Boys 2.0 - Femboys, Traps and Anime — Transcript

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1. 0:00In 2020, something weird happened, and
2. 0:03I'm not talking about the virus. No,
3. 0:05something far stranger. In the midst of
4. 0:07a pandemic and widespread protests, an
5. 0:09online micro community would get its
6. 0:11public debut. Pulled into the town
7. 0:13square to be viewed and judged.
8. 0:16Today, Femboy's.
9. 0:18[Music]
10. 0:33In case you've been inhabiting a rock
11. 0:34for the past few years, here's the
12. 0:36lowdown on Femboy's. Think of a boy.
13. 0:39Now, make it fem. If you've been into
14. 0:41anime for any amount of time, you're
15. 0:42probably more familiar with the term
16. 0:44trap. Characters like Felix, Astolfo,
17. 0:47Hideri are all examples of traps. For
18. 0:49the uninitiated, the reason they're
19. 0:50called traps is because the reveal of
20. 0:52their gender is generally played for
21. 0:54comedy or shock. They trap the audience
22. 0:57into being attracted to them before
23. 0:58revealing their true gender. Huh? No,
24. 1:00him. That's right. He's a knight by the
25. 1:02name of Felix Argyle, and despite all
26. 1:05appearances, he is male. Yes. This
27. 1:08narrative device is old as dirt, and by
28. 1:10extension, has a lot of examples
29. 1:11throughout animation and other media.
30. 1:13From my earlier examples, I think it's
31. 1:15clear that this cliche reached its peak
32. 1:16over the last few years. But, what do
33. 1:18traps have to do with Femboy's? Well, in
34. 1:212020, we would see the collision of the
35. 1:23anime and real world, a crossing of the
36. 1:25streams between the online phenomenon of
37. 1:27traps and the real life phenomenon of
38. 1:29Femboy's. Look at this graph. If you're
39. 1:32thinking, this stuff's been around
40. 1:33forever, what are you talking about?
41. 1:35You're on this side of that bump.
42. 1:37If you've never heard of this before,
43. 1:38you're at this point. What is that bump?
44. 1:41Well, like every weird dance or fad,
45. 1:44this explosion started on TikTok. On Gen
46. 1:46Z's Vine, the trend kicked off with the
47. 1:48hashtag Femboy Friday. And today on
48. 1:51TikTok, that hashtag has more than 600
49. 1:54million views. That's over five times
50. 1:57the viewership of the last Super Bowl,
51. 1:58or in metric, about one FIFA World Cup
52. 2:01game. Now, TikTok is worthless for
53. 2:03finding anything older than a few weeks,
54. 2:05so it's very hard to figure out where
55. 2:07this trend got started. However, it's
56. 2:09widely accepted that this guy is the
57. 2:11original TikTok Femboy. His latest video
58. 2:14from a year ago only has 10,000 views,
59. 2:16which really goes to show you how
60. 2:17fleeting this app is. App aside, that
61. 2:19sus boy would lay the groundwork for
62. 2:21what would become the biggest trend
63. 2:22heading into lockdowns. And this little
64. 2:24hashtag would grow to the point that
65. 2:25even celebrities were clout sharking on
66. 2:27it. And this sudden surge in popularity
67. 2:29among the normies also saw a surge among
68. 2:31we cringey few, anime viewers. As you
69. 2:34can see, there's a pretty clear bump in
70. 2:35trends among all the popular traps in
71. 2:37anime at this time. Oh, and uh that bump
72. 2:39in Astolfo's trend line in 2021 is uh
73. 2:43another thing. You can look it up on
74. 2:45your own time, but if you ever wondered
75. 2:46why you see so many drawings of Astolfo
76. 2:48with Monster Energy drinks, well, that
77. 2:50um bulge is why, which is a timely
78. 2:54transition into the red light district
79. 2:55of this video. See, while some people
80. 2:57were intrigued by the weirdness of this
81. 2:59boundary pushing trend and enjoyed the
82. 3:01edginess of it, others liked what they
83. 3:02saw.
84. 3:04A lot. An easy shorthand for this is
85. 3:06subreddit growth over time, and it's
86. 3:07pretty clear that the boom in 2020 was
87. 3:10followed by mini booms across the more
88. 3:11um risqué sides of the Femboy community.
89. 3:14And this is where the memes become
90. 3:16reality, because the places that boomed
91. 3:18the hardest in the wake of this were
92. 3:20trap hentai and its sister sub, Femboy
93. 3:23hentai. Why would these subs in
94. 3:25particular go so parabolic in the wake
95. 3:27of this trend? Well, I've got a theory.
96. 3:30Let's assume the underlying appeal of
97. 3:31Femboy's is a sort of bait and switch
98. 3:33nature of it. We know that people react
99. 3:35to most strongly to novelty when it
100. 3:36comes to porn. This is where the
101. 3:39well-trodden downward spiral of
102. 3:40depravity comes from. The process of
103. 3:42seeing a woman, being attracted to that
104. 3:44woman, and then having it revealed to be
105. 3:45a man is an exhilaratingly novel
106. 3:47experience. This reveal, like any
107. 3:49reveal, works a lot better when it comes
108. 3:51out of nowhere. If the mark starts to
109. 3:53think they might be a man, then the gig
110. 3:54is up. And obviously, concealing that
111. 3:56fact on a man who went through a male
112. 3:59puberty can be quite a task. Well, anime
113. 4:01doesn't have that problem. A trap
114. 4:03character has the ability to look
115. 4:05exactly like a female down to every last
116. 4:07detail. They don't have to worry about
117. 4:09correcting a bone structure or taking
118. 4:10hormones to get proper fat distribution.
