Have you watched The Boyfriend yet?

@kevincortez.huffpost.com

Sometime in 2018, I came across a Netflix show that fed me a delicious serving of parasocial activity to offset my occasional pangs of loneliness, depression, and boredom. It wholly consumed me. When I wasn't watching, I studied each cast member’s private life –– lurking on their social media accounts, reading fan theories and speculative dating reports on subreddits. I shotgunned it to my brain and told everyone I knew to watch it. (Nobody did.)

That show was a Japanese reality television show called Terrace House, and it worked like this: Three beautiful men and three beautiful women, ranging between teens to 30-somethings, move into a minimalist home together and live, work, and play over months, bonding along the way. Like most reality shows tell you, it's unscripted, and members can leave as they please, with their replacements coming soon afterward, thus cycling its cast of characters through a single season. Each episode has a group of panelists (also six people) who chime in about what we’re watching between the housemates. If you have an opinion, chances are, one, two, or three panelists may share it. (Likewise, if you enjoy fashion, you'll have a favorite dressed commentator). It’s very meta.

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I’m typically not one to watch reality television and it’s definitely not my first, second, or seventh choice of TV programming with so many other things to watch. (I still haven’t seen Station Eleven. Can you believe that?) But the hook of Terrace House is that it’s untypical of reality television. It feels genuine. No one screamed at each other. Everyone is very friendly and kind. They drank a lot, but no one seemed drunk, they bickered and gossiped, but no one was mean. They were modest and unassuming, for better and for worse.

And when romance came, it was like watching two people in an Olympic-sized swimming pool wade through molasses blindfolded with floaties. It took forever. It's remarkably unsexy. Shots lingered, bland conversations felt unexpectedly meaningful. People took Costco trips with each other, and I was stoked about it for some reason. That realness compelled me to pay more attention to what was going on in search of something deeper than what was actually conveyed. It’s like Haruki Murakami when he writes about women’s ears, jazz music, clothing and I sit there, contemplate, and assign profound meaning to minute details.

Of course, much like enjoying Murakami in 2024, it all falls apart when you realize that vapid subtext can be problematic when you go looking for answers. In 2020,* Terrace House* cast member Hana Kimura tragically took her own life after enduring an online bullying and harassment campaign, exposing the producers for cultivating drama while actively neglecting the mental health of its cast. After Kimura's death, I felt weird, conflicted even, for ever liking the thing in the first place. That death permanently tainted the show in a way its fans, myself included, couldn’t shake.

Terrace House remained silent for four years, and while it’s likely never coming back, this year saw the release of The Boyfriend, the show's spiritual queer successor and Japan’s first-ever gay reality television show. (Big shout out to Aftermath for this rec.) Also on Netflix, the show is just ten episodes long and captures a similar spirit of kindness, intimacy, and gentleness that compelled me with TH. But unlike Terrace House, it has heavier emotional stakes: These guys have to date each other. They’re there for friendships but mostly love, and while a typical season of Terrace House ran for 40ish episodes across a lengthy period, these men only have one month together. The viewers just have ten 40- 50-minute episodes. That brevity makes me less interested in lurking in everyone's lives.

I’ve been yearning for something to latch a healthy amount of watching into that feels fluffy and entertaining, and this show is like buying really good supplements or eating a healthy serving of popcorn –– fatty with salty butter, savory on the tongue, a satisfying sensation but still empty calories. I need more of that in my life.

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The facade with both Terrace House and The Boyfriend is much like how I see my online presence: genuinely posting but still hiding behind the scenes. The Boyfriend can be sweet, but punchy, modestly scandelious, frustrating and exciting. The romance is slightly steamier than what Terrace House would ever invite its viewers to see, and while Terrace House used to let its house members wander around and be free, with some members still working their regular jobs and attending school and whatnot, The Boyfriend uses an iPad to instigate its housemates into courtship, sets its members to run a coffee truck together, asks the boys to write each other handwritten letters, and constantly reminds them that their time on this show is finite.

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I gotta say, I fucking love this show. It's a great piece of media that shows how sweet and often grating it can be to watch others attempt to fall in love while awkwardly self-sabotaging their way from it, and doubly so within queer context. Watching these men decipher each other's love language, comfort level, and romantic motives is really engaging, and seeing these nine men bond and connect over their respective questioning of their sexualities is beautiful, wholesome stuff. Even if there's still an element to reality TV that feels deliberate in its stakes, you can pull some real-life lessons here.

I highly recommend checking The Boyfriend out if you need something to watch, especially now that Season 2 has been announced. Root for my 36-year-old go-go dancing, chicken-smoothie drinking man Usak, and become engulfed as I did.

kevincortez.huffpost.com
Kevin Cortez

@kevincortez.huffpost.com

🇹🇭 x 🇵🇷 DC. Shopping Editor @huffpost.com. WGAE and AAJA member.

Former Editor: Popular Mechanics, Runner's World, Bicycling

Bylines: Inverse, The A.V. Club, Vulture, Gear Patrol, WSJ

http://youbetternotbe.online/
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