If you ask someone what a “softboy” is, they either know exactly what you mean, or they have no idea.
When I asked Dylan Adamson, U2 Cultural Studies, to define the term, he rattled off a list of weirdly specific, seemingly unrelated qualities.
“He talks about feminism a lot,” Adamson said. “He’ll recommend you bands. He’s an active SoundCloud user. He doesn’t say movie, he always says film.”
Yet I found myself nodding along to each example, because I know that guy. He’s in my philosophy class. He was on my floor in residence. He’s such a softboy.
I felt the same way reading the Medium piece, “Have You Encountered the Softboy?” by Alan Hanson. Sparse yet laser-specific, it describes a young guy who is similar to the better-known “fuckboy,” but not quite identical. He “is Nice yet Complicated,” “orders cheap beer backed with bottom-shelf whiskey,” and “may be named Tom. Or Phillip.” Again, I know that guy. Yes, I have encountered the softboy.
When I reached out to Anthony Synnott, sociology and anthropology professor at Concordia University and author of Rethinking Men: Heroes, Victims, Villains, to ask about the term, he’d never heard of it, so I forwarded Hanson’s piece to him. When we spoke on the phone, he couldn’t help but laugh about the article.