A Love that Began as a Game: Gameboys, Filipino Boys Love (BL), and the COVID-19 Pandemic

The opening shot is a wide-eyed young boy cheerfully looking directly at the web camera. He is a gamer, who goes by the username “Caimazing,” livestreaming his online skirmish against an opponent named “Angel2000.” The battle concludes with Caimazing’s shocking defeat at the hands of a noob (newbie). The victorious Angel2000 then proceeds to contact him, first through a private message and then via video call. So begins Gameboys, the Filipino Boys Love (BL) web series that captured worldwide attention. Told primarily through a series of video calls, social media posts, and private messaging, Gameboys follows the sweet story of Cairo Lazaro (Elijah Canlas) and Gavreel Alarcon (Kokoy delos Santos) as they find love amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Joining the cooped-up couple is Gavreel’s ex-girlfriend-turned-best-friend and babaeng bakla (fag hag), Pearl (Adrianna So), who functions as both the mediator for the couple and a stand-in for the audience. Two rivals, Gavreel’s ex-boyfriend Terrence (Kyle Velino) and Cairo’s childhood friend Wesley (Miggy Jimenez), also enter frames to cause drama. The core complication however is one that domesticizes the series’ sociopolitical context: the pandemic-related death of Cairo’s father (Rommel Canlas, Elijah’s real-life father) and its subsequent impact.