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Jun 2018

SO! The news today is BL now has its own genre category on Tap that creators can list their comics under. (And now the novels have it as well at the beginning of July.)

Before most BL were simply listed as romance which sufficed. But it appears that as this sub-genre grew and dominated the romance section, it seemed warranted to give it its own genre. Now I'm not sure exactly what led to this decision—if Tap users asked for this or if Tap decided it themselves.

Needless to say, many people will take advantage of it and use this new genre category to browse or categorize their work, as a lot of creators have been putting "BL" on their series thumbnail anyway.
But there are implications. Some can see it as a positive, a whole separate genre for the content they especially want to see or not want to see. However there is a negative side, separating BL from romance is just that, separating—othering—potentially saying that BL(if the particular story is romance) is not a true romance. But I suppose it's an old debate too as I've mentioned creators have long been labeling their thumbnails with the tag that most users will notice above the official genre listing.

I want to hear your thoughts and feelings on the new genre category and what it means for the sub-genre (and I guess now genre) of BL as a whole. Like the new genre? Will you use it? Find it useful to avoid content you don't want to see? Dislike it? Let me hear it all below!

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    Jun '18
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    Nov '18
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I'd like to add that only comics have that category, novels don't.

BL stands for Boy Love. That's enough to tell me there's romance in the story.
I personally don't read BL much, so I often scroll through the covers with two boys on the cover. There might be others who only want to look through BL comics and novels. The added category will be useful for all, I believe. I don't see anything negative in this.

I wonder why they wouldn't include both novels and comics?

I don't think have BL as it's own sub genre is bad, though at times it can abused so I can see why some would have a negative reaction to it. It's popular right now though so it makes sense for them to separate it. Hopefully, it will make some room for some other comics to get some spotlight.

I have conflicted feelings about this.

On one hand I totally understand putting BL in its own genre, since it's so popular and dominates the front page. It obviously has enough readers to warrant a genre. I think a lot of BL fans will find this addition a good thing, since it allows easier access to comics they might be interested in.

However as a queer person... Yikes. There's definitely a feeling of "normal" romance vs gay romance in this setting. It does make it seem like they want BL to be excluded from other romance comics. This could easily be a situation where there were good intentions but they didn't think of the implications of it.

Also, as someone who enjoys queer content I also feel like non-BL queer content is getting the short stick in this situation. Not all queer comics have BL or want to be labeled as BL, so they're still in the romance genre, but there's a chance readers won't know to look for them there anymore. It's also kinda frustrating to always have BL be the flagship of queer content. People talk about how important BL is for the LGBTQ+ community but somehow it's still the only queer content getting any proper recognition. But that's just my opinion, man.

So yeah, I'm conflicted. To be honest, I don't think this was the most important change Tapas should've concentrated on. If this was included in a big genre overhaul, then maybe it would be better but now it just leaves a mildly bad taste in my mouth. This should've come with at least the possibility to choose a main genre and a subgenre for comics. Then at least BL could've just been a sub for romance and not it's own separate genre.

:thinking: I don't see it as a problem, it'll make it easier for me to find good BL when i'm on the lookout for it. But, now I want a GL genre too XD.

Big big dislike - BL, like straight romance, can come under so may different genres. Like, if I had a sci-fi that featured a romance subplot between two male protags, I'd want to put it under "sci-fi" and not BL. It causes the same kinds of problems as there being a genre of "queer films."

You could say, "just put it in sci-fi anyway if you're that bothered" and while I personally would - and I would personally use the romance genre rather than the BL genre because I'm gotdang tired of being Othered all the time - that doesn't solve the issue at hand here.

I feel like just having the little BL icons is enough, especially for stories that aren't about the queerness, they're about something completely different and the characters just happen to be gay men. I personally find this REALLY helpful because I don't want to read about straight characters and it definitely makes finding new things to read easier if there's a handy-dandy "this story features a male/male romance!" or an author's note saying "hey it's not explicit in the work but please assume everything and everyone is queer here" because I don't want to get invested in a work and then roll my eyes out of my skull because I have to sit through another hetero love triangle story.

The OTHER big issue I have with this is: it's only BL. Like....y'all know lesbians exist, right? GL would (and should) go in romance, or whatever the story's relevant category is, and it's not a problem. I know people create BL way more than GL (and that's it's own can of worms which I'm not opening rn) but....

it's not difficult to scroll the romance/other genres and see a little BL icon on the comic's thumbnail - either if you're seeking those stories out, or if you want to avoid them. And I love that! It's good advertising from the creators within their genres.

