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Yes or No and Early Thai GL Fan Culture

The cast of Yes or No 2.5 pose for Kazz Magazine

Over the last few months, I've become really interested in learning more about early Thai sapphic productions, especially those that pre-date 2022. While I was working on my one of my previous posts. which covered three of P'Nay's films/shows: Yes or No, Love Songs Love Stories: Pae Jai, and The Secret of Us, I found myself unintentionally falling into a rabbit hole about 2010s Thai GL fan culture.

The period between 2010 and 2015, during which three Yes or No films were made (the original, a sequel, and an unrelated movie that used the same name), is incredibly fascinating. While marking a unique period of time in terms of GL fan engagement/activity, it's simultaneously surprising how very little changed from since then- and how so many things implemented in the early 2010s have continued to have a lot of staying power.

I should make a quick disclaimer before I start that I wasn't around in 2010-2015 when this was all going on, so this won't be a comprehensive post by any means, or one that can speak to more personal aspects of the fandom experience. But I tried to do my best while putting this together.

Background

Production company ComeOn Sweet's official Facebook page

To recap from my last post, we know that the first Yes or No film was released in 2010, and entered into production somewhat shortly (only a year after) The Love of Siam. P'Nay, the film's director, initially expected the film to "condemned," so she was happy and surprised when the response to it ended up being better than she expected.

Initially, the audience ended up being mostly young girls, but gradually people of all ages and genders came to the theater to watch it. The film became a bit of a phenomenon- maybe not 100% in terms of reaching everyone in the general public, but definitely in terms of cultivating a specific fandom culture, as well as a decently large number of supporters/followers.

The production company behind all three Yes or No films, ComeOn Sweet, was one of the reasons why this fandom culture flourished.

Much like companies like DMD or GMMTV, they created merch, held fan meetings and signings, and, in some sense, really invested back into the fandom.

Fandom Culture

Fans meet Tina and Aom at the airport

Honestly, it's hard to get a good sense (especially now, fifteen years later), of the size of the fandom. But Tina and Aom, the leads of the original Yes or No film, were able to curate a decently large audience, including fans from several different countries.

When Yes or No was released, it did pretty well in China and Taiwan, attracting a large number of supporters. Aside from both countries, COS also hosted fan meetings in areas such as Vietnam and Hong Kong. In addition, the film also received attention from other foreign countries- in an interview, P'Nay mentioned that they were given an offer to show the movie at an international film festival in Japan.

While from images it seems like the majority of the most dedicated fans (the ones who showed up at fan meets, etc) were women, there were some male fans as well.

Fan edit created back in 2011

Early Thai GL culture resembled much of current QL fandom culture today- fans collected merch and pictures from different magazine covers, attended fan meetings, stood in line for autographs, made posts online shipping the two actors, created fan edits, and even ran dedicated translation accounts.

Many of these aspects of fandom participation have been around for a while, and have been heavily entrenched into current QL fan culture (it's almost expected at this point for series to release merch, or to have dedicated watch-a-longs/fan meetings). They're also not new- these behaviors take inspiration from older instances of fan culture surrounding other Thai series/celebs/couples, as well as possibly aspects of K-Pop culture.

But what makes this unique is that this may have been the first time that many of these things were implemented within the QL space.

COS was organizing fan meetings in 2011 before the release of what we think of as some of the earliest BLs- shows and films such as Love Sick (2014) or My Bromance (2014). They put together what essentially what we might consider early boxsets: you could buy one for Yes or No 2 that contained a CD soundtrack from the film, a key ring, a notebook, a photobook, and a set of postcards.

In addition, instead of outsourcing all of the songs and only using professional singers, some of them were sung by the actors themselves- such as Tina and Aom's OST for Yes or No, In the Eyes. During fan meetings, these songs were performed onstage by the actors themselves.

Again, not all of this was necessarily new, but it was relatively new to the QL scene. Unless I'm missing something, Yes or No was likely one of the first Thai queer films/shows to offer merch, hold fan meetings, and/or introduce many "modern" staples of QL shows, such as incorporating CP-driven songs. (sidenote: when TLOS released back in 2007, to the best of my knowledge it didn't include any of the former, but it did host a concert with both of the lead actors before the film's premiere. So in some cases it's hard to isolate exactly what came first/what counts as "the first," but I think it's safe to say that in terms of YON, some of this stuff was happening very early on within the industry, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were the first ones to initiate several different aspects of it).

