Boyfriends gets way too much hate and doesn’t deserve it. It’s not for everyone and not everyone has to read it, but it’s a comic by a queer, ace, transman who has been bullied relentlessly for marketing practices that are not his fault.
Yeah, plus the art style is cute and the colors match well. The backlash is because of misinformation: saying the Nerd is the creator's persona, when it's Goth. Then people say that Refrainbow was a pro shipper and was fetishizing gay relationships and polygamy. If it was a gay cis man writing Boyfriends or even a cis woman, I doubt people would say he's fetishizing.
In a hypothetical scenario if the creator was a cis-woman there would be backlash. There's backlash in the BL space of women reading or creating content like that anyway and getting called fetishizers, existing that they want to be/ or are "cosplaying" as gay men, or other vitriolic claims that come up every year.
However, a lot of the shit Refrainbow went through was absolutely heinous.
Ah yes, they definitely would. These criticisms often come from people that don't understand that like any romance gender, it's just a type of media but there's two men, meanwhile I rarely see criticisms against Yuri (even though there's Yuri's I've seen that are way toxic than Yaoi, but honestly? I like Yuri lol)
But even so, they still have a following fan base and the majority of these cis women are all lumped together so they're criticized as a whole. But Refrainbow was a victim of Tik Tok videos, misinformation, YT videos and has been judged for things he said in the past as a kid, people still bring this up, like the post above and the screenshot, so Refrainbow is criticized individually. I think it's because deep down, his identity as a trans man also helped with it, because there's this stigma around that gay trans men are actually "yaoi fetishizer girls who wanna hook up with men"... And the allegations of pro shipping
Yuri/WLW content gets the lack of criticism or backlash it does is due to sexism (essentially women, even if the content is about women being with other women) are seen as objects that are there for entertainment.
Yeah unfortunately the "wannabe gay man" argument has been around forever and was still being lobbed around heavily on the early '00s. Every year I hope it disappears of the face of the planet but here we are.
In all cases where I've seen this happen it usually devolves into people calling for the "own voices" movement/rhetoric, a belief that all kinds of queer rep should only be made by the people that identify as that identity.
And I hate that idea because usually the same arguments that people make about BL (or also about women reading BL) is also predominant in content made by gay men for gay men.
Also, my unpopular take is that some of its genuinely bad and I'll laugh my way into an early grave if anyone entry says the Eating Out film series is good.
He's not fetishizing but he is, and has stated before, a proshipper. I'm allowed to be uncomfortable with someone who is "neutral" on people who happily romanticize pedophilia in fiction.
Look, there's a difference between proshipping and fetishizing. Fetishes are sexual fantasies, proshipping in fandom culture means to let people ship characters you want without harassment, ship and let it ship. The definition hasn't changed just because Tik Tok fast takes and discourse discovered and appropriated the term without any real nuance or understanding behind it.
Even if Refrainbow is a proshipper, so what? People are allowed to have different views in fandom media, shipping characters isn't romanticizing pedophilia as you say because they're not real characters. And if you're talking about the Boyfriend's comics, the characters are all adults, so they can consent (following your logic, so nothing wrong with it, and there's nothing wrong even if the creator fetishized his own characters, because they're grown-ups). So what's the deal? This witch-hunting has been happening since 2022/2021, it's 2025 and people still insist in this, this is just harassing a queer content creator. Tik Tok, YouTube Videos individually targeting him. You don't see this with any other webtoon creator, BL writers are grouped as a whole and judged together but for some reason, people judge Refrainbow directly, the internet has a weird relationship with queer creators.
And you can feel free to be uncomfortable, you're allowed to feel how you feel but that doesn't give you the right to try to police content or creators. Find communities that match your comfort level and let other people exist.
I've misread your comment, but once more if you're not willing to engage in good faith and understand what proshipping truly means without reducing it to "kids and adults", as well as insulting me, it's clear I won't waste my time, I've explained what It means to be a proshipper but you really don't care. You should stop policing fandoms and go to a space where people share the same views as you, feel free to be uncomfortable but not everyone caters to your needs.
