Someone on Instagram said: "Heartstopper has the same authenticity of the gay experience as lesbian porn made by straight men does. Odds are that if you are not a tween girl, you’ll just find Heartstopper absolutely cringe."
My response:
I'm a bi 36yo guy and I love Heartstopper, it's not cringe at all. I think anyone who finds it cringe just lacks empathy and emotional intelligence.
Heartstopper is about depicting a positive, healthy romance, not a couple where one of them dies at the end or leaves after a summer fling. That doesn't mean it's unauthentic by any means. You could say it's a bit fairytale, but that's what we need in LGBT+ media. Where's our gay Disney prince already? Gay characters in media are too often killed off or just token characters. Even Doctor Who kills off gay characters left right and centre. Heartstopper is not meant to be like Skins or Skam, it's meant to depict actually good romance stories that we can aspire to for once.
It's been in the top 10 series on Netflix for every season in over 50 countries, and 10 million books sold, and it's the most emotionally intelligent LGBT+ series I've seen - not lame by any standards.
