Harnessing a powerful global phenomenon to crush homophobia. It is called BL and I will explain.
I know some of you will think this is crazy, but hear me out.
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Introduction.
We need to look for strategic opportunities to fight back against homophobia. Since we have limited resources and time, we need to select for high impact, low effort things we can do. I have realized that Gays can harness this global mega phenomenon to fight homophobia.
When the Youtube account of Nigerian BL Fan Girl appeared on YouTube I suddenly realized that BL was going to be a major global force against homophobia. In homophobic Nigeria, there is a BL subculture and a Nigerian is is running a YouTube review channel. Also, I realized that there were opportunities for Gays to easily help this phenomenon move forward and crush homophobia globally.
https://www.youtube.com/@BL_FANGIRL222
A lot of the BL reviewers use text vocalizations rather than their own voices.
What is BL?
It is an abbreviation for Boyzu Lovu, a Japanese Expression for romances of men who love men. It is written by straight women for straight women. It is popular since they can explore romance and also other interpersonal sexual themes without feeling threaten, since it is happening between two men.
The fan base has been almost all women who are called fujoshi, meaning “rotten girl” in Japanese. There is a Gay fan base of a few percent, and they are call fudanshi, meaning “rotten boy.”
The genera exists as graphic novels, novels, and video series. They can be both explicit or to escape Chinese censorship, filmed as bromances with fairly obvious undertones.
The story line typically is that they will first be in conflict, then while in conflict develop feelings for each other leading towards romance. This is called, “Enemies to Lovers” plot. Most BLs have this plot line.
This is a good example of that plot. This is now available for free.
https://www.viki.com/tv/38375c-semantic-error
BL productions are same sex romances and can involve same sex sexual activities, however, they are NOT Gay. They are same sex relationships as imagined by straight women for straight women and in some ways are hilarious. There are differences which in some are not obvious, but in others very obvious. The BL fan base doesn’t comprehend that BL and Gay are two different things.
The BL stores are also in denial of reality. Some BL romances have two straight men fall in love with each other and end up having sexual relationships. In some cases they Google how to have sex.
“HIStory 4” is available free on Viki. Two of the main characters are straight and fall in love. The other two, are two individuals who are brothers because their parents married. One of the two brothers gets the other brother drunk with a drink to have sex without consent, but they end up in a relationship. Again, these are written for straight women by straight women.
https://mydramalist.com/people/35687-shao-hui-ting
https://mydramalist.com/681839-history4-close-to-you
https://www.viki.com/tv/37587c-history-4-close-to-you
Make sure you select the English subtitles.
In the drama “Big Dragon”, (2022) two guys competing for a woman end up with one of the guys drugging the other and raping him. The end up as lovers.
https://www.viki.com/tv/38883c-big-dragon-the-series
You might think that women might have objections to romances involving sex without consent. The fujoshi break down into three catagories: 1) Those who object, a minority; 2) Those who are unaware of the implications; 3) Those who are aware of the implications, but want to watch it anyways or even because of this particular aspect of the story.
Since the drama is projected on to men, their fan base doesn’t feel threaten by it, and many are very unaware of what these dramas might say about themselves. Though there is some discussion developing among some BL fans, but others when they review these types of BL which are called “dark” BLs squeal with delight. They have an audience since they continue to be made.
In the past the BL’s were romantic and any sexual activities were slow to occur. One observation is that often they don’t kiss until the ninth episode and sex in the eleventh episode, though lately BL fans have become somewhat more knowledgeable about Gay life and some of the dramas will have sex at the beginning of the story, but the story will be how they find true love later instead of only physical attraction.
Given that these are produced in East Asia, reincarnation can be involved. A couple has a tragic end, and they find each other later when reincarnated. One variation is that they were a heterosexual couple in the previous life and when reincarnated they were both men.
The genera started out in Japan, but has spread to South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand as major producers, but there is also BL productions done in Vietnam and Philippines. There have been one or two BL productions in Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia. The three primary producers are Taiwan, Thailand, and South Korea.