You know proshippers can dislike ships between adults and kids or incest, right? Me personally I find it ridiculous to ship these, however they simply believe you don't deserve harassment for shipping fictional characters. I don't consider myself a proshipper because I'm not into shipping characters to begin with, but I understand some people like it and it's ok. And again, if you're not comfortable, I should let you know there's better subs for you to discuss how you feel. Because this isn't a space for you.
I don't harass people. I'm anti-harassment. But I'm not calling myself that (proship) because I'm really not comfortable with those things and do believe people deserve to lose a platform for it. And I really don't care, I read webtoons therefore I'll be here and you can't make me leave just because I'm uncomfortable with certain ships. And literally every proshipper I've met ships those or is 100% okay with people shipping those, which is why proshippers make me uncomfortable. God forbid people have boundaries.
Lmao cope, everyone's tired of people that don't understand shit about what proshipping means. You're the reason fandoms aren't cool to engage anymore, because y'all love preaching, this isn't the church bozo, this is just people engaging in media they like. Don't like it? Too bad, once again r/teenagersbutbetter is this way 👉🚪
Hey, judging by your Tik Tok takes and not understanding the difference between fiction and reality, there's a better community for people who share the same fear mongering takes and misinformation. I'm sure this will be a safe space for you.
Ill probably post it a few places. I’m vibing with the idea of posting pages on tiktok in a carousel style as well because I love the idea of adding music that fits the theme of the scene, which I believe is something you cannot do with most webcomic platforms.
They do this with EN releases that have been officially licensed by them as Originals (they’ve been doing this from at least since 2017 with other major series), as a smaller creator you’d likely be safe. The banners were also paid out of pocket at one point iirc so genuinely the chance of it happening to you without at least some consent or awareness are slim. Market your stuff anyways!
I'm convinced half of the backlash is just from ppl making the wrong assumption that the creator was a cis straight white women making queer comics and thus "fetishizing". But then when ppl found out that wasn't the case at all, instead of recognizing their mistakes, they double down and tried to find any excuse to hate the creator. Now no one even remembers why they hate the comic in the first place, but will still parrot the most vile misinformation.
i read it a few times here and there and I just thought it was some cute sol with cute art but then I saw people talk about it like it kicked a puppey or something
From what I remember when hate for this first started popping up it was because he was active in making BTS fanart before he made the comic and had drawn nsfw art of one of the members who had been a minor at the time as WELL as getting caught saying the N word. Both things hes apologized for and I'm pretty sure he was a minor himself when those things had happened but there are obviously people who hated him for it. After that it delved into people calling the comic full of stereotypes of gay people and telling others to avoid it bc of the actions he had done idk if that's true about the comic though as I never read it myself
It’s not a bad story, for one, it’s a slice of life. A cute, completely harmless, slice of life. Read it if that’s your thing, don’t if you don’t want to. There’s nothing more to it.
And two, a lot of people accused this of fetishizing gay people and gay relationships because of the terrible ads from WEBTOON. But in reality this was an author writing a cute story about his own sexuality and his own experience as a gay man. One of the characters in particular, goth, is a gay and ace, transman. There’s a really great discussion about what sexuality means to him as someone who doesn’t experience sexual attraction.
THANK YOU
I get people saying "oh it's not that bad" as a person who read it I disagree the writing is ass and you could read much better slice of life's anywhere else even with the same tropes
But back to the topic, yh idgas that the author is part of the LGBT. That gives me no inclination to read an ass story.
So it’s not that bad? Poor writing is like super common. It’s literally not that big of a deal. There are so many things I’ve read with worse writing and characters. I’m not fond of it but it never took up that much space in my mind
Ok but that's not what I'm saying. Me too! Just cuz I think the story is bad doesn't mean y'all can't enjoy it. But just cuz the author is LGBT didn't make me inclined to read a story I don't like. I swear this would be crazy the other way round. "Oh read this terrible story! Why? Oh the author is straight so you have to" like bro what stfu
486
u/PixiStix236 Jun 09 '25
Boyfriends gets way too much hate and doesn’t deserve it. It’s not for everyone and not everyone has to read it, but it’s a comic by a queer, ace, transman who has been bullied relentlessly for marketing practices that are not his fault.