I love love, but I grew weary of the kinds of love stories that were available to me growing up. I'm very much an outlier being a tall, fat, and black woman that I could never really see myself in the self-insert romances, so I tended to look for love in places that were the complete opposite of me which lead me to BL. For sure BL has its own cliches and problems, but what genre doesn't. I'm just happy to see folks are more willing to acknowledge them these days and others are even working to create stories that subvert these tropes or at least attack them with a real weight that means something if used in a story over brushing it off.
Growing up the genre always seemed to be so niche and behind closed doors, if you read it or even found it, but it was there. Once fanfic sites became more popular and doujinshi become more wildly available on the net, there was a huge uptick in the amount of BL content that was more easily available.
IDK the exact factors for why the bl genre specifically has become so prevalent but methinks mayhaps the more inclusive and open-minded folks have become, the more people have felt comfortable about being able to tell and share stories of BL even GL and other lgbtq+ stories and label it as such since nowadays it is far more acceptable by society than it was 20 or heck even 10 years ago to see lgbtq+ folks and this bleeds into the realm of fiction as well. With it being more visible, folks now feel more comfortable about engaging in said content and don't have to feel like they are sneaking around or doing something wrong. Bc, there is nothing wrong with enjoying a love story no matter what the couple looks like or what's in between their legs or lack thereof.
Before my foray, into the lovely and magnificent world of webcomics and web novels there were about a handful of "mainstream" stories that were Het that really hit me in not only the feels but the heart and mind bc I felt the struggle and it was so real bc they had something that was physically relatable to me. Lovely Complex (tall heroine and short crush trying to make it work, really hit me in the feels there). Pochamani (about an actual chubby gal who is ok with being chubby and the guy that falls in love with her, blew out finding that one). There were a few others but those two really stand out for me.
Nowadays though, I'm finding so much more content that really speaks to be made by other artists and myself that has made me swoon and be open to getting into all kinds of stuff and exploring interests I didn't even know I had (Did somebody say Nagasssss).