Feigning Gay as a Form of Clickbait Is Rampant Among TikTok Users: WATCH

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.

Screenshot above: Connor Robinson (left) and Elijah Finney.

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).

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.”