We have lived in the age of softboys (open in new tab). Noah Centineo and Jaden Smith, among others, dominate the hierarchy of Internet boyfriends. (And now they both have to compete with a new breed: someone like Sebastian de Souza, who played Leo Valonsky in Hulu's The Greatest. Someone who is more docile and less obvious, but just as likely to ruin your life. He's a soft bad boy.

"Soft boy" was introduced into the cultural lexicon in 2015 as a bad version of fuckboy (opens in new tab). Whereas fuckboys (or fuckboys) are the guys who never introduce you to their roommates but keep you around to satisfy their horny cravings, softboys, by contrast, are emotionally aware enough to know that they are being a jerk when they text you at 11 pm (but that doesn't stop them from doing the same thing again). Lately, the term "softboy" has been expanded to mean a slightly gentler expression of masculinity. Softboys are artistic. He wears pastel colors. He reads Joan Didion and is often sad. He is Timothy Chalamet (opens in new tab).

Of course, Bad Boy is a much older concept. Compelling arguments suggest that Bad Boy began with Lucifer in John Milton's Paradise Lost (opens in new tab). At its core, Bad Boy must meet several basic qualifications. A general disrespect for authority, a degree of moral ambiguity, and a certain familiarity with the underworld. And above all, he must be seductive.

The classic badboy, the bar-fighting, booze-swilling, emotionally-obsessed Lothario (James Dean, Marlon Brando, Dylan McKay in "90210," Jess Mariano in "Gilmore Girls," etc.), has always been coded as hypermasculine They have always been coded as hyper-masculine. Now, such toxic masculinity has passed. Soft Bad Boy fills that gap.

The soft badboy is the inevitable evolution of the traditional and culturally beloved badboy. He may indeed have a motorcycle and deep-seated issues with his father, but he is acutely aware of your feelings and, I imagine, has very soft hands. He combines the rebellious attitude of a bad boy with the emotional acuity and artistic sensibility of a soft boy. Whereas Bad Boy is angry with the world, Soft Bad Boy is full of melancholic ennui. Bad Boy lashes out with belligerence, while Soft Bad Boy flirts wisely. They are often named Vincent, Adrian. Or Leo.

De Sousa's Leo first appears in "The Great," a comedic and intentionally anachronistic depiction of Russian ruler Ekaterina the Great's rise to power, and is presented to the Empress (Elle Fanning) as a "gift" in episode 3. (Emperor Peter, Ekaterine's husband, played by Nicholas Hoult, thinks she needs a lover to cheer her up.) When the emperor demands that Leo drop his pants and inspect the device, Leo complies only by raising his eyebrows in a unsure manner.

Unlike the classic bad boy, Soft Bad Boy can be buoyed by a sense of superiority and remain outwardly unfazed. With a self-satisfied stare and a wry smile, he appears to know more than he thinks he does. To Catherine's queenly authority, Leo responds by sitting comfortably on her couch and simply refusing to submit. Instead of raising his middle finger, Leo gives a naughty wink.

Like a good soft bad boy, Leo knows he already has Catherine in his pocket. He presents her with a peach and advises, "When you eat it, take one bite, tilt your head back, and let the juice run down your throat." It's an obvious pick-up line, but Catherine is completely taken with it. Leo turns out to be a serious and emotional sweetheart, but he is certainly rebellious. Instead of saying "up yours" to the emperor, he speaks in mock duplicity and innuendo that the emperor does not understand. Leo moves from jealousy to fighting back, not with fisticuffs, but with the cruel use of the printing press.

Early analyses of soft-boys include Seth Cohen, played by Adam Brody in The O.C., and Tom, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt in 500 Days of Summer. Their soft-bad-boy contemporary would be Sebastian, played by Ryan Phillippe in "Cruel Intentions. Elliot in "The Magicians" could be called a soft badboy. He is brusque, party-loving, and deeply sympathetic despite being a villain. He falls somewhere between Quentin the Soft Boy and Penny the Bad Boy. Raphael in Jane the Virgin and Dan Humphrey in Gossip Girl. Soft Boy Joe Goldberg's Soft Bad Boy (he locks you in a glass cage, but only to help you pursue your dream of writing the great American novel, damn it). This archetype is best expressed in television and movie characters, but there is perhaps no better example of the soft bad boy than Drake.

If bad boy Jess Mariano were a soft bad boy, his sardonic wit would remain, but not his combativeness. Instead of Bukowski, he would read Rumi. He would listen to Math Rock (open in new tab) instead of The Clash. He would definitely skip school, but probably to attend a poetry reading. He will probably show Laurie his tears.

What Soft Bad Boy does, and especially what De Sousa seems to do so well, is to take all of Bad Boy's hidden depths, mystery, and defiance, replace the aggression with lofty flirtation and subversive mockery, and present them to you in a subtle and exciting package.

"When you convince them, you have made a fool of them, and then you have won," Leo tells Catherine at their first encounter. She does not say that he ruined her life, but nothing has been the same since.

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