"Nice guy syndrome", and how the Internet made up a character whose prevalence is exaggerated.

For a long time now, the Internet's had this obsession with nice guys. The definition of nice guy used to just mean an overly nice, docile guy who doesn't stand up for himself. The Internet one is just some overly nice, docile guy who concludes women only like jerks after being rejected by them. Since the late 1980s, on internet message boards and newsgroups, nice guys have been defined in dating culture as a guy who cannot attract women because he is too nice, unassertive and shy, and how bad boys tend to attract more women because they're hypermasculine. In the 1990s/early 2000s, sociologists started to use the word to describe these guys as overly nice, docile and unable to attract women because they aren't masculine and protective.

The Internet nice guy you often hear about wasn't talked of until 2001 when the-niceguy.com became a website. That website was the origin of these guys. The website was created by a guy who felt frustrated over women seeing him as only a friend with a shoulder to cry on and telling him that he's too much like a brother to them while pursuing men who were literal cads. By June 2003, he created the Mancoat forum for people because he noticed his website had many viewers and emails empathizing with his situation. He even had women who empathized with his situation and many women joined the forum. People didn't try pursuing them on there but they welcomed with open arms. MGTOW was inspired by the Mancoat forums from the website.

In early 2002, Heartless Bitches International published a blog complaining of nice guy syndrome. They were the first online to complain about these guys. While the blog got some attention in 2002 and especially 2003, in the next few years, it got way more attention. In early 2004, an anti-nice guy comic caught attention online at the time (I cannot retrieve it). Although these guys did face some ridicule in the mid-2000s online, the early 2010s was when they became the most targeted people online (and still are). In 2010, r/niceguys was created, and quickly became popular. In 2011-12, many feminist blogs and tumblr pages criticized nice guys by screenshotting them wherever they could find them. As the original website the-niceguy.com closed, these guys were scattered all over. They're basically an online subculture. KnowYourMeme elaborates on the history of this nice guy(tm) meme.

My honest opinion

I'm going to say this: I never would've known who these guys were if it wasn't for the Internet. That's where you mostly hear about them. On r/niceguys, most of the guys I see don't seem to have nice guy syndrome. They're mostly guys, who probably have dated and had sex before, who just get angry at a woman who rejects them and in some cases, responds with "I was just being nice". Even mentioning that word as a passing remark gets you put on there. It could be they took the rejection personally and said that to disarm them rather than say "i'm a nice guy. Do you prefer jerks over me?!". These guys don't appear to have nice guy syndrome. Sometimes a mere angry response to rejection gets you put on there. I find it interesting how actual nice guy syndrome isn't featured there anymore.

I find it odd knowing the Internet's concept of nice guys was invented by the Internet and was never talked of before the 2000s, and it wasn't until the 2010s the idea became widespread. Shit, more than a few years ago, I asked people in real life about it when I learned what it was for the first time and they didn't know what I was talking about. Only chronically online zoomers and millennials would know much about these guys (especially zoomers).

Here's the thing: the kind of guy nice guys talk about do attract more women: physically aggressive men have more sex partners. Misogynistic men tend to have more sex partners and tend to have more dark triad traits. Rapists tend to be highly promiscuous men. Male criminals tend to be highly promiscuous and lose their virginity early. Bullies tend to have more sex and dating partners.

The popular narrative is that these guys pretend to be nice only to get laid. The problem is: when I heard their side of the story, that's bullshit. They aren't looking for mere sex, but the Internet wants to portray them as womanizers. They want relationships more than just sex. They're just overly nice, unassertive guys who act overly attentive and women aren't attracted to that. Many often are too shy to pursue, and it's not that they pretend to be friends just to have sex with them. They often get friendzoned because they were too shy to pursue but they ended up being around them until they finally gained the guts, or they eventually developed feelings for a friend, or a woman they just met said they just wanted to be friends. But if it wasn't for these guys, I don't think feminists would've found the word friendzone offensive. Friendzoned men aren't pretending to be friends just to have sex with someone, same with a friends with benefits. In fact, that phrase isn't offensive because these guys don't use it, and these kind of guys didn't invent the word friendzone. The show Friends did way before these guys appeared online.

The thing is: these guys often act nice to women because they like her and want to make her happy, and often don't realize women aren't into overly attentive men or men who are way too nice to the point where they're docile, and they find men who are assertive more attractive and protective. So when these guys get frustrated at seeing women with abusive boyfriends, it's because women tend to claim they value honesty and kindness but actually value superficial traits far more, and that baffles these guys when they see these kinds of cads get girlfriends and they don't because they wouldn't hurt a woman. Do I think these guys go too far with some things they say, including when they sometimes wrongfully claim women like jerks? Yes, but they're not bad people who pretend to be nice to get laid, or think women owe them sex as a reward for kindness. They just feel frustrated over being the guy who is attentive to women and who wouldn't abuse them and seeing these abusive, hypermasculine guys get girlfriends when women's actions speak differently from their words. The way they express their feelings is often bad.

I don't want to defend these guys, but criticize them for the right reasons. I don't particularly approve of the things they say, but I understand for they're coming from. Why do you think r/WhereAreAllTheGoodMen was started?

And let's be real: the only reason these guys seem common is because the Internet is so obsessed with them, they seem common. In real life, you don't really hear about them. Not that they're nonexistent in real life, but not common like online, where you hear about them 90% of the time and, 10% of the time, see them. The Internet only ridicules them not for moral reasons, but because they're just an easy target for ridicule. The Internet's panic over incels in the past few years and that r/niceguys sub are the only reasons the Internet continues to target them even though it's not 2012 anymore when they were ridiculed even more online.