lyric analysis: the nice guy narrative

In the world of heteronormative media, the nice guy narrative is a familiar scenario: guy likes girl, girl likes a different guy, first guy feels scorned and unappreciated and blames the girl for not liking him back. Sometimes, by some magical twist of fate, the girl in question returns his feelings, realizing that yes! the good guy was there all along! How silly of her to have ignored him for so long. Other times, the guy pines and wallows and blames his love interest for just not seeing how nice he is, since that's the only requirement women look for in a relationship.

The nice guy narrative is played out in books, movies, television, and music. It spawned the term 'friendzone,' the ridiculous concept that it is somehow the fault of the person in question for not returning the romantic feelings of their admirer, and for only viewing them in a platonic way.

The musical epitome of the nice guy narrative might be Wheatus' 2000 release, 'Teenage Dirtbag':

Her name is Noel
I have a dream about her
She rings my bell
Got gym class in half an hour
Oh how she rocks
in Keds and tube socks
But she doesn't know who I am
and she doesn't give a damn about me

Guy thinks girl is cool, girl doesn't know who he is, and according to him, probably doesn't care. Okay, got it.

Her boyfriend's a dick
And he brings a gun to school
And he'd simply kick my ass if he knew the truth
He lives on my block and drives an IROC
And he doesn't know who I am
He doesn't give a damn about me

Oh, she's already got a boyfriend! Maybe that's why she's not interested? Also, contradictory messages of being ignored by said boyfriend, but also that said boyfriend would care enough to kick his ass for crushing on his girlfriend. Sorry, son, but while I'm a big believer in gun control, I don't really think it's your place to have an opinion on who Noel is dating (especially since it sounds like you've never even tried talking to her!)

I'm just a teenage dirtbag, baby
Listen to Iron Maiden, maybe, with me

You're really selling yourself here, man. Sounds like a great date.

I am a dirtbag
She doesn't know what she's missing

ME, ME, ME, I am the VICTIM because Noel won't notice ME and that's HER FAULT for not returning MY feelings. Noel does eventually notice our poor, forlorn narrator, and as it turns out, she's just a teenage dirtbag, baby, like him, with a taste for Iron Maiden too. What a riveting tale.

Sometimes, however, our lonely male narrators do not find that their love interests share a fondness for 80s metal.

Pop punk is notorious for nice guy narratives. The music genre that emphasizes getting out of "this town," and hanging out with your friends is also well versed in love and heartbreak, almost exclusively from the perspective of the nice guy. There is a central theme of the male narrator feeling inadequate or unpopular (which of course, in his opinion, isn't his fault, the world is out to get him), and his female love interest either "out of his league," already in a relationship, or automatically labeled any number of derogatory female terms simply because she's not interested.

These male narrators feel victimized because they want something that they cannot have, and that something happens to be a person. A woman. A girl. So as is the ideology of maleness, it is a woman's fault that she is being oppressed. Thus, as men, they feel they have the right to blame her.

Music and romance go hand in hand with the nice guy narrative, as the thought process is "maybe if I write her this song, she'll fall for me." Fall Out Boy sings in their 2003 hit 'Grand Theft Autumn/Where is Your Boy':

When I wake up
I'm willing to take my chances on
The hope I forget that you hate him more than you notice
I wrote this for you, for you, so

You need him
I could be him
I could be an accident but I'm still tryin'
And that's more than I can say for him

In 2013, up and coming Australian pop punk band 5 Seconds of Summer released 'Heartbreak Girl', a nice guy anthem akin to 'Teenage Dirtbag':

And when the phone call finally ends,
You say, "Thanks for being a friend,"
And we're going in circles again and again

I dedicate this song to you,
The one who never sees the truth,
That I can take away your hurt, heartbreak girl.
Hold you tight straight through the day light,
I'm right here. When you gonna realise
That I'm your cure, heartbreak girl?

The girl in question leans on our nice guy narrator for support after her breakup. He of course thinks that the only way she'll get over her broken heart is by falling in love again, and with him. Of course, he doesn't tell her how he feels, instead just wishes that she has psychic powers and will somehow magically know that he's romantically interested in her.

I bite my tongue but I wanna scream out
You could be with me now
But I end up telling you what you wanna hear,
But you're not ready and it's so frustrating
He treats you so bad and I'm so good to you it's not fair.

Frustration because the girl of his affections isn't ready to be in another relationship after getting out of her old one? For someone claiming to be so "nice," the Nice Guy is actually quite selfish. Why be with that jerk you're dating when I'm so nice to you, and we could date instead?

And when the phone call finally ends
You say, "I'll call you tomorrow at 10,"
And I'm stuck in the friend zone again and again

The dreaded friendzone- if only you told her how you felt! But then again, maybe that's the purpose of this whole song. Not sure how effective it'll be when the girl it's written for finds out  her "friend" was just being supportive and comforting in the hopes that she'd fall madly in love with him.

I think the presence of the nice guy narrative in the pop punk genre has a lot to do with age- many pop punk bands start out as teenagers. Even bands that don't comprise of teenage boys have the tendency to write songs using the trope, as the mental age of the genre feels about 17. When I think feminist, my mind doesn't spring to 17-year-old suburban white boy.

But the bigger problem with nice guy narrative lyrics is who consumes those lyrics. If you go to a show for any band lined up to play this summer's Warped Tour, the audience will most likely comprise of teenage girls. That audience knows every word to every song. The music they listen to is just one more medium to internalize the nice guy narrative. The pop punk scene has few visible female artists, and those who are visible are constantly compared to one another. While there are true feminist voices in the pop punk scene, and the in the music industry as a whole, those voices are still fighting to be heard over the hundreds of nice guys whining about how unrequited love isn't fair.