Internet Boyfriend (noun): A famous or semifamous male person whom your entire Twitter feed has a crush on at the same time. Often a newcomer who at least seems like a feminist. Arrived on the scene with a breakthrough project that made the world go “👀.” Can be in a relationship, despite Internet Boyfriend status. Can’t be married.
(Source: Glamour)
At a time when trolling goes hand in hand with virality and algorithms do their best to flatten people into easily-categorised data points, the internet can feel like a divided and divisive place. Until, that is, lust steps in to unite doomscrollers and casual lurkers — as it did recently with Prime Video’s hit film The Idea of You. Starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine, the romance was watched for 714.2 million minutes between May 3 and May 9, making it the most-streamed film in America according to Variety. While Hathaway has received her share of praise for the film, the internet began swooning over Galitzine from the moment the trailer of The Idea of You dropped. The British actor’s breakout role was as Prince Henry in Red, White and Royal Blue (also available on Prime Video). However, it’s his performance as pop star Hayes Campbell in The Idea of You that has propelled him into an elite league of “internet boyfriends”. Other members of that select set include Timothée Chalamet, Paul Mescal, Jeremy Allen White, and the male leads of Bridgerton.
Created by the legendary Shonda Rhimes, who has given American television some fabulous women protagonists and heroes like “McDreamy” from Grey’s Anatomy, Bridgerton is one of Netflix’s biggest global hits and for its audiences, the show is a gift that keeps giving. It has delivered a new dashing hero who manfully opens himself up to the female gaze with every consecutive season: Regé-Jean Page in the first, Jonathan Bailey in the second, and now we have Luke Newton, whose glow-up has left many a pulse fluttering in anticipation of “Polin” (it helps that co-star Nicola Coughlan, who plays Penelope Featherington, cheekily dropped into an interview that she and Newton were so, ahem, involved while filming a love scene that they didn’t hear the director calling cut. Breathe, reader, breathe. The first part of Bridgerton season 3 drops on Friday).