Tldr; we don't need BL as it's own genre, it's double standards that it's ONLY male gay stories getting this treatment, and I am sick and tired of being treated as Other in this heteronormative society.

arguably from a marketing standpoint it can be quite savvy - a place for readers of BL to definitely find BL, and writers of BL to definitely find an audience. could lead to more different subgenres getting exposure through the romance tag, maybe.

however, a lot of BL has a great many more components to it than just being focused on an M/M romance, and having a BL tag is putting these comics in a separate section, away from the eyes of people after so-called 'normal' romance - that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. im worried about comics featuring m/m couples - that could or do market themselves as BL but dont tag themselves in that genre bracket - getting backlash for existing in other genres. like now theres a Gay Zone and we might get backlash for leaving it. thats far more about potential public reaction than tapas' intent though

as a lesbian and maker of f/f romance, it kinda feels dumb that theres no GL category to go alongside. GL is less popular, so i understand from the numbers standpoint, but its still... why one and not the other?

however, given i dont make or read BL, it doesnt really make much difference to my experience.

it would be less controversial if we could pick more than one genre tag.

Just saying:

In Japan (where bl comic start its glory), they're considered as its own category, as shounen ai (boy love or BL) as just gay romance and yaoi (as gay love plus sex on the mix), and bara (from rose, but it's pretty much man [older and musculary(?)] love [sometimes with sex, sometimes just pure romance).

Even girl love has its own category, called shoujo ai (girl love or gl), and yuri (from lily, and girl love plus sex).

Those two (four if you count bara plus hetero romance) is out on separated genre, and often the comic magazine specially only published one of the genre above.

Even Chinese have BL special genre called 'danmei'.

Idk if Korean have a specific name for bl tho, but the BL nourished pretty good over there.

But in my opinion, if they don't want to put gl as sub genre too, they should just make it to 'lgbtq+' genre as its more diverse and got mostly everything that is not hetero, but I would like it goes to 'sub-genre' rather than the 'main genre', but its only my opinion though.

As a GL writer I now patiently await my genre category as I'm sure it'll head to novels at some point, but I probably won't use it. I only get to use one genre as an independent and the love stories aren't the main focus anyhow.

I'm honestly surprised it took them so long to make a separate category for BL. Yesterday I looked at trending novels and while I found myself and Joe there, nearly every other novel said BL on the icon.

I think categorizing BL, GL, and whatnot will be incredibly useful for readers. But these things always light a fire in some people's torches.

I'm conflicted too, but I'm fine with it.
I will say this is something I've seen some people on the forums argue that they want, so it's not out of left field. Tapas probably added it because people wanted it.

To solve the "othering" issue, i propose a simple solution:

Allow multiple genres.
Add more genres overall (Psychological, for example)
Among the added genres, add "straight", "gl", "lgbt" and "nonbinary".

This way, people who create any kind of romance can indicate exactly what kind of romance it is, and people seeking that kind of romance can find it.

Categorization of sexual preference is okay as long as it is an equal-for-all treatment.

I would like to see multiple genre options as well, it would allow authors to be more specific as to what their story encompasses as well as make it easier for reader to search for something they are looking for

Implementing sub-genres or having an otherwise more robust genre system would be much better. I do want to tag my story as BL but I don’t like having to make that the only categorization.

A working tag and search system could also be a possible solution. Then people could search the romance genre for all comics that have the tag "BL" or "GL" or "straight" or whatever they want. That way romances didn't have to be separated. It could also help with stories that have multiple romantic storylines and cannot be placed in a single subgroup.

Multiple genres and working tags would actually fix a lot of problems in Tapas. And it would be way less controversial than separating BL into it's own genre.

And creators have been asking for this for ages. I wish I knew if they were even considering it. I know they have their own priorities and reasons for those priorities, but I feel like if it was put to a vote by creators this would be near the top of the list for us.

Allowing for multiple genres really seems like something that ought to be included. Both of the novels I'm working on are mlm but one I consider an adventure with romance and the other a romance with adventure, so I only label one with BL. Does something belong in BL just because the two leads are dudes in love? Also agree with everyone saying it seems strange not to have a GL section then too.

Really wish they would at least come up with "recommended tags" or something, then they could keep their genre labels and let us add tags we want (like we do now) but with more specificity so they're easier to navigate.

i agree with the multiple Genres and working tags suggestion, like my comic has two males get together but at the same time, its not part of the main plot so i would not list it under BL, i would list it under action or supernatural but again you can only chooe one

If BL is a separate genre now, I agree with everyone saying there should be GL genre too. Also would be nice to be able to pick more than one genre since I had hard time with that even without BL as separate category (My story has it but not as the main plot focus).

It seems they just tried to make browsing Tapas easier for both people enjoying BL and people disliking it, but it can really backfire. Like everyone here mentions how separating one kind of romance from romace genre looks bad. Time will tell if this was a good idea.