A TikTok user named Joel — who has racked up more than 201,000 followers under his handle @joeliverr — made a gay love story that’s shorter than the average TV commercial, and the cute clip has gotten more than 2.6 million likes on the platform.
Related: Gay TikTok user slams app for LGBTQ censorship in fiery op-ed
In the video, Joel and three friends play a game in which they go in a circle pointing at each other as the Kina song “Can We Kiss Forever?” plays and whoever is the last to be pointed at when the beat drops has to phone their crush. That person ends up being Joel’s male friend. The dude starts dialing a number in his phone, and lo and behold, Joel’s phone starts ringing.
@joeliverrSORRY GIRLS 😩😬 #fyp #foryou #foryoupage♬ original sound – joeliverr
Joel: “Why you calling me?”
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Friend: “Well I’m gay,”
Joel: “Shut the f*ck up.”
Friend: “I’m not lying.”
Joel: “Me too.”
And with that, the Joel grabs his pal’s face and goes in for a kiss — as one of their female friends squeals with surprise from the backseat.
Lots of viewers swooned over the clip. “I wish this would happen to me,” one wrote on Reddit. “Ugh, same,” another replied. “I’m so happy for them,” a commenter wrote. Quoth another: “They are so cute.”
Related: Did the ‘gay’ high school couple in those viral TikToks queer-bait us?
The bummer? The video was all staged, presumably for views. In his next TikTok, Joel asserted neither he nor his pal is gay — in fact, his girlfriend was one of the other friends in the clip — but he does “support people who are,” he says. So there’s that, at least.
Plus, the viral video seems to have inspired some BTS slash fan fiction.
Donston
Well, it’s TikTok. It’s all staged and edited. Only naive preteens would get fooled by that. And it’s really no big deal. I do think the “sorry girls” hashtag is toxic. I’m tired of dudes having to bring some type of hetero normalcy into everything and tired of guys who have same sex romantic/relationship ambitions feeling as if they need to placate women or feel like they need to covertly apologize for wanting to be with a dude. And yes, I realize the hashtag was tongue in cheek as well.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Maybe they gots some repressed desires, as long as they ain’t bashing us it’s all good…….
ingyaom
Why did I watch that?
MudgeBoy
Because they’re cute.
jerkinns
Jesus Christ lighten up, bitter, cynical gays! You’re not creating a perfect world by being overly PC on everything! F#ckkk..
ElPillo
We need to drop til-tok. We need to drop tik-Tom. Whoever doesn’t think the Chinese are targeting it for info and for facial recognition databanks is misinformed.
Kangol2
You’re right and win today’s Daily Double. Also, the insidious app Clearview, now used by US law enforcement and potentially by the government, other governments, stalkers, spies, you name it, is hoovering up all the faces on apps like this to be able to pinpoint exactly where you are, down to the exact location. If you don’t believe me, Google “Clearview” “AI” “dystopian,” etc., and just read about this horrifying technology that’s already here and being used, without 99.9% of the US public’s notice.
jlogb
Wow! Cuties and agree the negative reactions are a bit much… clearly click-bait… such a John David…
nm4047
it’s F@#KING staged, why put this crap on here, don’t care if he’s then states he ok and support gays, then not make a clip like this would be more a show of support
RyanMBecker
Care to explain how “not mak[ing] a clip like this would be more a show of support”? Care to list the harm that such clips do? Please provide proof.
I’m not sure what world you live in, but in my world, showing same-sex affection normalizes homosexuality, regardless of whether the romance is real or fictional. Just ask GLAAD. You may want to be hypocritical and take offense at straight actors playing gay, but thankfully, most GenZs disagree with you. I, for one, give these guys credit for willing to do something gay. And for expressing support for gays.
As for why it’s here, you clearly have no idea what Queerty is. This is a gay themed video, and it went viral. You don’t think that’s gay news? Go ahead, stick your head in the sand out of bitterness, but the rest of us enjoy seeing what’s piquing the next generation.
RyanMBecker
The f/u TikTok where Joel tells us he’s not gay is even cuter (link in article). Watch his adorable expression when he tells us he supports gays. GenZ’s easy acceptance of gays really make me hopeful. This is especially true of straight male GenZs. In an informal CNN survey of GenZ voting preferences, most of the males named Pete Buttigieg as one of their top choices.
And to answer Joel’s question, yep, although i’m straight, I often kiss my gay friends on the cheeks — and a few gay friends on the lips — when we meet up. But of course, I live in NYC, so it’s not too tough.
RyanMBecker
Those who claim that the video is clickbait are wrong. The thumbnail gives no hint of gay contents, the surprise ending or anything misleading or salacious. So there is no bait. Because of the publicity, anyone clicking on the video already knows its contents. For what it’s worth, the clip is by far his most popular video. Most have a few thousand views while it has 3.1 million views, with the followup video garnering 56,000 views. Sweet.