China was once the leading force in BL productions, on par with Japan, but the Chinese Communist Party didn’t approve of BL and they suppressed the dramas and then suppressed the bromances that were then done to evade the censorship. Often a BL novel was made into a video series as a bromance to evade censorship, but this has stopped also since the Chinese Communist Party has suppressed that also.
There are dramas have people pursing others and not accepting the word no. The dramas can be between professors and students, bosses and subordinates, and can involve rape. More recently over the last few years this has resulted in some discussion, but the aggressive to rape dramas have a fan base of straight women who very much like them and they continue to be produced. There is some discussion among straight women whether some of these themes are really acceptable, but there is a sizeable number of straight women who want them.
Often the villain is a woman who doesn’t accept the reality of the same sex relationship. In HIStory2, a romance develops between a professor and a student that he hired to help take care of his child. The professor’s wife had left him and the child behind to pursue a life of freedom. She returns, because as the story later reveals, her life wasn’t going well and wanted to retreat back in the marriage. There is an episode where she kidnaps her daughter from the school. The drama has her as foolish rather than evil. Other BLs have the female antagonist to the BL romance as evil.
https://www.viki.com/tv/36096c-history-2
The kidnapping starts at 19:42.
Again, these novels are not the output of some diabolical patriarchy, but straight women writing for straight women. Once the drama is created with two men, inhibitions, taboos, restraints vanish. Though there is some discussion about this in the last couple years, but even so, the producers of BL continue to produce the same content. I think straight women are still watching privately this material.
This is a somewhat old article which is about BL when it was largely a Japanese phenomenon when it was largely anime.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-japanese-women-who-love-gay-anime
https://asia.nikkei.com/Life-Arts/Arts/Why-Chinese-women-are-falling-for-boys-love-fiction
Much of the genre is sentimental and rather high in sugar, but not all. There is a variation from national group to national group in terms of some of these themes.
Many of the plots rely on very improbable coincidences.
A good and somewhat comical send up of the cliches of BL is a drama on Viki titled, “A Man Who Defies the World of BL,” with a protagonist who one day as a high school student realizes that he exists in BL reality and reads carefully BL novels to learn the genera to avoid falling in love with another man. It was so comical, the series was extended twice.
https://www.viki.com/tv/37904c-a-man-who-defies-the-world-of-bl
https://www.viki.com/tv/38419c-a-man-who-defies-the-world-of-bl-2
In the drama. “Fujoshi Ukkari goi ni kokuru,” the Gay teenager has a high school fujoshi friend. Part of the series is the commentary by the Gay high schooler on how BL is a fantasy and not like real Gay life.
https://mydramalist.com/34090-fujoshi-ukkari-gei-ni-kokuru
The graphic novels are very explicit. Almost always when one man is fucking another, there are cross-sectional type illustrations of the penis inside the rectum.
This is an online database of Manga. It is called Yaoi, but it is somewhat a different thing, thought there are manga made into BLs and the fan base for the manage are also fans for BL. The content is explicit. You have been warned, don’t bother me with your whining if you regret visiting the website.
These novels and series are not Western and incorporate East Asian religious ideas and cosmology. Besides reincarnation, there can be ghosts, Gods, spirits, and divine creatures. There can be time travel and shamans.
The fujoshi are aware that there is an LGBT movement and are very supportive. However, being that this is East Asia, the Gay issues are different than in the United States. In Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand the percentage of Christians is very small. The issues of coming out are often different. Will there be grandchildren is one issue. Sometimes a drama will be about being the only son and carrying out the family name. Religion isn’t an issue. There can be issues with social acceptance.
Suicide is rarely an issue, but when it does happen, it is seen differently than in the West. Suicide can be a declaration of truly great the love was between them.
