In the spirit of Pride, I wanted to share a story with you…
Early during the pandemic, while researching a script, a fluke YouTube Recommendation for the GMMTV series called He’s Coming to Me introduced me to a Facebook group called BL Pride Nation and sent me down a path that changed the course of my life.
Entirely devoted to the Boys Love series, it’s a safe place for fans of these series to share and discuss their favorite series and actors – and it’s run by some pretty colorful characters (myself included).
Here is a short introduction.
ROSE: Our Keeper of all BL Knowledge (including all our biases).
“My journey to BL started when I was in middle school,” she states. “I discovered Japanese Yaoi mangas and Korean Yaoi Manhwas and loved reading them! But it wasn’t until 2019 that I found out about BL series, movies, and dramas.”
Her first series? The ever-popular Until We Meet Again.
“It’s a great but complicated series to start with,” she laughs. “My eyes lit up! I never knew that there were live-action Yaoi series or dramas.”
She was hooked.
“I did research,” she confesses. “I watched YouTube videos, followed pages on social media, and joined groups on Facebook all related to BL. Then, I found myself drawn to a group, now known as BL Pride Nation, a lot more than other groups because of the interaction and community of active conversations with members.” Due to a lack of leadership memberships, I was given the administrator role. I added other members in the group to leadership positions to help make the group even better. This group and BL have given me some everlasting friendships with people and even a special place in my heart that will last the rest of my life. One of my best friends and I even have matching Bad Buddy tattoos on our wrists because it was the series that started our friendship, and now we’ve been best friends going on a little over 2 years. Some people may think that’s a lot because who would get a BL series tattooed on themselves? It’s permanent. Well, so is BL in my life. Forever will be!”
KIZZY: The One who Always Makes Sure We’re Okay!
“Crazy enough, I discovered BL because of my mom,” she smirks, adjusting her glasses with a smile. “She was always telling me about these Thai BLs and at first I thought to myself I was not into reading subtitles.”
It’s a shared feeling. Subtitles were our enemies, before BL.
“Well, she told me to try the series Tharntype and Until We Meet Again,” again she adjusts her glasses, letting me know it’s about to get serious. “Can I tell you….from then on, I was hooked! Those two series will forever be my top favorites!”
Written by MAME, a prolific (but controversial) author, TharnType is one of the most beloved BL dramas of all time.
“I discovered this by doing a search on facebook, but I rarely posted,” she recalls. “Through one member, Jendayi, and I started communicating privately.”
Jendayi is one of the team who helps run the group. Though currently on leave, she is one of the sweetest people you will ever meet!
“From there,” Kizzy continues. “I met some amazing people and they have become close friends. I love that we all discuss our love for various series and its ok to have different opinions!”
“For me, BL means a lot because it makes you see love in all forms,” she nods with an emotional smile. “I’m proud to be a supporter and all that matters is that you’re happy.”
LI An: One of our newest recruits
Like Rose, LI’s love started at an early age. “I have been open to all kinds of love since middle school, and I have friends from different spectrums of the pride rainbow,” she smiles. “Before Covid, I started seeing posts from my colorful friends about BrightWin and MewGulf – and during quarantine, I was stuck at home struggling to find K(Korean) Dramas that I could binge – since I’d watched pretty much everything,” she giggles. “Then I found 2gether and TharnType on Netflix.”
2gether is one of the series that really put BL dramas on the international map.
“It didn’t matter to me if the leads were both men,” she continues. “But watching them gave me butterflies and made me want more!”
Like Rose (and many of us), she started searching Facebook for groups to connect with.
“BL Pride Nation is the most interactive and friendliest group I found. From updates on the upcoming BL series to discussion of each episode of currently airing dramas, the moderators and members are having fun expressing their love for the genre. One of the best experiences I have had would be the Bad Buddy Rewatch sessions we had while the series was airing. Having friends watch it with you and then having discussions and theories on the next episodes was so much fun! Now that I am one of the group’s moderators ( and I am very honored to be one), I hope to make every member more involved and be able to express themselves freely.”
Teal Norman (another newbie and my rival for the Thai actor Earth Pirapat’s affections)
“My discovery of BLs is similar to a lot of people,” he starts, knowing I have an eye on him, waiting for him to mention MY Earth. “During the peak of the pandemic, I was bored one evening looking for something to watch on Netflix, and I stumbled across the Filipino series Gameboys: The Level Up Edition. I binge-watched the entire show in one sitting, which I never do.”
