The Problems with BOYFRIENDS + Why People are SO ANGRY. || SPEEDPAINT + COMMENTARY

There are 4 lesbians in this comic wich are bluntly shown to be the genderswap of the main 4 - one is the jock's sister for example

15:20 I've seen quite a few ppl actually say "I HATE the boyfriends they're all sucky tropes! But the Girlfriends are cute uwu queens I love them" like???? They're literally just genderbends of the boys. They are all the same tropes, just Sapphic. Yet they somehow they aren't getting the same fetishization and unrealism shit getting thrown at them??? Make it make sense???

I think a big problem is that people can't simply not like things anymore. They have to find a moral failing of the property so that they can feel justified in their dislike and can feel morally superior to those that do.

The amount of times I’ve seen people being really transphobic/homophobic to the creator is really disgusting. They keep misgendering him and whenever you corrected them by saying that Ray is a guy, they still keep calling him a girl or say that the comic is written by a straight girl. Ray may have done some questionable things but that does not give you a excuse to be transphobic/homophobic to him

as a gay guy, regarding the comic itself I had put the whole thing under "suspension of disbelief", considering literally every aspect of it seems overblown. I don't read that kind of comic myself, but I definitely see how people would just want something to escape reality into. I didn't really find the comic offensive, but regarding the artist's actions though..... yikes

I do wanna adress something that came out from hate that is fucking stupid. It's about Goth and that he's Ace and he has sex with his boyfriends. Yes, people are complaining about it....... So I'll just say what's important ASEXUALITY =/= SEX REPLUSION!! I'm in the ace spectrum, I have high libido and I fluctuate between sex positive and sex replused, so fucking drives me insane when someone actually made this 'criticism' about Goth.

For me, it's not infantilizing, at least not inherently. The artist is a trans gay man from a homophobic and transphobic country, and I live in a homophobic and transphobic area of my country. It is meant as an escape, not an dissertation about gay relationships. If they or I wrote an 'realistic' story, the story would be a closeted person at best, or homophobia hurled at them frequently. Too many people think 'realism' would just be relationship issues, not the abuse that people in homophobic areas still have to face. They forget that there are still people who NEED an escapist story to escape from their reality, because their reality still hates them. A bit mean to teens, but so many of them seem to be in places where full-force homophobia isn't present. If they were, a rom-com that is done in an escapist way wouldn't be the bigger focus than the homophobia keeping them unsafe.

Say it with me now: Queer 👏Media 👏 Shouldn't 👏 Have 👏 To 👏 Be 👏 Thrice 👏 As 👏 Good 👏 As 👏 Straight 👏 Media 👏 To 👏 Be 👏 Allowed 👏 To 👏Exist 👏

I get not liking happy-go-lucky escapism soft uwu stuff, but there ARE couples like that! I lived with a queer couple like that! They never fought in a yelling or damatic, they were super gentle and communicative with eachother. They would go out of their way to support one another and quite literally "Oh its OK bb let me make you some tea and get you a blanket and we can watch a show and cuddle." Stuff like that is how they made eachither feel seen, understood, and loved. Being soft and caring and extremely anti-drama isn't... bad lol. It isn't even necessarily boring. There can be drama that isn't relationship based. People can have a wholesome soft relationship AND tackle life drama. Other stuff, especially about the author, I get being mad about, but this? Literally just people being soft and sweet to eachother? Very clearly in a way that is mutual and appreciated? Way to say you don't get healthy, supportive relationships lol.

It’s the ‘stereotype’ argument that gets me, I always like tropes of bully/nerd wether it’s gay or straight as a wlw, then you have Thomas sanders who does characters that are goth [virgil] nerd [logan] prep [patton] and so on, creatives take archetypes like the four humours like leader types, jokers etc and like to mess with dynamics. The worst part is that protaganists that are white/cis can be whatever archetype or be a jerk or lovable and no one cares but lgbt HAS to be on a pedestal. Has to be ‘good’ rep implying that lgbt can’t be shown as anything other than ‘perfect’ we’re just people, messy humans a story is a story just because it has lgbt elements doesn’t inmedietly make it propoganda.