For example, “The Third Country,” which takes place in China. The rural people block their love. One of them leaves, the other jumps off a cliff and commits suicide. The other love returns and goes up on the same cliff and jumps off to join him.
https://mydramalist.com/26052-third-country
It doesn’t appear available in North America due to georestrictions on GagaOOlala and it seems to be available on DailyMotion.
On the other hand, some of the BL are really insufferably cute.
Many of the dramas have a happy ending and there isn’t any issue with homophobia or coming out to parents or trauma.
Translations vary in quality, but most are good. Viki has the best translations. Some of the translations are somewhat transliterations so you get some insight in how things are stated in that language.
The English language has homonyms, that is words that sound the same, but have different meanings, like, “to”, “two,” and “too.”
Chinese and Thai has intonations, that is where words have in addition to sounds, pitch variations. A group of sounds will have different meanings whether the pitch is rising, flat, descending and other variations. So you can have a type of pun where the word sounds are the same, but the intonation is different. Viki usually explains these puns. Others don’t.
Chinese movies for Chinese audiences will often have Chinese subtitles, since the characters speak Mandarin, but the viewers don’t speak that Chinese dialect.
East Asian religious elements and Gods are often incorporated into these dramas. Many of the Chinese dramas will have a Taoist temple involved and the Thai dramas will incorporate Thai religious elements.
“Marry My Dead Body” involves a ghost marriage at a Taoist temple. It is currently on Netflix.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marry_My_Dead_Body
In “Stay by My Side,” the protagonist is from a family which has a Taoist temple who fears ghosts and has the unwanted ability to hear ghosts which talk to him regardless. He meets a fellow student at the university whose close proximity silences the ghosts. This fellow student also is interested in him for a relationship.
https://www.viki.com/tv/39933c-stay-by-my-side It is also on GagaOOlala.
In “The Sign,” a 2024 drama, the two lovers are reincarnations of semi-divine beings, one a Naga and one a Garuda. The Garuda is a national symbol of Thailand and royalty and is on the Bhat banknotes. The drama involved the conflict of semi-divine beings and the intervention of a Buddhist priest to forestall evil. A heterosexual couple of a past life, have been reincarnated as two men who are police officers in some type of elite crime fighting unit. One has visions which gives him clues as to what is going to happen and he also can have premonitions.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYYyUhZKiEj5XgE3QYm10cAIhg2aNO--a
This is “Sweet Curse,” a Korean production. The villain hopes to have a ghost scare a Korean guy he is interested in to seek him for protection. Instead the ghost and the Korean guy establish a relationship.
https://www.gagaoolala.com/en/videos/2301/sweet-curse-2021
Of course since a large percentage the audience are women, there are vampire BLs also. This channel, Thai BL has 214,000 followers and this video had 89,000 viewers. This person is using a text to voice to do the review.
The fans of BL are very emotionally involved and committed to the genera and can be hostile to those who are against it.
When BL fans stumble across actual Gay movies, they judge them as BLs and sometimes are shocked. One BL fan was so upset by the casual sex in “First Love,” that in her Mydramalist review she thought two entirely different characters were the same person, and also she advised fast forwarding through the sex scenes.
https://www.gagaoolala.com/en/videos/2178/first-love-2007
Similarly this drama produced by Heesay, shocked BL viewers. The Respectability Gay ideology permeating it, escaped them entirely, instead the sex was shocking to them as revealed in their Mydramalist reviews of the series.
https://bluedstudioorgihome.wordpress.com/2019/04/01/orgiepisodes/
There are numerous online influencers doing reviews of BLs and announcing new BLs that are going to be released on YouTube and other platforms in multiple languages.
There are also reaction videos where one or more individuals watch the video and comment.
Music is composed for BL series and theme songs are often marketed.
Scope
The fan base has spread out globally. The videos are found on YouTube and they are also provided by services like IQIYI, Viki, GagaOOlala, Billibilli. There are other bootleg providers, but you should make sure you have good security software to protect your computer.
Mydramalist is an index of Asian dramas for Thailand, China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan.
The series are mostly based on BL novels that were published online and got mass followings.
