Bromance
I feel like younger fans of bl/gl type content don't truly understand the term 'bromance' and how long it's been around.
The last two days on tiktok, I've have seen a number of creators going off about gmmtv and their upcoming shows that are being promoted as bromances. Calling it queerbating and even bashing the actors (mostly) Sky and Nani for acting in them.
After watching one peticular rant where a creator was telling her followers that bromances were based off queer content and that the characters were supposed to be queer but don't end up together and how thai companies shouldn't be making bromances because they don't have censorship and bromances themselves shouldn't be made because its a tool used to (can't remember the exact wording but basically) make money off queer content without actualy making queer content.
I realized people have a huge misunderstanding of where this term comes from, because yes in recent years with popular shows from China like The Untamed and Word Of Honor the term has been used to label them 'bromance' because the characters have deep tension rising chemistry but cant be together because censorship and are based off gay material.
However, bromance had been around way longer than this recent usage of the term. It has always meant a non sexual close/deep friendship between two men just because it has been altered recently to cover more material doesn't negat its original meaning.
You can find tv shows and movies going back decades that fall under the category bromance Star Trek with Kirk and Spock being one of longest lasting ones. More recent ones are Steve and Bucky in Civil War or Steve and Danny in Hawaii five-o. Then, of course, kdramas are huge on bromances Weak hero class, bloodhounds, highschool return of a gangster (though I believe this is based of a bl novel), strangers from hell (Japanese remake hell is other people) even tale of thr nine tailed falls under bromance and it's because of the two brothers complicated but deep relationship.
Bromance has a pretty wide range of shows/movies that fall under its umbrella.
You get some that the two main characters have just great fun chemistry and are fun to watch like Bad Boys, Pysch, or Goblin.
To ones that run a little deeper and make you wonder what if like Weka Hero class, bloodhounds, suits.
To the ones that tease the audience and make it hard to imagine the leads with any of the women that show up like Hawaii five-o ( seriously, Danny calling Steve babe? Their lack of boundries? Their bickering?? Haha), high school frenemy, high school return of gangster and mysterious lotus casebook (though that's more of a throuple thing to me, haha).
And of course, ones like spirealm, the untamed, word of honor which read as lovers but can't show it.
I know this is a strange thing to point out, but seriously, after seeing so much negativity towards gmmtv and Sky and Nani and Dew and Tee, I felt it was necessary to correct people's understanding of bromance.
And also point out that just because fans want an actor or two to star in BL doesn't mean they have to. And if bromances are as close to bl as they feel comfortable being in, then let them. Acting is their job, and we get some pretty amazing shows from them trying to pressure them into things they don't want to is just gross and toxic. So please people stop being so fucked up to these people.