I do not know why people expect nuanced representation in a comic that has the characters literally named after the stereotypes they portray. Now, if the comic puts out any harmful messages criticism is necessary but I have seen many people disappointed in the lack of nuance this relationship has and I just do not know why people had that expectation in the first place.

i do not trust the people saying it's forced representation, they're just outing themselves as believing that gay people need to constantly justify their existence and should be reduced to secondary characters

Personally as a gay guy this whole situation disgusts me. Not because I read the comic as 'stereotyping', but the fact that this comic was created by a gay man and people are criticizing the comic for being 'fetish work'. The whole hate mob really shows to me that not even queer creators are safe from creating works that related to ourselves. The people complaining about this comic because of the 'stereotyping' is implying that if you are gay and act in/live in a way that seems stereotyping and you write about it, you are harming gay people. Which is? Who are you to judge how the hell someone lives? Going to be honest, I read Boyfriends for the hell of it but had to stop due to the drama being a constant reminder that content creators can get lambasted for writing stories with themselves being the target demographic. This may sound stupid but this drama is the only thing that causes me panic attacks because of the really fucking terrible implications the hate towards the creator have, and then people who you actively look up to/think are good hearted ccs are also bashing this person. Yeah. The creator has done bad shit. That I won't deny. But if you've seen the people 'criticizing' , you'll notice how close it is to straight up playground bullying. From how I see it, a mob of people is treating this creator like he is worse than MAPS for writing a GAY COMIC pulling from his own experiences as a GAY MAN. Holy shit.

As a gay guy, i really like the boyfriends webtoon, and it helped me a lot in the process of accepting myself and my sexuality, reading a story where guys fell in love without drama and conflict that were allowed to just exist, made me be with way more peace about this side of my identity, i understand why people dislike it, but i don't think it's fair to hate everyone that likes the comic, i stopped showing support publicly when people started sending me death threats, over a silly romance comic!! People are allowed to dislike it, but i just want to like this thing without being shamed for it

As a bisexual dude who read the comics WAY before I saw any of the ads, I actually really loved them and found them to be a source of tremendous comfort! It’s weird how controversial the comic is outside of the actual art itself!

As a gay guy, I find this comic silly and cute. Yes the characters are very stereotypical, but it’s literally the point ! I wouldn’t say that it’s my favorite thing to read, but I usually have a good time when I do :(

As a gay Jew, I'm pretty much on Refrainbow's side for all of this. The "antiemitism satire" was sloppy and poorly executed, but I'm not gonna hold a grudge against a random minor with no followers on how well they satirize antisemitism in a semi-public 1-on-1 conversation with a friend. And I'm especially not gonna hold that grudge for 6 years just because they became a micro-celebrity. They addressed it, cleared it up, and if anything I'm relieved that they thought antisemitism was stupid even when they probably didn't know any Jews. As for the comic itself - I think it's fine. In terms of representation I think it's largely a positive, because it portrays a sexually active polyamorous relationship in a wholesome manner that's standard for the genre. The characters are mostly flat but it's not the kind of story that warrants much character development, and while it's nothing incredible I think the story is a nice read when it updates. I don't understand how people can act like the characters are gay stereotypes - these are archetypes I rarely see get to be gay at all. To use your Mean Girls analogy; Prep is a Plastic, while Goth is a Janis Ian. Pre-existing tropes that straight people have all the time in popular media. But the gay guy in Mean Girls, Damian Leigh, isn't a prep like the plastics or a goth like Janis. He's not a nerd or a jock. He's a gay guy - that's his stereotype. He isn't defined by money and status, nor by attitude and aptitude. He's defined by his orientation; obsessed with the glitz and glam of Hollywood, talking about fashion, and constantly using his identity as the butt of a joke. The idea that someone can look at the characters in Boyfriends and see Damien Leigh or Kurt Hummel is infuriating, because they're acting like the homophobic part of those characters was wearing ascots, not that their entire identity revolved around being a sassy, self-deprecating jester.

I haven't read the full comic but there are female characters that are basically genderbends of the Boyfriends called the Girlfriends and people pull the hypocrit card by saying the comic is good only because they are in a lesbian poly relationship

I wish people would just stop throwing around the word fetishization. You made an amazing point that if the tables were turned and it was a straight relationship no one would have an issue. I think us having representation in all types of media is amazing! Also being stereotypical and stereotyping are two completely different things. Also the Creator is gay, trans, and Asian. So literally every argument I've seen goes out the window.

Thank you so much for talking about this. As someone who first met and adored the comic back when it was on Canvas and didn't reach so much controversy, I have a slight sentimentality to the comic, even if its no longer for the story itself. It was one of the comics that inspired me to continue on to do comics myself. Though I don't mind the dislike for it- I can understand why- there was a period of time where my feed was filled with so much misplaced hate on the comic, despite my numerous attempts to remove myself from that area. The worst part for me I suppose was the spread of misinformation and both intentional/unintentional transphobia. There were numerous times where I've seen people misgender the author and hate so viciously on the four main characters for the littlest things, (though i will admit the voiceovers in the ads are atrocious). As an Asian who struggles with imposter syndrome when it comes to polyamory, asexuality and trans masculinity, a lot of the comments people said made it hard for me to say anything, especially those that tried to make strict definitions of those labels and hated on the comic for not abiding to them. I dunno, I haven't been a dedicated reader for a very long time, nor do I entirely support the creator, I'm just tired. mostly of twitter. especially twitter. also f**k webtoon ads we all hate webtoon ads