“The Guardian,” the Chinese term for BL is danmei, which was a male-male romance published in 2012, made in to a series released June 13, 2018, and by August 2018 it had had 1.8 Billion views. It was pulled from the web by a Chinese Communist Party crack down, but was put back online. It is still being watched today on different platforms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardian_(web_series)
https://mydramalist.com/26035-guardian
“The Untamed” when published as a novel was explicitly BL and had homoerotic scenes, but was censored for release in the Chinese market. It had 50 episodes. It was released on the TenCent platform and it had 9.5 billion views by June 2021. It has been watched world wide by many others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Untamed_(TV_series)
https://www.viki.com/tv/36657c-the-untamed
“Addicted” was very popular and so popular it attracted the attention of the Chinese Communist Party and the last three episodes were not released.
“Addicted,” based on a novel, l "Are You Addicted?" (你丫上瘾了) by Chai Ji Dan (柴鸡蛋). Addiction refers to obsession in love.
The drama got 10 million views the first day.
https://time.com/4236864/china-gay-drama-homosexuality/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addicted_(web_series)
https://mydramalist.com/16549-addicted-heroin
It is online on Viki. No statistics are available, but likely the number of viewers is huge.
https://www.viki.com/tv/30705c-addicted
Also on YouTube.
What is notable, is that it has been translated into 24 languages: Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Urdu (language of Pakistan) and Vietnamese.
Even though Indonesia, Malaysia, and Pakistan are Muslim, they have a BL fan base.
This YouTube channel had a video to explain “Addicted” in Hindi. It has had 40,000 views.
The Thai series “2gether,” had at least 100 million views on Line TV, which is only one of the platforms it appeared on.
https://k7.media/2022/12/12/pink-economy-from-boy-love-and-beyond/
When these BL series finally appear on YouTube, after being released on various platforms, they still get large number of viewers from the rest of the world outside Asia who aren’t subscribers to any of the platforms.
For example, “Addicted” on YouTube with English Subs, has had a little over 3 million views since Feb. 19, 2016. It is likely being watched elsewhere.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSIJismKOisE-y98UKhxSXJkM3dIml5wo
Much of the fan base is younger than 18 and they don’t have credit cards to sign up for services. They utilize the online free series on YouTube or other sources. Daily Motion will sometimes have series of varying quality and it is not clear to the author of this essay whether they are compliant with copyrights or not. There are other online sources which seem to be bootlegged. YouTube itself has some content which raises questions with this author.
Some of the fans don’t have the money to spend at these platforms. Though the fees might seem small to Americans, to those with limited means in East Asia, they can seem expensive.
What the existence of these alternative sources and their consumers tells us, is that this is a fan base which is very determined to access content.
The stars of the Thai series often travel overseas and have events in other nations where they meet their enthusiastic fans.
BL fans will have YouTube channels where they review current and upcoming BL series very enthusiastically.
Though it is hard to get statistics for the world wide consumption of BL dramas, it clearly has a huge global following. This isn’t some niche interest followed by a small group.
Interest is rapidly spreading around the world and has started to find a following in the United States. These two reviewers are not that atypical. Though a lot of the reviewers are not like this. Warning: You won’t be able to unsee this.
Soft power
Soft power is the power for a nation deriving from economic and cultural influence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_power
The production of Thai BL and its export brings in revenue, but it is also a source of soft power for Thailand. Tens of millions of viewers develop sympathetic feelings for Thailand and theses viewers are distributed globally.
The success of Thai BL becomes an interest of the nation since it supports state power and the success of Thailand in international affairs.
Of course being an international leader in BL production would be contradicted by homophobic national policies, so supporting this state power results in national support for LGBT. So support for LGBT becomes more than a social justice project, it is a project of national power.
This is recognized in Thai media.
This is the English language version of Thai Public Broadcasting. “Thailand’s BL series have increased Thailand’s soft power.”
https://www.thaipbsworld.com/thailands-bl-series-have-increased-thailands-soft-power/
Another Thai publication with an English version.