In some ways, COS was incredibly ahead of its time- as a small production company, they were experimenting with different revenue making techniques long before they were widely adopted by major companies like GMMTV- and even attempting more complicated things, such as trying to distribute merch internationally.

Quite honestly, I feel like we should give them more credit in terms of how they helped shape the QL industry to become what it is today.

Merch

Examples of early Yes or No merch taken from eThaiCD

In terms of merch, there was a pretty decent selection. I'm still trying to determine exactly when COS first started making it, but we know that postcards were made sometime back in the early 2010s to celebrate the release of the first film.

For the original, they also created a special edition DVD version of Yes or No, which contained a photo gallery, deleted scenes, BTS content, soundtracks, and a music video- as well as a book that showcased the process of making the film.

Galvanized by the amount of fan support/popularity of the films, COS would go on to release more merch over the years. For Yes or No 2 in 2012, they expanded to releasing additional boxsets and BTS DVDs, as well as a variety of smaller goods.

They sold t-shirts in multiple colors (pink, purple, yellow, blue, grey, and white), bags, key chains, wristbands, and photobooks (although some of these things might have been part of sets released earlier or later than 2012- it's hard to tell exactly when some of this stuff came out).

As part of the merch for Yes or No 2, they also released a gold butterfly necklace that fans could buy. The necklace appears in the film and is incredibly important to the main character's relationship, so it has some plot relevance. Similarly to what GMMTV has done with merch (where products that symbolize a couple's relationship can be purchased by fans), COS developed the same approach- only years earlier.

For Yes or No 2, you could also buy the original novel, which was sold with a cover featuring the lead actors' faces. I'm not sure if I've seen any earlier examples of this, so it's possible this was one of the first times this was tested out within the QL space.

COS' merch booth featuring products for Yes or No 2.5

It seems like much less merch was released for Yes or No 2.5, the final installment in the franchise, but you were still able to purchase a special edition DVD version of the film, as well as a poster. In addition, if you watched the film in theaters, it was possible to receive a set of postcards for every two tickets that you bought.

Lastly, aside from the merch related to the films, COS created a photobook with pictures from one of Tina and Aom's meet and greets, which was also available for purchase.

Underbelly

Yes or No's official Weibo account makes a statement about Mike and Aom's pairing

As amazing as both the production company and wider sense of the community were, there was also some more negative aspects of fan culture that are representative of issues that persist until this day.

As a whole, Yes or No occupied a weird temporal middle ground between the era of older queer films that often covered more sensitive/serious topics, and the emergence of the QL industry. As a result, Tina and Aom were not an official CP, but also not quite not one either- they worked on multiple films together, but at the same time were not fixed/exclusive (to some degree) like most CPs currently are.

This created some conflicts for fans/problems, especially when in 2014 Aom started to be promoted alongside Mike Angelo in a het CP. They worked on a few projects together- serving as leads in the 2014 series Full House as well as the 2015 show Kiss Me.

On Tina's end, she was paired with someone else for Yes or No 2.5 (a project which Aom wasn't involved in). Thus, they both were part of different het and queer ships/CPs.

Though it's clear that both of them should've able to do whatever they want, at times fans sometimes struggled to handle things well.

When Yes or No 2.5 was first announced, and it was revealed that Aom wasn't involved, fans flooded the comment section of COS's posts to complain, and continued to do so for a while after the news broke. On Weibo, a post had to be made reminding fans to be respectful about Mike and Aom's partnership for Kiss Me.

In an interview from 2011, cast members ask invasive questions about Tina and Aom's sexuality

Aside from issues with these different ships, both Tina and Aom encountered privacy-related ones. Especially during the press tour for the first Yes or No film, they were repeatedly asked extremely personal questions about their sexuality and their appearance.

Thairath News reports on the incident that happened at the movie theater

Fans could also cross the line, too, and sometimes do inappropriate things as well- like what happened during one of the first screenings of Yes or No 2.5, where a fan (or a group of fans- I've seen conflicting reports) were caught illegally recording the film inside the theater; committing copyright infringement and thus causing a police report to be filed.

In addition, fans were also not immune from asking questions that could be described as a bit unusual or weird, or that ended up being uncomfortable for the cast to answer. In terms of the latter, during one fan meet, they excitedly discussed the idea of Tina and Aom's characters being able to have a baby.

