The rise of the softboy might have been easier for some American men to digest if it were contained to one corner of pop culture, but they’ve mounted a stunningly complete takeover. Two decades ago, Styles’ boy-band predecessors sat comfortably, if not somewhat jarringly, on the Billboard Hot 100 next to testosterone-fueled, post-grunge superstars like Puddle of Mudd or Staind. Sometimes that led to surreal collisions, like the feud between California nu-metalers Korn and MTV’s “Total Request Live,” or the tawdry gossip-bait of Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst’s alleged tryst with Britney Spears. But mostly, pop culture just sort of embraced them all as icons: At the end of the day Durst and the Backstreet Boys were both on the cover of Rolling Stone; now, the former part of that equation has largely disappeared.
That more aggressive side of pop culture has always been an outlet for a certain kind of male disaffection, and its icons at the turn of the millennium offered a way to channel it into nonpolitical catharsis, available for just $19.99 in the music aisle at your local Borders. When you could vent your pent-up frustrations about your relationships, your job, your general lot in life, by banging your head — and, crucially, by seeing those frustrations validated in mass culture — it might not seem so urgent to do it at the ballot box.
Those outlets haven’t completely gone away, but their centrality to American culture has undeniably diminished. That’s made it harder for non-diehards to embrace, at least not without a layer of irony or nostalgia.
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