Thriving BL Subculture: Making the World More Accepting of LGBTQI Community, One Country at a Time
written by Malini Naicker and Rashmi Vats
Culture is an ever-expanding and all-encompassing phenomenon that is both influencing and being influenced by human beings ever since the first civilization came into being. It is simply defined as the way of life for a group of people and their collective behavior, belief, and value systems.
In the modern globalized world, it then takes a new form as an online subculture that thrives and runs, sometimes parallels, sometimes in opposition to the established value systems, it is then termed as the internet subculture. It thrives in the digital world via videos, memes, comments, and hashtags.
One such subculture is BL. To understand this growing phenomenon, we need to go back to the past and look at its origin.
What is BL?
BL or Boys Love (Yaoi in Japanese) is an emerging subculture which is amassing a cult-like fan following in teenage girls and young adult women. It has slowly evolved into an all-encompassing phenomenon through anime, manga, Asian dramas, video games, and online fiction writing forums.
BL originated in the late 1970’s Japan and slowly spread into other Asian countries. Fujimoto Yukari, a leading researcher of girls’ manga and gender issues notes that there is a growing interest in BL culture in Thailand, China, Taiwan, Korea, and other Asian countries.
Origins of BL
BL culture originates from the 1960’s Shonen-ai manga which were written by the earliest women manga writers. Female writers who were closest to the age group of manga audience were writing and producing manga that they wanted to read.
Manga directed towards the female audience predominantly had a woman heroine which limited her expressions and actions due to the constrained position in the conservative society. So, these female writers replaced their heroines with heroes of adolescent Boys love concept which provided them more space for expression and action.
They could now provide their audience with a bold, independent, proactive, and erotic narrative. The prominent first wave of female writers was Takemiya Keiko and Hagio Moto and they were remembered as the “year 24 group of flowers”.
Expansion into the global market
In the early 1990s, many prominent publishing houses saw the commercial value of BL culture. They launched dedicated magazines which gave these female writers a public space to express themselves. They frequently published BL manga which established a commercial market for it to thrive.
By the early 2000s, the manga was exported into Thailand and other Asian countries where they found their niche in the coming years and evolved to suit the local public tastes.
BL culture in the digital world
Today with the massive growth of the internet BL has found its own digital space to thrive. Even in countries like China, bl culture is thriving. Many countries such as Thailand, the Philippines, India, and South Korea has BL culture expanding and growing in their digital space.
The fan base for this subculture is also vocally fighting for LGBTQ rights and it is making an avid social impact.
China
In China, the BL fans are called “Rotten girls” which is derived from the Japanese term for BL readers, Fujoshi.
Rotten girls are defined as young women who have a passion for fictional stories, dramas, and manga featuring gay male erotica and romantic relationship called ‘Yaoi’ or ‘Danmei’.
The rotten girls not only just consume BL content but they also actively produce BL content and share them for discussion. In an extremely censored and monitored country like China, they have found their own digital space to share and expand their subculture. They have active participation in many online spaces such as Chinese literature websites, discussion boards, and on ACG (anime, comic, and games) platforms.
One of the most prominent sites for bl subculture in China is “The Chinese Jinjiang Literature City” site founded in 1998, and it receives more than a million visits a month.
Zhang Chunyu a prominent Bl researcher highlights that the BL genre provided a space for its female writers and readers to exploit sexuality and pleasure in a “subversive way” which then challenges the traditional gender stereotypes by making males the object of desire and appreciate gender fluidity with ambiguous characters.
Thailand
Thailand offers the most liberal space for the BL culture to proliferate. Some of the series-produced and directed in Thailand have gone viral on YouTube and have amassed a cult following, with more and more Facebook and Twitter fan pages popping up.
Dramas like ‘SOTUS’ (2016) and ‘Like Love’ (2014) have gone viral with more than a million views per episode. Both the series had top trending hashtags on global Twitter during their premier and throughout their run time.
Thai dramas had a massive impact on the online subculture giving it a huge boost. Line TV, a free streaming platform that broadcasts BL dramas, announced that during the pandemic its viewership increased from 5% to 34%.
Many OTT platforms have opened up new markets for BL cultures, such as South America, North America, and Europe. The latest drama series “A Tale of Thousand Star” set to premiere in 2021, has already millions of views on its trailer. Through these dramas, the Thai public has become more accepting of LGBTQI relationships.
Philippines
Philippines has also produced many influential BL dramas, which have impacted and pushed the boundaries of societal gender bias. The drama ‘Game Boy’ was the earliest one to push such boundaries.
But the Pinoy dramas haven’t found their niche yet due to the lack of their availability in other languages. However, many such translations are springing up thanks to the YouTube and Facebook community.
India, South Korea
These countries are also showing steady growth of BL culture. South Korean production houses have bought the publishing rights for Thai BL dramas. Indian online space is actively participating in BL forums with hashtags trending regularly.
Where is this trend headed?
Bl has steadily grown its roots all over the world in the past 5 decades and it is here to stay. Many LGBTQ activists had accused it of fantasizing and fetishizing the homosexual community.
But on the other hand, a social activist has also seen positive impacts on society, it rebels against, and repels constricting values of traditional society creating a space for its minority culture to thrive.
Slowly, when it emerges in mainstream media it establishes a change in the social values, such as it did in China, Thailand, etc. Even with many censorship crackdowns on the subculture by Chinese and Japanese governments, it sustained itself. BL is finding new ways to adapt and evolve; it is not going away. It’s here to grow and change the societal values as its foremothers imagined.