All the lights are off. It’s Valentine’s Day and moonlight streams in through the window. The first few notes of the song trickle out of the speakers. Tucked under the bed covers, you stare up at the ceiling, contemplating your most recent regret or how much that last breakup hurt. In the background, the opening of a familiar heartbreaking ballad gently plays: “I don’t want a friend/I want my life in two/Waiting to get there/Waiting for you…”
You recognize it as the musician Joji’s gut-wrenching hit, “Slow Dancing in the Dark,” and listen for the hundredth time to his mumbling voice, brimming with agony. Your pain is numbed by the lullaby-like electronic harp playing in the background and muted by the booming bass drops. The green glow of the clock by your bedside reads 2 a.m.
It is officially sadboi hours and you are listening to sadboi music.
The slang term describes when someone, usually a male, lets out bottled-up emotions in the privacy of their bedroom late at night. It can be argued that the sadboi music genre started around 2011 with Drake’s sophomore album, “Take Care.” Drake is considered one of the ultimate sadbois, always unashamedly crooning about his feelings for a girl or about his vulnerabilities.
Despite its major presence in pop culture, sadboi music seems largely undefined, interpreted differently by each listener. In fact, although sadboi music may be labeled as a genre, it really encompasses a wide range of existing genres and, in effect, is genre-less. For me, indie rock, contemporary R&B and lo-fi artists such as Pink Sweat$ or Bruno Major come to mind. But other listeners may associate sadboi music more with hip-hop trap artists such as XXXTentacion or indie-folk artists like Bon Iver.
USC senior music production major Elon Wertman, who is also known as Fringe Friend, proposes that sadboi music is a label that artists do not purposefully associate themselves or their songs with. Rather, this is decided by listeners. “We’ve kind of made up the genre, ‘sadboi music.’ I think everybody has [their own] idea of what that is in their head,” Wertman said.
Despite the seemingly gender exclusive term “sadboi,” the genre’s musicians and listeners are not solely male. However, its music does offer a unique opportunity for male artists to have an unprecedented emotional connection with their male listeners.
“In the past, maybe you were honest about love. But people are more honest now about their mental health, sexuality, religious beliefs and generally how they feel,” said Robert Borg, a music industry professor at the USC Thornton School of Music. “It didn’t seem as prevalent in the past as it does today and I think it’s because social media has given us a forum to be able to express ourselves and a lot of people express themselves [as], ‘Either love me or don’t. I’m just going to say what I want.’”
But why is this act of moping alone in one’s own bedroom at 2 a.m. practically synonymous with young men? It makes sense considering how Western society associates masculinity with limited emotional expression.
According to the American Psychological Association (APA), society defines ideal masculinity as “toughness, stoicism, heterosexism, self-sufficient attitudes and lack of emotional sensitivity.” Think of Clint Eastwood characters or James Bond. Neither of these masculine figures expresses emotions beyond anger and aggression and, eventually, young boys who look up to these male figures mimic this social behavior.
Another study found that, beginning from childhood, boys are socially trained to hide vulnerable emotions such as sadness and to express more aggressive emotions such as anger. Parents encourage boys to externalize their aggression rather than promote reflection on more vulnerable emotions, which would imply weakness and irrationality. This plays into Western society’s gender expectations for men to be assertive and to be able to protect women from danger. It is also an unhealthy, unsustainable social practice.
“Anger typically gets a bad reputation as a negative emotion,” clarified Dr. Kelly Greco, Assistant Director of Outreach and Prevention Services at USC Student Health. "But we all feel angry. We all feel frustrated. It’s not that we feel that way. It’s what we do with it.” In extreme cases, encouraging anger and suppressing emotions such as sadness in boys can lead to future behavior problems and possible substance use.
Interestingly enough, however, research has shown that men willingly express their emotions more openly now than in the past. “One thing that I have found is that people have more understanding of mental health issues. Now people are less afraid to say that they have mental health issues,” Borg commented.
Enter sadboi music.
In his rhythmic hit, “Controlla,” Drake sings to his dream girl, “I think I’d lie for you/I think I’d die for you.” As Hua Hsu from The New Yorker commented about Drake, “there was something novel about a male rapper who appeared to be so sensitive.” Since then, the trend in transparency about such vulnerable emotions for male artists has grown and become known as sadboi music, coinciding with the greater social acceptance of men showing emotion.
As seen in recent research studies, men underreport mental health issues due to feeling uncomfortable talking about their emotions. Such social practice has led to “relatively high suicide rates across various different countries” with suicide as the second leading cause of death for young people. Moreover, men die by suicide almost four times more often than women.
And, in general, Generation Z has reported more mental health issues than previous generations, citing stressors such as mass shootings, deportation and racial discrimination. “There’s this existential dread,” USC senior popular music performance major Haley Perkins, also known as music artist i∅, said. “There’s a culturally shared angst in sadboi music, specifically, that kind of manifests itself in these songs. Every generation has its own unique attitude toward sadness and I think ours is very much economically, politically, and culturally inspired,” Perkins said.
Yet, simply because male music artists are more willing to be emotionally vulnerable in their songs does not necessarily mean that all forms of sadboi masculinity are healthy. Although sadboi music artists can challenge society’s view of acceptable male emotions, sadboi music can also be another medium through which toxic masculinity bleeds.
For instance, as some critics have pointed out, Alexander O’Connor, better known by his stage name Rex Orange County, is a famous sadboi musician who wrote a problematic song on his first album titled, “A Song About Being Sad.” Naturally, I decided to take a closer look.
It is a bare track, with just the warm, echoing strums of an electric guitar and O’Connor’s yearning voice floating over the chords. At first, it sounds soothing but eventually becomes grating once you realize the sexist message of the lyrics. The indie pop artist is warning other guys to stay away from a girl he liked simply because she did not reciprocate his feelings. He seems to think he is entitled to her, singing, “Always felt like I needed to please her, or impress her/Though only in the hope that one day I would undress her.” Misogyny is deeply rooted in his emotional confessions here. It is a good example of how, while sadboi music may allow for greater emotional expression, the emotions expressed are not always healthy.
Some would even say that the popularity itself of sadboi music and sadboi hours is harmful because it encourages young men to dwell on their emotions alone instead of seeking professional help. As Wertman commented, “If you’re sitting around at three in the morning being sad about something, you don’t have the tools to work through whatever is going on in your head.” This is a valid point. When looking at male sadboi musicians, as Perkins pointed out, many have died of unnatural causes: Mac Miller, Lil Peep and Juice WRLD, to name a few.
But without the sadboi trend, boys might not have a socially acceptable reason or medium through which to express their emotions at all, which would put us back at square one. Perhaps we can view sadboi music and sadboi hours as tools for harm reduction, a public health concept defined as any intervention “aimed at reducing the negative effects of health behaviors without necessarily extinguishing the problematic health behaviors completely.”
In other words, while the sadboi trend is not a sustainable long-term solution, maybe we can instead view it as a step in the right direction that men are beginning to express themselves and develop a healthier relationship with their emotions. It is progress in its most imperfect form.
Interested in listening to what sadboi music I enjoy? Click below to listen.