A LETTER TO MY SUBSCRIBERS: Hello Everyone! I hope you are all having a great day so far & that you enjoyed the video! I worked very very hard on this topic and hope you can all share it and show it some extra love. While making/editing this video- I fell into severe sleep deprivation. Beyond the camera, there are a lot of things synching up all at once at extremely inconvenient times that is making filming and editing videos harder and harder for me to do. My husband and I are currently looking at places to move into by the end of June and it has not been an easy or stress free search at all. Moving my entire YT office and our belongings to another location so soon is definitely taking a toll on me. I've been working hard to make sure that by my contract- I get in two YT vids each month, all while doing my search for a new place to live.The pressure is definitely on, but nothing I can't overcome. This will probably be the last video-essay like topic I do for until we get settled into our new place. I'll most likely do more reaction/life style videos for now since I simply don't have the time to in-depth edits like in my usual video essays.I know I promised the cult video by the 30th of this month and I will still do it! Thankfully I have an amazing support system, small groups of spiritual people looking out for me, an easy going team & kind friends to help me keep going during such stressful times. YT is my passion & my job, so I want to thank you all for always continuing to watch me and for being so loving & understanding. Remember to take breaks, be kind, drink water, sleep, but most importantly be kind to yourself

Seeing the Justin beaber comp literally left me seething, he was a CHILD being harassed and assaulted by grown adult women and EVERYONE laughed I can’t imagine how confused and grossed out he felt, I really hope we can shake these double standards because seeing that as funny is absurd and sexist :(

i have not seen a man so hypersexualized like pedro pascal in all of hollywood in a very long time. as a pretty diehard fan of his it sickens me seeing tiktok edits of AI generated sexual phrases using his voice or explicit fantasies being told to his face. people think he's okay with everything because he's so kind but he's a person too, not an object.

I will NEVER get over how Jenny McCarthy, A Grown ass woman sexually assaulted Justin Bieber ON STAGE and had no repercussions. That boy (at the time) That CHILD stood there after and literally stated 'I feel violated.' and the crowd did nothing but scream. I absolutely can't imagine how damaging that was for him.

Fun fact! The Tarzan character in Disneyland had to be scrapped because of how much the actors were sexually harassed. Now he makes only a few appearances a year.

It’s so weird to me to hear him called daddy as a sexual thing when what I’ve loved most about his recent work is his portrayal of fatherhood and family. Watching The Mandalorian and The Last of Us makes me go through my own childhood experiences and see a father-child relationship that’s a healing experience, not just a hot man to leer at.

sexualising male celebrities has gotten so common that people don't even seem to grasp how the actual person could find it gross or disturbing. not all of your fantasies need to be shared online. having a crush on a male celebrity is fine but being explicit about it is so normalised on tik tok especially.

It's honestly insane how hypersexualized our society is. The fact that people completely get rid of morality and basic respect just so they can unhealthily thirst and harass someone they find hot is disgusting. It's like people have no self control.

This is so common in KPOP world. Shipping the boys with each other, giving sexual meaning in every move they make and don’t get me started with those “Alternate Universe” stories made by fans on the web.

Agree! Just because women are at a disadvantage in this society, it doesn't make it ok to make inappropriate sexual comments about men that would make you uncomfortable if some creeper said it to you!

Don't forget that BuzzFeed literally created the "X Actor Reads Thirst Tweets" specifically for male actors. I remember one actor was so visibly uncomfortable reading those tweets.

Not so fun fact, one of the Disney parks used to have professional mermaids hanging out in some of the waterways, but they had to stop doing it bc people kept cat calling/ s3xually harassing the actresses. There was even an incident of a guy jumping into the pool to try to get closer to the actresses :(

I got into Pedro Pascal because of his impressive discography and way of acting his characters. However, I started respecting him more when my Chilean friend told me about all the advocating he is doing and speaking out for marginalised groups. He is a very sweet man, kind and passionate about acting. The biggest compliment I could give him is that he seems like a very safe person to be around.

