Chris Pine and Regé-Jean Page, co-stars in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, are apparently hyper-aware of the internet’s thirst for them. In an interview with People, Pine revealed (jokingly?) that they “talk about it all the time.”
“We have a WhatsApp,” Pine said. “It’s just called ‘internet’s boyfriend.’ We’ll send each other pictures of ourselves: ‘These are what my fans are saying.’ So, we’re into it big time.” Page chimed in to note the adoration is mutual: “We send the internet flowers all the time,” he said.
I do love their chemistry, their ability to riff off each other, and, obviously, their faces. But the concept of being an internet boyfriend and being self-aware of this is all relatively new, and I admittedly have mixed feelings about it. Not so long ago, when Tumblr was at its peak and internet boyfriends became a Thing™, thirsted after male celebs typically discovered their internet BF status by stopping by BuzzFeed HQ for a thirst tweet-reading segment. And we all got to enjoy that moment of realization with them! For an immediate dose of serotonin, I could reliably pop over to the BuzzFeed Celeb YouTube channel and listen to Sebastian Stan, puzzled, reading aloud the words, “Sebastian Stan is one thicc B-I-H.”
Between Pine, Page, and certainly, Pedro Pascal—all, truly, seemingly wonderful people—it kind of just feels like every internet boyfriend knows they’re our collective boyfriend at this point. Not to pine for the good old days, but a part of me misses the charm of simpler times when internet boyfriends didn’t know they were our boyfriends—when it was all just a big little inside joke between us chronically online netizens. I genuinely miss seeing the wonder in a very famous man’s eyes when he learns, for the first time, that we all have something of a digital boner for him—instead of clearly already having been briefed at length about it by his PR team.
As I become increasingly endeared by the rare, offline celeb, I find myself idealizing the prospect of an offline internet boyfriend—a very famous man who has no sense of how universally coveted he is, who doesn’t pander to internet horniness because he doesn’t know how to. For instance, Succession’s Jeremy Strong comes to mind—an utter oddball who shows no sign of awareness as to just how much he means to an entire online fandom.
In any case, I do love that Pine and Page can have some fun with the knowledge of how bonkers horny TikTok and Twitter dot come are for them. It doesn’t hurt that they both seem to adore each other. In the same interview, Pine said he was “in awe of” Page. Page fully reciprocated, declaring that he’s “inspired by” Pine. Going to need a buddy comedy that’s just two hours of these two hot men loving on each other, stat.