The angry, disaffected, us-vs.-them young white man/boy is not new as a U.S. cultural phenomenon. Turning the clock back some 60 years, we can find him in two foundational "classic rock" songs that distill that restless aggression into two-minute shots of America.
1964's "I Get Around," The Beach Boys' first no. 1 hit, leads with the couplet:
"I'm gettin' bugged drivin' up and down the same old strip. I gotta find a new place where the kids are hip."
Then follows by slapping down this marker:
"My buddies and me are gettin' real well known. Yeah, the bad guys know us, and they leave us alone."
The braggadocio, the ennui, the discontent, the potential for violence. So 2026.
A year earlier, the band released "Be True to Your School," which reached no. 6 on the Billboard charts, and it's an even more atavistic, tribal circling of the wagons around Us.
The song starts with a martial drumroll, and the words:
"When some loud braggart tries to put me down and says his school is great. I tell him right away, 'Now, what's the matter, buddy, ain't you heard of my school? It's number one in the state.' So be true to your school. Just like you would to your girl or guy."
Setting the bar pretty high for loyalty to a high school, but okay. The singer is a football player and track star, we soon learn, a double "letterman" proud to sport his school's decal in his rear window.
We're getting ready for the big game, where our hero will manfully crush the opposition:
"On Friday we'll be jacked up on the football game And I'll be ready to fight We're gonna smash 'em now My girl will be working on her pom-poms now And she'll be yelling tonight."
Because, of course, then as now, the football hero is dating a cheerleader. And he simmers in brutality, clannishness, and self-mythology.
The existence of the sullen, surly, violent, sectarian, rootless young white man in American popular culture certainly predates and also follows The Beach Boys' depiction of him. But where his presence was manifest in, say, the '80s California hardcore scene, the thing I find striking is the contrast between the popular image of the Beach Boys, especially in their early years, as sunny, upbeat, surfboard-toting harmonizers and the darkness underlying their popular songs.
