Hey Internet, Can We Please Be Normal About the ‘Heated Rivalry’ Cast?

Heated Rivalry fever has taken over and the fans are hungry for more. The sports romance series became a hit well beyond the expectations of its creators, and now its leading men are soaking in the limelight. Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie have become the hot guys of the moment, and their supporting cast members are also along for the ride. It’s no surprise why these hot dudes in a show where they get to be supremely sexy would attract the adoration of viewers far and wide. Seriously, have you seen the show? But, because we don’t know how to properly behave ourselves, we are returning to dangerous parasocial territory. Guys, must we?

Eager social media users have started tracking the cast’s every move and speculating on both their private lives and sexual identities. Williams opened up about the racism he’s been subjected to. ‘Fans’ engaged in stan wars and shipping battles started tearing apart their faves in new and weird ways, all while still hyper-focused on uncovering as much about their romantic pasts as possible. And, to top it all off, the notorious Club Chalamet has set her sights on Storrie and tried to start a new fan account for him (presumably because Timmy’s committed to Kylie and that bothers her.) Mercifully, Storrie’s fans united to shout ‘oh hell no’ in that stalker creep’s face and had the account disabled. But the firestorm surrounding the Heated Rivalry cast is in no danger of slowing down. They’re experiencing the full cycle of parasocial madness, and I am concerned for them.

These guys have become extremely famous in a ridiculously short amount of time. Some of them were waiting tables in-between gigs before the show premiered, and now they’re front row at fashion shows and being stalked by paparazzi across the planet. We’re used to this kind of fame boom happening to, say, viral memes, but with the so-called traditional means of celebrity, this isn’t how it’s usually done. Glen Powell, for example, had a slow-burn rise to the top fuelled by his own ambition and a few lucky breaks. Timothee Chalamet was a child star who worked his way through indie films before one acclaimed breakout that gave him the clout to build a superstar career. Even actors who had their big ‘A star is born’ moment tended to be aligned with a property that was hotly hyped before we saw it. But Heated Rivalry? This was a truly organic explosion to the stratosphere.

So, it means that Storrie and Williams (and many of their co-stars) were probably wildly unprepared for what followed. Not that there’s really any solid way to get ready for what they’re experiencing, but usually actors in big shows get a team of publicists to help them tread treacherous waters. These guys were thrown into the deep end without a lifejacket and expected to do synchronised swimming.

There’s also the added element of them being men in a romantic show focused on a gay couple. They’re headlining a highly sexual and earnest tale of fighting a cruel world for the sake of their love, and in the current climate of heightened queerphobia and entertainment’s swing towards ‘anti-woke’, they feel like an oasis in the desert for many fans. As is often the case with LGBTQ+ content, there’s a rush to claim Heated Rivalry and its actors as representatives for the entire community. With that comes a hell of a lot of demands over privacy and identity.

This is, alas, a common occurrence with online fandoms of any kind but especially those centred on stories of gay and/or queer people, fictional and real (and usually cis men, it must be said.) Kit Connor from Heartstopper was forced to come out as bisexual before he felt ready to do so because some so-called fans were harassing him for ‘queerbaiting.’ There are still tinhatters haranguing Louis Tomlinson for a non-existent romance with Harry Styles despite his repeated rebuttals of increasingly outlandish conspiracies and misconduct directed towards his son. If you’ve ever played a queer character in a story with huge fandom appeal, or have simply worn feminine clothing without shame, get ready to be think-pieced to death.

In the wider context, we’ve struggled with a persistent faux-progressive rhetoric that demands LGBTQ+ be out in the ‘right’ way or their creative outputs are considered ‘appropriation.’ See how Becky Albertalli, a YA author whose work is largely focused on narratives that prioritize queer teens, was bullied into coming out as bi because a subset of losers decided she was straight and therefore a vulture of queer culture. I can’t speak for everyone in the community but I don’t think it’s all that controversial to say that forcibly outing people is generally bad and we shouldn’t do it. Putting in place an arbitrary set of rules that an LGBTQ+ person has to pass in order to have their identities be legitimized is the polar opposite of the gender and sexual liberation we’re meant to be fighting for. That’s TERF sh*t, guys.

Look, I get it. LGBTQ+ representation on and off the screen remains paltry, and in the current climate, a show like Heated Rivalry is an increasing rarity. With a lot of queer-centred entertainment, we’re so used to micromanaging and hyper-analysing every aspect for fear that it’ll be picked apart by homophobes or become the sole representative of a massive community in the eyes of boring cishet tastemakers. But enthusiasm, even at its most earnest, can quickly swerve into stupidity and the kind of behaviours that make every other fandom look at you with suspicion.

Frankly, a lot of the conversations around Heated Rivalry has been, well, pretty much how I thought it’d be: kind of the worst. We’ve had cis gay men engaging in sweeping misogyny about the author and the books’ fans but pretending that putting the descriptor of ‘straight’ in front of ‘women’ makes their smarm intersectional (did you ask literally every fan if they’re hetero, dude?) Publications and podcasters who missed the boat are feverishly trying to catch up on the trend but cannot help but slide into lazy stereotypes. The sex scenes discourse is exhausting. There’s a general sense that someone, somewhere, isn’t enjoying Heated Rivalry the ‘right way’ or that it’s not for them, and that makes some people very tetchy. Hence the wave of identity policing, fandom plotting, and creeper crap. It’s a veritable smoothie of the most tiring aspects of Pop Culture Discourse. All that’s missing is a viral tweet telling us to stop appropriating ‘daddy.’

The Heated Rivalry guys owe their fans nothing. They don’t have to turn their private lives into content for parasocial gluttons, nor should they be forced to rein in their public personas for fear that someone with a tin hat and red string will spin it into a conspiracy. It’s a wonderful thing to see two jobbing actors get their big moment, and for them to be such good friends during this surreal elevation to star status. It seems so petty and unnecessary to demand more from them. Truly, we never learn from the mistakes of pop culture past, do we?

Eventually, I think things will level out. The life cycle of fandom makes such things inevitable. Until then, perhaps some decorum can be blended into the excitement and creativity. Maybe direct one’s passion towards getting the NHL to be less sh*tty. Just let Connor and Hudson enjoy their moment before you label them all as #problematic.