This article presents the findings of a corpus linguistic analysis of the hashtags #mansplaining, #manspreading, and #manterruption, three lexical blends which have recently found widespread use across a variety of online media platforms. Focusing on the social media and microblogging site Twitter, we analyze a corpus of over 20,000 tweets containing these hashtags to examine how discourses of gender politics and gender relations are represented on the site. More specifically, our analysis suggests that users include these hashtags in tweets to index their individual evaluations of, and assumptions about, "proper" gendered behavior. Consequently, their metadiscursive references to the respective phenomena reflect their beliefs of what constitutes appropriate (verbal) behavior and the extent to which gender is appropriated as a variable dictating this behavior. As such, this article adds to our knowledge of the ways in which gendered social practices become sites of contestation and how contemporary gender politics play out in social media sites.

The series Adam Ruins Everything (ARE) provides an opportunity to contemplate White, hipster masculinity and its professed progressivism in U.S. culture. As seen in ARE, hipster masculinity claims—in part—to possess an enlightened social politic, challenging sexism, racism, and heterosexism, yet the figuration of the White, cisgender-male hipster we get seemingly adopts feminist positions as means to insulate and expand his own social privilege. Using rhetorical strategies to win debates against cultural hegemony, the hipster of ARE becomes a superior masculinity, a trusted voice to guide and liberate White women and people of color, centering himself as the source of a singular truth. The essay provides the opportunity to consider ongoing tensions and ironies between men/masculinity and feminism.