About
Yaoi (also know as shōnen-ai or Boy’s Love) is an extremely popular genre in anime. The audience usually caters to females, but some males do watch it. It basically depicts homosexuality in manga. Some examples of yaoi manga/anime are Dramatical Murder, Gakuen Heaven, and Sekai Ichi Hastukoi.
History
Yaoi first started out in 70s Japan. Female authors of shōjo manga magazines started publishing relationships between young boys. In the late 70s to early 80s, dōjinshi of popular yaoi anime/manga were sexually parodied. The precursors of yaoi are often thought to be Kaze to Ki no Uta by Keiko Takemiya, or the shōnen ai mono stories by Kaoru Kurimoto[1].
Fast forward to the 90s, when the Internet was born. The term “Boy’s Love” was coined, and now yaoi could be spread across the world, via Web. As that happened, more fans spawned. From Japan, to America, the fan base slowly grew. And as big sites like 4chan, DeviantArt, and reddit were born in the early 2000s, it would soon become one of the most popular genres to this day.
Bara
Bara (Men’s Love) is a yaoi subgenre containing the exact thing, but basically focusing on men. It’s usually made for a gay audience. Unlike yaoi, this genre depicts more masculine looking men, like men with big biceps or multiple “packs” (i.e Six packs).
Reception
Yaoi manga/anime has gained many different views. For example, some people in the LGBT community argue that yaoi artists depict homosexuals wrong. Others just think of it as a form of “female fetishism” or “porn for women”. However, the fanbase usually ignores these claims and continues on with their hobby.
As for the positive reception, yaoi has received an above average fanbase. There has been multiple fan art as seen down here.
There has also been multiple fanclubs, fanfiction, any thing with fan- in it for that matter.
Fandom
4chan /y/ Board
Since the fandom’s spread, many websites have grown accustomed to the yaoi fanbase. Back when 4chan was just anime, yaoi was one of the first boards. Explicit pictures are usually posted on the board containing hentai yaoi.
Yaoi on Reddit
Reddit also has its own subreddit dedicated to yaoi called /r/yaoi. Unlike 4chan, not all of it is explicit[3].
DeviantArt
The Yaoi fanbase holds a very strong presence in DeviantArt. Search results for the term ‘yaoi’ yields a massive 882,084 results[2].
Common Pairings
Fans of yaoi usually will ship different characters on different types of media. I’ll use Television shows as an example. Here’s a small list of any anime, cartoon, and live action show pairings that some fangirls may ship.
Anime:
Eren x Levi- Attack on Titan
Goku x Vegeta- Dragon Ball Z
Naruto x Sasuke- Naruto
Basically everyone-Free!
Cartoon:
Kyle x Cartman- South Park
Spongebob x Squidward- SpongeBob Squarepants
Live Action:
Dean x Castiel- Supernatural
Kirk x Spock- Star Trek
Daryl x Rick- The Walking Dead
Related Memes
Shipping
This is essential to the yaoi fanbase. Taken from relation*shipping*, this term means pairing together. This isn’t used by just the yaoi fanbase, though.
Yaoi Hands
Yaoi Hands also known as “Yaoi hand syndrome”, is a term for aggrandized hands that can be found in Yaoi. It is a type of Quality that is prevalent in the genre.