I think that they were most likely 1. angling for a sequel/third film to be released after Yes or No 2, and 2. really excited by the idea of getting to see the characters become parents/start a family together, but the cast was just so not expecting the topic to come up that at times they just seemed slightly bewildered by the idea (more importantly, however, this resulted in a little bit of an uncomfortable situation for the actors, especially as fans wouldn't drop the topic and kept bringing it up again and again).

Video of the September 2011 mobbing incident at the aiport

On a bit of a more serious note, though, Tina and Aom have also dealt with issues related to airport mobbing/fan contact. In an early video from 2011, you can see a small-ish group of fans walking alongside Aom, following her and trying to interact with her. At other points in time, the crowd surrounding both Tina and Aom at the airport has been stationary- albeit much more dense; leaving them with much less space while trying to sign autographs.

In September 2011, a mobbing incident took place at an airport in China, where the crowd was packed extremely close together, leading things to get a little out of control.

In some of the airport meet-ups that happened after the incident, more physical barriers were placed between the fans and actors. However, others were less regulated, and still allowed direct interactions between both groups of people.

COS' Facebook post that included actors' flight information

Interestingly, even after the mobbing incidents happened, COS continued to share the actors' flight information; thus allowing these meetups to take place. It's possible that they felt that since they weren't able to prevent fans from showing up/figuring out flight details, so it was better to allow the meetups to happen (while retaining some sense of control over the process). However, in many cases, COS probably could have done much more to make the overall environment safer. In addition, at times fans violated actors' sense of privacy, and contributed to a more dangerous experience.

Pretty much all of these issues have continued to pop up (at least occasionally) in current fan culture, which makes looking back on some of this stuff a little challenging. It's disappointing how few of these problems have been solved over the span of ten to fifteen years- many of them have continued to take place in similar shapes or forms.

Thai Wind

Tina and Aom participate in the 2016 Thailand-China Film Culture Week

Changing gears a little bit, there have been some more positive repercussions of the Yes or No films as well.

In fact, Yes or No might be one of the earliest examples of the QL potential of Thai wind: in the past, Aom has mentioned that Chinese fans ordered books in Thai even though they couldn't read the language (so they tried to start learning).

Due to their popularity in China, Tina and Aom were frequently invited to take part in different opportunities over there. They participated in Chinese television programs, attended award shows, and Tina even signed with a Beijing entertainment company in order to release a Chinese single.

Tina even won at least one foreign award: she received the "Best Actress in a Foreign Film" award at the 2015 Hainan Film Festival in China (specifically for her work on Yes or No 2).

Aom and Pchy attend an event together in China

Both Tina and Aom have also been a part of different events aimed to promote collaboration/exchange between Thailand and China. For instance, they attended the 2016 Thailand-China Film Culture Week together in Bangkok, and Tina participated in a "Thai style" temple fair/festival held in Kunming- promoted as one of the main guests alongside a Thai boxer- alongside many others.

But perhaps even more significantly, as early as 2012, Aom was invited by the Tourism Authority of Thailand to participate in a series of events in Chengdu, China designed to promote international tourism. She appeared alongside Pchy Witwisit, one of the leads of The Love of Siam, and together the two of them attracted such a large crowd that the staff members had to scramble to find more seats for fans.

When we think of the ways that the Thai government/governmental agencies have leveraged the "soft power"-related potential of different QL actors/shows, we often think of more recent examples. But it's important to highlight that they recognized the draw that these actors had at least as far back as 2012, and were prepared to use them to help promote Thailand-China tourism.

Tina at Kim Woo-bin's fan meet

Lastly, aside from China, some of the actors involved with the Yes or No films also participated in different intercultural events/fan meetings. For instance, Tina was one of the invited guests at Korean star Kim Woo-bin's mid-2010s fan meeting in Thailand.

As a translated version of a post on Weibo reminds us, noting that, "in recent years, more and more Korean artists have paid attention to the Thai market, and have held fan meetings in Thailand and actively cooperated with Thai stars," it's clear that people like Tina, Aom, and Pchy were serving as quasi-international stars/ambassadors at time when this was likely very rare or nonexistent for most QL actors.

Queer Culture and Politics

Weibo statement on the topic of marriage equality

Because of Yes or No's release in the early 2010s, the film has had a really fascinating relationship to aspects of queer culture and politics.

