alex chiang: web 6.0

Not sure how common this term is, but I heard it for the first time in NYC this past weekend. In essence, it refers to a straight man, who having observed that well-dressed homosexual men get lots of attention from women due to superior grooming habits, decides to emulate said grooming habits in order to attract the attention of women for himself.

There are, of course, parallels to this in the animal world. The viceroy butterfly comes to mind, with its similar coloration to the bitter-tasting monarch butterfly. I believe the term for this phenomenon is “mimicry” which in and of itself doesn’t describe the *purpose* of the subterfuge, only that the subterfuge exists.

I suppose that for a new term to gain traction in our lexicon, it must be, well, sexy (or catchy, if you prefer a less trite attempt at tired self-referential humor). In any case, the only reason I’m writing is that I was amused and intrigued by the need to come up with a new term that describes an ancient phenomenon.

Needless to say, my own personal style of dress is so poor that I will never ever be mistaken for either a gay man or a metrosexual.

In other news, sick = suck.