The Megacity of Bangkok Rescaled through Queerness

On March 15, 2021, the organizers of Thailand Festival, an annual event sponsored by the Tourism Authority of Thailand, announced that they would collaborate with the Royal Thai Consulate-General in Osaka, Japan, to bring the grand celebration online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Featuring Thai actors Singto (Prachaya Ruangroj) and Krist (Perawat Sangpotirat), this event was designed to introduce an array of tourist spots to Japanese people through a staged “dating” trip of these two young men across Bangkok, who have risen to international stardom through their performance in the Boys’ Love (BL) drama SOTUS: The Series (GMM One, 2016–2017).1 Since the 2014 debut of the TV show Love Sick: The Series (Channel 9, 2014–2015), Thailand has emerged as a prominent player in the global BL market, and its influence has now circled back to Japan, where BL originated.2 Indeed, Thai BL has built a solid fan base by integrating the hyperromanticized queerness popularized by Japanese BL and the androgynous masculinity characterizing K-pop culture into its unique sociocultural milieu. Thailand’s contextual specificity as a rainbow mecca has attracted myriad