I could help you do anything.”
This is what makes a first semester at Yale so unforgettable. The months and years roll by. We grow, change, and can’t help but wonder: —what legacy will I leave behind? But no matter what awaits, Marco Getchell, has only just started his journey—that is, alongside the friends and fans he’s gathered around—and beyond—the women’s table.
