The Exact Science Behind the White Boy of the Month
Unpacking the phenomenon from Timothée to Tom
I’ve done it, I really have done it!1 This is a moment that is most pleasing to me in my career. After years of research (scrolling Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram) I’ve narrowed down a few components that make the election process for white boy of the month an exact science.
Floppy hair
Insanely enchanting smile
Usually fresh off of a blockbuster hit (extra points if it’s a critical darling)
Some kind of overtly or vaguely European element to them (if not European then a North American east or west coast vibe)
No problematic tweets! Or at least none relevant enough to eclipse their celebration as WBOTM
These are important, essential elements, but if you haven’t been on Twitter for the past 6 or so years, you may be wondering “what even is this?”
White boy of the month, according to this Teen Vogue article is
“one lucky young man is chosen to be adorned by legions of fans on Twitter. Their stereotypical good looks are plastered all over the internet…The thirst is unreal, spawning memes that both sweetly cherish their aptitude for being the perfect boyfriend and make explicit sexual advances…The phenomenon symbolizes the continuation of a certain archetype (handsome, approachable, maybe a little sensitive) that’s been celebrated by Hollywood for a century, only now it’s bolstered by the machine that is social media. These young men are the quintessential boy next door for the internet age — friendly enough to be invited over for dinner and parental chatter, but just rebellious enough to incite a swoon — and, you know, they’re famous. Twitter’s white boy of the month is traditionally handsome and charismatic, their rising star catapulted into the zeitgeist by fans’ tweets, likes, and retweets.”
I really couldn’t think of a better way to summarize the phenomenon myself, but I also take a bit of an issue with the article. It goes on to describe examples of white boys of the month, the obvious Timothee Chalamet, Jacob Elordi, Tom Holland, etc. etc. and also mentions that a Twitter user made a chart of the white boys of the months in 2018. For February, they selected Michael B Jordan, which was apparently a little controversial.
The article goes on to criticize the white privilege that the men chosen by stan twitter have. It’s a form of exposure and promotion that isn’t typically afforded to black male actors, who have less opportunities and face pay disparities in the entertainment industry. This is true, but I think that conversation is a little misplaced in an article defining what a white boy of the month is (I think it’s better placed here).
My own conspiracy theory is that the term was actually created by a woman of color if not specifically a black woman. As Gabrielle Union’s character said in the seminal sociological thesis Bring It On (2000) “I know you didn’t think a white girl made that shit up.”
There’s something about it that I can’t quite put my finger on, that I can’t explain to those who don’t already Get It™. But “white boy” is a term reserved for people of color. It’s not a slur and not necessarily derogatory, but it is a semi-loaded descriptor.
For example, my family has said to me on different occasions “we always thought you were going to marry a white boy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!” or that Kaliii song that been beaten to death by hypergamists on swirl tok where she raps “got a white boy on my roster, he be feeding me pasta and lobster…” or that monologue at the end of Azealia Banks’ Van Vogue where she’s calling out a hood bitch who made it out and wants to act brand new every time Banks comes around: “You got on some white boys, I feel you! And now you don't wanna light me up when you see me come through…”
Search “white boy” or “white boy dating” on tiktok and you’ll see countless videos of women of color, Black, Latina, Asian, etc. recounting their experiences past and present with white boys.
The phrase white boy in this case signifies an interracial component. If you’re a white woman and you’re dating a white man, then you’re just dating some guy. There’s a budding conversation about white people gentrifying the concept of whiteness that I find very interesting and extremely compelling as an epilogue to the cultural appropriation conversation we were having in the 2010s, but let’s save that for another time.
Whiteness is still the default in contemporary society and even though the stigma further dissipates every year, interracial relationships for better or worse, and especially those between a white man and a woman of color are less common and rarer in the latter case. A woman of color dating a white boy signifies a certain (positive, higher) social status through one’s romantic life, even if that’s not necessarily the case.
It is a common and universal experience for a woman of color to have a crush on a white boy, maybe at school or work or even on TV and immediately wonder afterwards “does he like ___ girls?” We spend a lot of time internalizing messages from mainstream media and even the men in our own communities that we aren’t beautiful. Your nose is too big, your skin is too dark, your hair is too thick or frizzy or nappy, you have too much of an attitude, you remind me of my mother, so on and so forth. When you find someone outside of your community who stops reinforcing those ideas and says “actually, I like you just the way you are” the outside, or extra-communal validation feels extremely, well, validating. When that someone is a white person, the supposed top of the societal food chain, it can feel like, as Rihanna once stated, crack, even if it is a parasocial relationship.
This is why, to me, the term “white boy of the month” sounds like it was made by a woman of color. It felt more like a space on the internet for women of color to convene and say, “we like that one!” If you note the usual suspects for white boy of the month, they’re generally unproblematic. You’ve maybe never seen them with a woman of color, but they also haven’t had any racist tweets or Halloween costumes drudged up. It’s almost a way of saying “there’s space for a chance there.” It’s a space for women of color (white women are of course more than welcome to join in) to come together and swoon over the idea of dating a mild-mannered, golden retriever-like, photogenic man who will love and accept you for you.
It’s another way for people to feel like they have more control over their lives than they do; in this space, we can say “congratulations, we choose you! We want to see you in more roles, and we’ll pay the box office $13.50 to watch your little movie and tweet about it incessantly. We’ll pay the $15 subscription fee to whatever streaming service has your little show so we can post fancams on twitter and tumblr for the next five months.”