Gameboys is a lovely series filmed at the start of the pandemic. Though the series leads were not able to interact in person, the smart wiring and brilliant acting have made it a fan favorite and not got a second season but also a theatrically released film.
“A day or two later, I went to Netflix again and was recommended the series SOTUS, Lovesick, and Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (2016). The first I started to watch was SOTUS (often called the granddaddy of Thai BL). In the first episode, there was a hazing/bullying scene, and I actually stopped watching. As a gay man, bullying really bothers me.”
While beloved, the series deals with several sensitive topics, especially for LGBTQ+ individuals who remember life before dating apps and internet fan groups.
“A few days later was looking for something else to watch, and Netflix, of course, was asking if I wanted to continue watching where I left off. I was trying to see how to delete it,” he confesses. “But then, I read the full description and was more intrigued, so I watched the episode and was hooked! To avoid boring myself, I watched the show over a period of maybe a week or two. I always say I was watching the show with an “American sensibility,” so a few cultural elements were lost to me. The way the first season of SOTUS ended just had me wondering so many things, and it felt like the show ended with another season, so I googled “SOTUS season 2,” and that was the first time I really noticed the terms BL and Boys love. The search brought me to the shows like Our Skyy ( an anthology series), which mentioned 5 total BL couples. Of course, I wanted to know the stories of all the couples and watched all of the stories before watching the Our Skyy episodes.”
“If you are wondering why I, as a 40+-year-old gay black man, watch BLs like I do, it’s because, as a young gay/queer person who grew up in the ’90s, I felt very underrepresented,” he says earnestly. “Every gay character before my generation was heavily coded. Yay heard buzzwords/phrases like “eternal bachelor” or even calling their lover their “roommate.” Watching BLs transported me back to the angsty teen version of myself, who always felt left out. So, initially, BL’s just kind of filled that feeling.”
He made it through the entire interview without mentioning my Thai husband, so we got to remain friends.
Moon Ban: The sweet and innocent one.
“I was drawn to BL dramas because they were incredibly feel-good series,” Moon smiles with genuine sincerity. “My first was Addicted, and despite all the toxicity, I loved the story because it had a happy ending, unlike some of the more serious LGBTQ+ movies I’d watched before.”
Addicted is a 2016 Chinese drama that gained incredible popularity both in China and abroad. Despite the groundbreaking success, on February 23, 2016, all episodes of the drama were abruptly removed from all Chinese video streaming websites (three episodes before the season finale) due to its homosexual content and the government wanting to pretend that queer people do not actually exist.
“Addicted was flowed by a bunch of pretty amazing Thai and Japanese BL series. It will be sometime toward the middle of 2020. Junish, I was a member of more than 10 BL groups on Facebook. A majority of those groups were simply sharing screenshots or even entire episodes,” Moon recalls. “A few were discussion groups, but almost 90% were in Tagalog or Thai with a smattering of English words thrown in. I’d still persevere with the help of fb translate until totally, by chance, I came upon one particular regular poster who used to write amazingly erudite detailed analyses of the LL dramas. She happened to be a member of BL Pride.”
BL Pride was what the group was originally called.
“I joined in and discovered a gold mine!” Moon laughs with innocent excitement. “Multiple English-speaking group members, who wrote and actively responded to others’ comments, continued friendly discussions and were adults with a great sense of humor!”
At that time, the group at that point had just one admin, a young student who was too busy to filter anything- so there was a lot of spam.
“Luckily,” Moon recalls. “Rose stepped in and became a moderator, followed by Jen, and all the rest of us who made the group what it is today!”
As for me, myself, the group introduced me not only to several amazing series, but all the wonderful people listed above – and a few other individuals who have become lifelong friends. It’s also where I first heard about My Love Mix-Up the Japanese BL drama that literally changed the trajectory of my career by introducing me to the legendary Johnny & Associates.
The group will always have a special place in my heart, as will these crazy/beautiful human beings I am lucky enough to call my friends.
So, if you’re a BL fan looking to join a fun and lively group, check us out here. We may be nuts, but we’re wonderful!
More BL series soon so…
Stay Tuned!
Life In Cartoon Motion 