This is a professor at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok discussing BL and Thai soft power in Latin America.
Academics and others have recognized this.
https://thediplomat.com/2023/08/what-the-korean-wave-can-teach-thailand-about-soft-power/
https://www.economist.com/asia/2023/03/09/are-thailands-gay-tv-dramas-the-next-k-pop
“Boys Love Media in Thailand: Celebrity, Fans, and Transnational Asian Queer Popular Culture.”
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02560046.2024.2361352
“Series wai is not just a Thai version of Japanese Boy’s Love,” at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands mentions Thai soft power.
https://studenttheses.universiteitleiden.nl/access/item%3A3515312/view
For Americans what would any discussion about national power be without it being made an arms race. “The West can’t keep up with the East in telling mainstream queer love stories in TV and movies,” is the title of this article. It tells of how it has shifted public attitudes towards LGBT in East and Southeast Asian nations.
https://www.salon.com/2023/10/01/bl-queer-tv-romance-asia-thailand-korea-soft-power/
Also, there is discussion that China is forgoing the soft power. Homophobia is connected to the loss of national soft power.
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/5K4R3FDN3C8RYB39VYKY/full?target=10.1080%2F14680777.2021.19593
Chinese Censorship
China was the leader in BL soft power, but the Chinese Communist Party with its old fogey leadership banned it.
https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1008539
How do Gays harness BL to crush homophobia?
This is a low effort, high impact action we can take.
We help the BL phenomenon along. We try to assist in it being popular where it isn’t. If the United States had 10 million BL fans, the homophobes here were be the object of their ire. Homophobia in the United States would be steam rolled.
Gays can help BL get more fans in the United States by just posting some links to BL dramas on their social media timelines with some commentary. Some of the Gay person’s social media followers, who are the same demographic of BL fans elsewhere will likely be interested and when they become interested will tell others, it will grow a fan base.
Another thing to do is share a link to a social media group about BL. There are Facebook groups and Reddit groups and perhaps groups in other social media.
Currently most Americans don’t know BL exists and so don’t even know where to find BL dramas or know which are the ones most likely to hold their interest. Likely if you post on your social media just one BL item with a link to the provider, you likely will get some people in its typical demographic interested.
You don’t have to watch BL or like it, you just have to do some work to publicize it. I will provide some links to BLs that are popular and some BL providers in an appendix.
The following is a list of BLs which I have suggested so far. As each week suggests a BL, I will add it in this directory.
APPENDIX
Major Social Media groups for BL.
Reddit has https://www.reddit.com/r/boyslove/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/ThaiBL/
Facebook has these groups.
BL Community
https://www.facebook.com/groups/768306387563813
BL Kajan 2.0
https://www.facebook.com/groups/477377196640187
Let me know what I should add here.
Major BL providers
GagaOOlala based in Taiwan and has Korean, Japanese, and Thai BLs. The older ones are free.
IQIYI Has Korean and Thai BLs
BilliBilli is free. You will want the English language site.
Vimeo has some producers. The most important are Strongberry and Matchbox films, which are Korean. Strongberry is also on YouTube now.
https://vimeo.com/strongberrykr
https://www.bilibili.tv/en
YouTube has quite a few. You just need to search with the term BL. Be aware that some YouTube channels will push bromance claiming it to be BL.
GMMTV is one of the major producers of BL found on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/@gmmtv
Popular BL series.
I will be building this section up over the next month.
Korean
Chinese Mainland
Taiwan
Thailand
Vietnam
Myanmar
Others
Manipur, a state of India next to Burma.
It is ethnically of a Mongoloid race like the Chinese. They speak a language which is in the family of Tibetan-Burmese languages. This has Enlish subtitles.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAqK-5d66u78KTbNr5mL8W34y2CSKVq6W
bl fairly fun for exactly the reasons stated. I love the raw unfiltered comments.
The idea of it being soft power is fresh and 🤩