Shortly after it first premiered, during an early interview, interviewer and host Woody introduced the film by framing it through the lens of marriage equality. Years later, Yes or No's official Weibo account would celebrate the decision to make same-sex marriage legal in the US, writing that, "In fact, what YON wants to tell us is not only that true love knows no gender, but more importantly...[to] be brave. Tell him/her [that you love them loudly], and hug the one you love."

The team behind Yes or No was well aware of the time period they existed in, as well as the challenge of releasing Yes or No 2 in countries such as China- even though they knew that there was a lot of fan excitement and support.

COS' Facebook statement regarding Yes or No 2.5's release

In a post on Facebook, COS explained the difficulties behind achieving international distribution, noting that "some importers from the big country [likely China] asked us to change the end [of the film in order to distribute it]. Last time, the importer asked us to make Kim and Pie break up, and suggested that Pie marry a guy [so that the movie could be shown]. We strongly [refuse] that, and we always [refuse] to change our standpoint." They also listed a few other reasons why distribution was sometimes challenging (sidenote: I've only very rarely seen a studio be so upfront about stuff like this).

Luckily for Chinese fans, they finally found a workaround/solution. Partnering with LESDO, "one of the top lesbian social apps in China before its termination in 2021," COS was able to host an offline premiere for films like Yes or No 2.5, turning the event into a partial fan meeting and movie screening, as well as a dance party complete with guest singers.

In addition, they also helped distribute an online version of the film, which premiered exclusively on the LESDO app. Although it might seem unusual for a dating app to be involved in stuff like film distribution, it wasn't too out of the ordinary for the company. In 2016, they produced the sapphic short film Miss You Always/夏雪薇安, which was watched more than 394,000 times on iQiyi. According to LESDO's marketing director, they were interested in investing in these films/tv shows as they felt that "through these products, the company could both directly profit from viewers’ payments [while] also indirectly attract[ing] potential users for the app."

Weibo post advertising the trip

LESDO became involved with the Yes or No fandom again when they decided to promote a unique opportunity- the possibility to take part in a trip to Thailand where participants would travel to both Bangkok and Pattaya. They would explore the filming locations featured in Yes or No 2.5, while also being able to meet Tina.

This is such a prime example of Thai wave/Thai wind, and it's crazy that it happened "somewhat" early on into the QL industry's development. In addition, aside from international brand trips today that (while paid) are usually open to all, this was heavily geared towards queer fans- intended only for sapphic/lesbian women.

All in all, it's fascinating to see this kind of stuff because what COS, the cast of Yes or No, and LESDO were experimenting with (international queer dating tourism) was actually so ahead of its time that the current QL industry still haven't caught up with it yet (could you imagine a dating trip partially organized by GMMTV, or featuring actors from there? wild lol)

Conclusion

Source: Facebook

All teasing aside though, it's remarkable that so much of what COS was involved with early on has become incredibly commonplace.

Even before aspects of CP merchandising or songwriting had been fully recognized by the QL industry, they were involved with implementing it. And years before major companies like GMMTV started holding international fan meetings in China, they had already hosted numerous events.

I think from working on this post, and diving more into Yes or No's past as well as this unique sense of GL subculture, my two takeaways are: 1. how ahead of their time COS were, and 2. how, in some sense, very little has changed.

The crowd for a Yes or No 2.5 mall event in 2015, vs. the crowd for a NamtanFilm event in 2025 (source: dried_pollack)

Aspects of QL fan culture, like collecting cute postcards/photocards or listening to CP songs, have been around for at least fifteen years at this point. If you place images of a mall event that the Yes or No 2.5 cast attended in 2015 next to pictures from a fan event that happened this year- close to ten years later- it's hard to tell the difference between the two.

And I think there's something kind of beautiful about that- there's something about this kind of continuity between then and now, 2010 and 2025, that makes so much of this community feel really special.

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Thank you so much for reading! As always, let me know if there are any mistakes or issues, especially if you notice anything in the QL world that may have came earlier- I did my best to fact check everything, but it's definitely possible I may have missed something (trying to determine when the first fan events were held nearly did my head in lol).

Link to an additional post that contains some supporting content (as well as some bonus material!)

More about Yes or No: evolutions in Thai GL from 2010 to 2024 & Yes or No and marriage equality

More about the history of sapphic representation: Mhom Ped Sawan, director Claire Jirassaya, Club Friday Season 6: Changed, & The Root

#thai gl #gl series #yes or no #yes or no 2010 #yes or no 2 #yes or no 2.5 #tina suppanad #aom sushar