Enough Is Enough: Fans Boycotting Queerbaiting in Media

You know that moment when a show almost gives you the storyline you’ve been waiting for, and then it just never happens? Yeah, that’s not an accident, that’s queerbaiting. And frankly, fans have had enough of being strung along. If you don’t know what queerbaiting is, where have you been? It’s essentially when you hint at a queer relationship without actually delivering on it for your own benefit. Fans are fighting back on this clear example of a money grab.

The teasing of an LGBTQ+ relationship or representation in a character is an attention-seeking media tactic to gain an extra audience that identifies as queer. This is extremely frustrating to fans as it feels they are exploiting their sexual identity, and it is a huge missed opportunity to show real representation for their community. TV shows and movies do this all the time, but it's even happening with real people pretending to be queer to gain an audience.

This is an unacceptable way to gain a profit and an audience, they are using the identity and hardships of an entire community, but not really giving them the representation they deserve. When we see this happening, we take to social media to call them out, we organise boycotts so that they don’t profit from this violation until they do something about it.

Killing Eve can be said to be an example of queerbaiting, the two main characters, Villanelle and Eve, have had insane sexual tension throughout the series, even sharing a kiss and many other moments that insinuated a romantic relationship between the two enemies. Even with all this, the actress who plays Eve insisted there is no romantic interest between the two characters, and the ending of the show made fans even more disappointed. A show following two women with clear romantic tension ending without a relationship or conclusion, and a show built on queerbaiting, it's just so disappointing. Fans took to social media to express their disappointment in the show's ending, one even saying, “Killing Eve has overthrown Game of Thrones for having the worst ending of any show ever made in the history of television”. Four seasons of tension all for that ending? A crime, to be honest.

It's not just TV that uses queerbaiting to their advantage some celebrities have noticed the advantages of it and use it to bring themselves a bigger audience by marketing to the LGBTQ+ community by queerbaiting. Take a look at Josuha Basset. Although he came out as queer, he still took advantage of queerbaiting techniques to market his 2025 tour. Joshua released a video promoting his tour of him almost kissing a man before pulling away, asking people to buy tickets to see him kiss the man, captioning the post, #DontMissTheKiss. Fans were unhappy with this because they saw it as a way to help him sell more tickets and not authentic, they just saw it as a money grab. This wasn’t real representation it was a marketing tactic.

When people see blatant queerbaiting we come together to boycott the brand, person or show, and this is more often than not quite effective. It raises awareness on why queerbaiting is so harmful to the community and that real representation is so much better for everyone. It pressures studios to make a change and right their wrongs. But it isn’t always effective and can divide a fanbase if not everyone agrees that’s what’s going on.

If people in the media keep teasing us without delivering, fans won't just complain, they will walk away, and today that can be the loudest message of all.