History StepfordSmiler / Music

* One of the interpretations of Music/{{BTS}}' "Fake Love" is that it describes the relationship many Kpop idols have with their fans, with companies creating an idealized, sanitized version of artists through make-up, editing, and control of their image through ContractualPurity, which idols maintain in order to make their fans happy.
--->''Why you sad? I don't know, I don't know''
--->'''Smile, and say I love you'''
--->''Look at me. I even gave up on myself''
--->''Even you can't understand me.''
** The entire concept of the ''LOVE YOURSELF'' album series - which "Fake Love" is part of - is based on the idea of a person hiding their true self (sadness, pain, mental illness, external or internal flaws) from their loved one to maintain the relationship; "Fake Love" and ''LOVE YOURSELF: Tear'' is the point where the person realizes they've [[LossOfIdentity lost themself]] [[BecomingTheMask in the process]], and the relationship becomes unsustainable due to being based on lies. This concept (which as shown above, has also been interpreted as a commentary on idols) is made especially explicit in "Outro: Her":
--->''[[BeneathTheMask Because the me behind this mask]]''
--->''Is not the one you know''
--->''Make up to wake up today too''
--->''And dress up to mask on''
--->''In order to become the me that you love''

-->Now if there's a smile on my face
-->It's only there trying to fool the public
-->But when it comes down to fooling you
-->Now honey, that's quite a different subject
-->But don't let my glad expression
-->Give you the wrong impression
-->Really I'm sad, oh I'm sadder than sad
-->You're gone and I'm hurtin' so bad
-->Like a clown I pretend to be glad

Can't believe life take this long\\

* The subject of "Everybody's Fool" by Music/{{Evanescence}} is somewhere between Depressed and Empty. In the video, the dissonance between the facade and the emptiness inside results in some
-->Look, here she comes now\\

And somehow you've got everybody fooled

-->''I know who you really are''
-->''You're the one who cries when you're alone''

-->I've hammered a smile across this pasty face of mine
-->since the day I was born in 1975.

* The song "Ah, but Underneath" from ''Theatre/{{Follies}}.'' The entire song sings about a woman who seemed to be something on the surface, but was something different underneath the top layer. But that layer, too, was "just a shell," and so it continues. The very last line is "Sometimes when the wrappings fall, there's nothing underneath at all!" making this Emptiness.

My heart is in pain but I'm smiling for you.\\

* LetsPlay/{{Dream}}'s "Mask" is about how he puts on a symbolic smiley face mask to hide his true feelings from everyone, using his iconic (and literal) smiley face mask to represent it.

* The song "The Great Pretender" describes this kind of person, who puts on a happy facade to hide their sadness about losing a lover.

* Implied in Music/{{Jimin}}'s "Like Crazy" video when Jimin parties with others in the club but is visibly sadder when no one is looking and [[BathroomStallAngst angsts when he is alone in the bathroom]], seeing the walls move apart to expose a void around him before coming back together..

* The video for Music/CyndiLauper's [[ADateWithRosiePalms "She Bop"]] opens with teenagers walking along as mindless zombies entering [[BurgerFool a burger joint]] and walking out with burgers and shakes eerily grinning and nodding their heads.

* Morrissey (in his solo career after Music/TheSmiths) has "When I Last Spoke To Carol" where she said:

* Music/CharlieChaplin's "Smile":

* "Smiling Faces Sometimes", sung by The Temptations, the Undisputed Truth, David Ruffin solo...

* The Simon and Garfunkel song "Richard Cory," based on the Edward Arlington Robinson poem. The song's chorus, an {{Everyman}} wishing he could be Richard Cory, becomes ironic when repeated one final time after we learn about Cory's suicidal depression.

* Paramore's "Brick By Boring Brick" has shades of this:

* Charlie Chaplin's "Smile":

** "Tears of a Clown" is practically the musical TropeCodifier.

* The song "Happy Go Lucky" by Steps is made of this trope.
* "Facade" by Music/{{Disturbed}}.

* Everclear's "Wonderful" hints at this.

* "Lucky" by Music/BritneySpears. The video shows it perfectly!
** Don't even BEGIN to forget about the music video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aEnnH6t8Ts "If U Seek Amy"]].
* The song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl_QbG5RTPg&feature=channel_video_title "Eight Hundred"]] by Pinocchio-P.

* Nick Cave's "Good Son".

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z4m4lnjxkY Eduard Khil]], to the point of MemeticMutation.

* Siouxsie and the Banshees' "Happy House".

* Go relisten to "Don't Worry, Be Happy" by Bobby [=McFerrin=]. That bouncy, happy a cappella track [[LyricalDissonance hides one grim song]].

* "Don't Let It Show" by Music/TheAlanParsonsProject.

* "Apple Pie" by the BastardFairies is very unsympathetic look at one of these.

* The narrator of Music/KellyClarkson's [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OASqys4_mIY "Cry"]] seems to be convincing themselves to become one of these.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/crazycodcopingsmiler.png]]

* Music/MarinaAndTheDiamonds' "Teen Idle" manages to do this with just one line:

* The song "[[Franchise/EvilliousChronicles Gift from the Princess who Brought Sleep]]" by Music/{{Mothy}}. More specifically, the character who sings it, Margarita Blankenheim (played by Music/{{Vocaloid}} Hatsune Miku).

[[TitleDrop Disordered Self-Restraint Girl]]\\

* Music/{{Sia}}'s "Chandelier" is about a depressed HardDrinkingPartyGirl who turns to a night of drunken debauchery to try and push down a gnawing sense of fear and distress.
-->Help me, I'm holding on for dear life\\

** She also has "Unstoppable":
--> Leave my sunglasses on while I shed a tear\\

* Very much in the same way, Music/ToveLo portrays one of these in her song ''Habits'', especially in the music video. The HardDrinkingPartyGirl persona of her alter ego in the song is just a facade to cope with losing "her" lover, and the facade crumbles at several points in said video.

* Music/LoverAndLiars' song "I'm Not Him" is about a man trying to comfort a woman who has been hurt by an ex. The woman hides most of her pain:
-->You smile on the inside and die from within.
-->You lock away your secrets behind your body and skin

* The narrator of Kelly Clarkson's [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OASqys4_mIY "Cry"]] seems to be convincing themselves to become one of these.

* Music/RageAgainstTheReflection