Foster Van Lear, a 16-year-old TikTok personality from Atlanta, has posted videos of himself kissing guy friends on the cheek. “Everyone is fluid and so men have become less hesitant about physical stuff,” he said.Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times Connor Robinson, a 17-year-old British TikTok star with rosy cheeks and a budding six-pack, has built a large following by keeping his fans thirsty. Between the daily drip of shirtless dance routines and skits about his floppy hair, Mr. Robinson posts sexually suggestive curve balls that, he said, “break some barriers.”
In an eight-second video set to a lewd hip-hop track by the Weeknd, he and a fellow teenage boy, Elijah Finney, who calls himself Elijah Elliot, filmed themselves in a London hotel room, grinding against each other as if they’re about to engage in a passionate make-out session. The video ends with Mr. Robinson pushed against the tiled wall.
But as racy as the video is, fans are under no pretense that the two are in the throes of gay puppy love. Mr. Robinson and Mr. Finney identify as heterosexual, but as some TikTok influencers have discovered, man-on-man action is a surefire way to generate traffic. Uploaded in February, the video has gotten more than 2.2 million views and 31,000 comments (lots of fire and heart emojis).
“Normally, I do jokey dance videos and stuff like that, but it seems like things have kind of changed now,” Mr. Robinson said from his bedroom in Cumbria, England, which is painted forest green to stand out on TikTok. He estimates that 90 percent of his nearly one million followers are female. “Girls are attracted to two attractive guy TikTokers with massive followings showing a sexual side with each other,” he said.
Connor Robinson, left, a British TikTok star, posted this racy video with Elijah Elliot on his feed in February. Gay and bi-curious male followers are welcome, too. “If watching my videos makes you happy and stuff, that’s cool,” he added. As devotees of TikTok’s young male stars know, Mr. Robinson’s hotel seduction video is veering toward becoming a modern-day cliché. The youth-oriented social media platform is rife with videos showing ostensibly heterosexual young men spooning in cuddle-puddle formation, cruising each other on the street while walking with their girlfriends, sharing a bed, going in for a kiss, admiring each other’s chiseled physiques and engaging in countless other homoerotic situations served up for humor and, ultimately, views.
Feigning gay as a form of clickbait is not limited to small-fry TikTok creators trying to grow their audience. Just look at the hard-partying Sway Boys, who made national headlines this summer for throwing raucous get-togethers at their 7,800-square-foot Bel Air estate in violation of Los Angeles’s coronavirus guidelines.Scrolling through the TikTok feeds of the group’s physically buff members can feel as if you’re witnessing what would happen if the boys of Tiger Beat spent an uninhibited summer in Fire Island Pines. There is a barrage of sweaty half-naked workouts, penis jokes, playful kisses and lollipop sharing.
