tkk

My heart 🥺

Happy pride to my biological parents, I love you almost as much as you love eachother 🥹😭💞🫶🙏🎀

If you are unfamiliar with his story, he was the runner-up on season 7 of American Idol. He was so popular he also got a record deal, and they tried to promote him as a teen heartthrob. His first single "Crush" is kind of iconic, I love it so much. In it, he sings to his "girl" crush. David came out as gay in 2021. He said, that he never understood what the lyrics of "Crush" were even talking about until he kissed a man for the first time.

Growing up in the Mormon church, he didn't think anything other than straight was an option. He struggled with his faith, eventually deciding to leave the church. His mom walked out with him, and that's what inspired the song "Hell Together".

His story is one I thought about a lot when Taekook released their debut solo albums last year, and the unending discourse about gendered song lyrics. Last year, David finally started performing "Crush" using "boy" instead. 💕

But it thoroughly kills me when I see supposed queer accs say this. Like…how privileged and removed from reality do you have to be? Ngl this is the type of shit some white queers from western countries be saying, living in their own bubble online or have been blessed with a supportive family that they take for granted. These are also the same types of people who refuse to acknowledge queerness or sexuality if not said explicitly out loud.

Being queer is a stigma. There are countries including ones who’ve legalized gay marriage where people are being killed as we speak for their sexuality. Homophobia is everywhere and countries like Korea is so seeped in conservatism that there are korean trump supporters marching with american flags at their protests. I’m not going to speak on xlov’s ceo or company, in the end this is a business and they took a risk banking on xlov being successful.

But to Wumuti, Rui, Hyun, Haru this is obviously not just a concept. This is their lives, this is their way of expressing who they truly are, and the main reason they’ve gone this far with it is because the lgbtq+ community noticed what they were doing and accepted them. Rui’s sister even mentioned how she once heard a woman she knew make a discriminatory remark about Rui. If this was for a successful cashgrab, the idol industry would’ve pushed a group like this a long time ago. They’ve already capitalized on fanservice but a concept like xlov makes things too real. Xlov knows this, knows what people say about them, and have gone all in anyway.