119. 4:13They just draw a girl. So, in a way,
120. 4:15animation, and in this case hentai,
121. 4:16gives the ultimate reveal. Because the
122. 4:19characters are not restrained by the
123. 4:20realities of biology, the normal novelty
124. 4:23of the experience gets jacked up to 11
125. 4:24in animation, and is therefore more
126. 4:26attractive to the um male gaze. So, when
127. 4:29this Femboy trend took off, the um
128. 4:31most interested among us came across
129. 4:33these anime communities that were
130. 4:35effectively built around the fit and all
131. 4:37of Femboy's, the trim and all of traps,
132. 4:39the benzos of bussy. The point being,
133. 4:41the drawn version of a gender bending
134. 4:43character will always be more convincing
135. 4:45than the real version. Art is often
136. 4:47perfect where reality falls short. But,
137. 4:49beyond the artistic influences, Femboy's
138. 4:51have served as a very soft introduction
139. 4:53to bisexuality for a huge portion of the
140. 4:55anime community. Nobody has held this
141. 4:57poll, but it wouldn't surprise me if a
142. 4:59good portion of the bisexual males in
143. 5:01the anime community are just straight
144. 5:02guys who think traps are hot. And I do
145. 5:04think we're being a bit generous with
146. 5:06terms if finding an anatomically perfect
147. 5:08female with a dick hot qualifies you as
148. 5:10bi, but if you want to go swimming in
149. 5:12the rainbow lake, I'm not the Femboy
150. 5:15police. There are others in the
151. 5:16community who are hostile towards this
152. 5:18sexualization, though. Obviously, for
153. 5:20some people, this is a lifestyle, and
154. 5:22it's pretty reasonable for someone to
155. 5:23resent their entire lifestyle being
156. 5:25boiled down into a kink. But, let me
157. 5:27offer an alternative perspective. The
158. 5:29overt sexualization of Femboy's and
159. 5:30traps is a good thing. It's actually two
160. 5:33good things. One of those good things is
161. 5:35that it shows progress in terms of
162. 5:36acceptance. Most sexual acceptance
163. 5:38movements start off as being seen as
164. 5:40degenerate and risqué, and evolve into
165. 5:42normalcy. Gays in the '60s were the
166. 5:44edgiest thing imaginable. Now, my gay
167. 5:46neighbors have two kids in a minivan.
168. 5:48Every fringe movement goes through this
169. 5:50normalization process. A second good
170. 5:52thing from this Femboy craze is that it
171. 5:54provides an outlet for boys who would
172. 5:56otherwise be ridiculed for their
173. 5:57preferences. And what makes this
174. 5:58ridicule particularly odd is that I
175. 6:00think everyone knew or knows a girl who
176. 6:02would qualify as a tomboy. The tough and
177. 6:05grizzled tomboy is even more common in
178. 6:07media than the trap character. It's
179. 6:09almost a cliche in kid shows at this
180. 6:11point. And it just seems unfair that a
181. 6:12girl who acts and dresses like a boy is
182. 6:14a tomboy, and a guy who acts and dresses
183. 6:16like a girl is weird and probably gay. I
184. 6:20think through things like Femboy Friday,
185. 6:22these assumptions will wear away, and
186. 6:24that's a good thing. Cuz the fact of the
187. 6:26matter is that whether these boys are
188. 6:27gay or trans or just going through a
189. 6:29phase, they are real, and it shouldn't
190. 6:31be social suicide if they want to wear a
191. 6:33dress or something. That sus boy said in
192. 6:35his Vice interview that Femboy Friday
193. 6:37gave him a community and a place to be
194. 6:39himself. I think, as weird as it sounds,
195. 6:42anime and the phenomenon of traps from
196. 6:44that have done a lot of the groundwork
197. 6:46to make a trend like this possible. I
198. 6:48mean, where did you first hear about the
199. 6:49concept of a man dressing and acting
200. 6:51like a woman? It was probably in an
201. 6:53anime. Here, put this on. The reveal of
202. 6:56a trap will always be a punchline. I
203. 6:58don't think that's going to change for a
204. 6:59long, long time. What Femboy Friday and
205. 7:02the run-off communities of that
206. 7:03explosion are doing is grinding away at
207. 7:05the normalization of this community. And
208. 7:08being seen as weird or funny is a hell
209. 7:10of a lot better than being seen as
210. 7:11disgusting. And however much people wish
211. 7:13progress would come faster, this is what
212. 7:15it looks like. Slow, piece by piece
213. 7:18normalization. And Femboy's in
214. 7:20particular are a good showpiece, cuz
215. 7:21much like gays, it's a lifestyle that
216. 7:23barely affects anyone outside of it. Now
217. 7:25that you've got that chef hat on, we
218. 7:27going to scramble some eggs or scramble
219. 7:29some bussy?
220. 7:31Beautiful girls
221. 7:33all over the world,
222. 7:34[Music]
223. 7:36I could GET SOMETHING FROM
224. 7:37STOP.
225. 7:40Beautiful girls
226. 7:42[Music]