Two boy band members nearly shared a tender kiss on stage, delivering the crowd a moment that just wouldn’t have been accepted in the not-so-distant past.
But was it really that progressive of a move? In multiple videos posted to social media, Park Chan-yeol (also known as Chanyeol) calls fellow EXO member Kim Min-seok (Minseok) over to him.
Chanyeol nuzzles up to Minseok, and Minseok leans in for a kiss. Neither identifies as gay.
Screams can be heard from the crowd as Chanyeol jumps back in shock. Another member of the group, Kim Jong-in (Kai), also jumps back in feigned horror.
How about we take this to the next level?
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“Chanyeol tried to be the confident gay but he became the panicked gay,” wrote one commenter.
Another was more succinct, simply writing: “Gay panic.”
Watch what is either a meaningful step towards mainstream gay acceptance or a tired joke about straight guys almost kissing, below:
Chanyeol tried to be the confident gay but he became the panicked gay so fast infront of minseok looool https://t.co/JrGkZwCQQp
— ???. (military wife era)? (@sehunownsme) July 15, 2018
https://twitter.com/Hello_0506B/status/1018446722727460865
EXO has experienced a meteoric rise to fame since forming in 2012.
Every year since 2014, the Forbes Korea Power Celebrity list has named the band one of the top-five most influential celebrities.
SeattleSheikah
I highly suggest that you employ a writer, who knows about and understands the way the Kpop industry works, and has worked for decades. The mainstream media refers to it all as “Kpop”, as does the industry, but musicians and groups in Korea, have always had a certain image and act they are instructed to follow. Once “boy bands”, as your writer pens them, started to form and really take off, public behaviors, like this one, were used like marketing tools. Some things you see are really what a singer could be thinking or feeling, such as behaviors between Kim Jonghyun and Lee Taemin of SHINee, who did have a very close, personal relationship, on and off stage. One could speculate that one or both of them are gay, bi, pan, etc, but neither have ever come out, so I prefer leaving it at the fact that they were very close friends, and respect their privacy, what little of it the industry gives them. Especially with Jonghyun, whose passing I am still heavily grieving.
My point, is that the Kpop industry instructs them to pull stunts, like this one, because they are well aware of how the fans will react to it. It’s “queer baiting” on a high scale. What you see the performers do on a stage, and in public appearances, is mostly, if not all, an act. I’m not saying that it’s right or wrong, that it’s helpful or harmful to those of who are LGBT. I’m just saying that this is how that industry works. There’s only one out gay Kpop performer, and he’s not under any major label, just a very small independent one. It’s not an industry where it would be safe to be “out” in. It’s sad, and I hope it changes.
Mick406
Perfect answer. This is all an ‘act’. I don’t know why, but it is done mostly to elicit screams from young females. The girls mostly buy their music, so perhaps they do this to please the girls.
When I had a rock band 50 years ago, if I had leaned over and kissed one of the band members, the crowd would have left the building or some of them would have kicked my ass off the stage.
viking329
oh queerty.
this is called “fan service” and is common in j-pop as well.
it’s been done for ages. nothing new, really.
tuffghoster
Queer baiting, absolutely. Fan service, sure.
But I agree with SeattleSheikah, let’s discuss the harmful societal ramifications for these massively popular and influential K-pop idols to play into and perform acts of intimacy toward another same-sex idol and for them to both pull away in an act of surprise and disgust and then insinuate blame and mental illness through a problematic “he’s crazy” hand gesture. This ingrains the message that such an act is actually “sick” and implies a equally problematic “no-homo” rhetoric. Obviously this is and industry problem and not one to level at idols themselves who are simply products with next to no autonomy.
On another level, I don’t even know why I care enough to comment on this behaviour. This is certainly not the forum for it.
ingyaom
I didn’t even see a kiss. Did I miss something?
scotty
there was no kiss. it was just posturing to sell more shit to the fans