#thai couples

[mania-studio]

[absolutebl]

Soooo, I need some help, in the form of a reality check. Can you do a little analysis of ZeeNunew irl (if you even pay attention to that). My problem is this: I ship them! Not psychotically, but they are persistently in my brain (along with MaxNat, but I think thats just because Nat is such a physically perfect twink i just really wish he had a boyfriend. That and their upper thigh caresses during cutie pie reaction videos). The issue is that I am very...trusting?...easy to convince? So when I see videos or posts like "X and X boyfriends" or "Couple X being cute together" (which I generally don't watch, but some slip through) I'm like "oh that seems real" until someone else comes in w/the logic (ex you've mentioned Tul and Apo being confident w/a good background so they just fuck w/shippers and it made me realize i was just one of those dumb people who didn't get it at first.)

Part of the problem was I started watching BL pretty recently w/no background info on the genre,

and I'm not much of a behind-the-scenes watcher so it took a while for me to understand that the studios are promoting the ships, and the actors are ACTING, so therefore reasonable adults don't take the ship or irl flirting seriously. I had just assumed when they're not in the show they're being themselves, so, I dunno, I guess I just thought there were a lot of gay actors in Thailand or something.

I'm very embarrassed now, but I just didn't know. I don't follow celebrities but I feel like they don't do this in America so I just thought "it must be real!" Rather than "they're exploiting those poor babies"

I just get such shysweetloving vibes from them. I know Zee is great at adoring his partners, and Nunew responds so sweetly I just squee all over them, but I want to be a responsible fan and not do that. Help me out, give me external validation I'm just being stupid.

How to get over Thai BL Pair Branding 

Ah, they got ya, did they?

You shouldn't be embarrassed. They are actors, it's their job to persuade you to believe in an alt-reality, and this is some very insidious marketing tactics. Also it's pretty unique to Thailand. Also if you come from watching western cinema, we are used to Hollywood actors falling in love with each other and ending up in disastrous marriages from being on set together. It seems normal.

There are a few out gay actors in Thailand, but as yet there hasn't been any actual relationships to come from a BL. And if I were them and got into one, I would stay FIRMLY in the closet.

It's a little like buying that coffee drink because it looked good on IG and then being like, “oh, THIS is disgusting, I feel like an idiot.” Only with more emotional manipulation and not spending $8 on liquid sugar.

Not that I blame the actors! They are being told to do this, some of them are just better at it than others.

Frankly Max & Nat are better at cobranding because they have been together for so long. Sometimes you can see Zee & Nunew drop the act at the end of interviews when they are really tired.

I actually really don't like this aspect of BL, so I don't often watch things designed to encourage pair shipping (variety shows, bts, fanmeets).

I have the cure, ready?

Watch TharnType.

Then go on an internet deep dive about what happened to MewGulf.

Ta da!

You'll be cured.

I have a few things written about this as a marketing tactic here:

Co-Branded BL Couples & Thai Studios - pairs and marketing tactics (written before ZeeNunew and intentionally avoiding MewGulf, PerthSaint, ZeeSaint and all the other catastrophes).

It's like learning how to read a label on a soap bottle or an ingredients list on food packaging, your eye will eventually get trained to see what's actually happening, but it takes a while.

I talk some more about pair branding, parasocial relationships, and why I really dislike IRL shipping here. 

Here’s the bit where I got mad about skinship fantasies around misunderstandings of other cultures, especially Thailand. 

Honestly there are many reasons I prefer to talk about characters, and narrative structures, and not actors. 

(source) 

[mania-studio]