It's always made me feel weird how people are okay with sexualising and objectify two men in a relationship..or shipping roommates and making each of their SOs uncomfortable and causing problems in relationships..

i’m a huge pedro fan myself, but I genuinely felt bad for him when people started to overlook his talent for their fantasies. i’m happy his spoke out about it and got things under control. i hope he’s doing well. great video salem!!

There is a french actor who was also incredibly hyper-sexualised back in the 50s 60s, by the name of Alain Delon, and when he was growing older and getting more wrinkles and such, he was heavily criticised which left a huge impact on his mental health. And even now as a retired man he is still suffering. Last time i checked he said he was suicidal.. Also, the stigma around male victims of SA is so real and disgusting, and honestly we should do better.

Hi Salem! This was an excellent video. I'm a 42 year old Mom of a 20 year old daughter and I watch you to try and stay relevant. Very proud of you for calling out bad behavior. I'm guilty of being formerly creepy and gross. I'm making living amends AND not embarrassing myself. Much love, sweetie. I enjoy your Sha-Nell.

D’Angelo talked about having PTSD from being overly sexualized in the 90s. Women would try to rip his clothes off during concerts. It always made him very uncomfortable, but he tried to hide it to keep up an appearance. And you are absolutely right. This behavior is definitely encouraged towards men

Huge agree there’s a enormous difference between admiring and being like “yes this person is attractive maybe even hot” and being borderline unhinged with the objectification and over sexualization not just with Pedro but with everyone.

Genuinely surprised you didn't mention Timothee Chalamet or Kit Conner as an example of this. I've noticed that their fans get creepy VERY easily, crossing a line of dehumanization that should never been crossed. I love Pedro. He's in many shows I like and I really enjoy the way he embodies the characters. Aside from that, I can't even begin to imagine becoming obsessed with him and his personal life outside media.

I had a friend who, whenever a woman walked down the street would say "Oh my gosh she is so sexy bro". I tell you it was the most uncomfortable thing. Was it kind of funny the first few times? Sure. But loudly sexualizing a person you've only seen for a second? Publicly? Yeah man, that is weird. It's really interesting how normalized it is to just openly sexualize people. It's alright in private between you and your screen, but please do not make people uncomfortable because you've been attacked by horny.

this reminds me of how jungkook of BTS got so utterly sexualized after the Calvin Klein photoshoot. I’ve seen the most disgusting things written about what people wanted him to do to them and it was so normalized and people genuinely were getting defensive like saying “they’re grown men” and “it’s not a big deal” just shows how male hyper sexualization has become so normalized in TikTok

It's like almost everything on the internet starts as a seemingly fun and entertaining and then slowly somehow becomes totally deranged. Same thing happened to Pedro. It started off as a nice thing, he became appreciated, people loved him in a non-concerning way and then things started to take a reallyyyyy bad turn. He even seems so uncomfortable in his interviews because the only questions being asked revolve around him being the "internet's daddy". I honestly don't want to know how it feels like to be sexualised that way, and people not only shaping your entire persona to a "daddy" but also constantly being undermind of your work and being asked stupid questions by interviewers. It's honestly so unprofessional.

I'm asexual, and for the longest time I was so not aware of this. Like when I talk with people about being a fan of a celebrity, I thought 'you'd want to have a cup of tea with them and chat with them. Get to know them'. I dunno, that's what I wanted to do when I like an actor/actress. Plus most of the actors I liked where pretty intelligent and geeks, so I just wanted to geek out with them. I only found out I'm asexual in my late twenties, and the biggest reason was realizing that other people did feel sexual attraction (to be fair, all seem gross and creepy to me if you don't know the person well and only when you knew they like you too). It's just wild to me, how anyone can objectify someone else. This is absolutely gross. I saw it happening, but didn't really register it because it was so far off of how I function. To be fair, this happened to men and women, it was sometimes treated different, but the treatment of objectifying women has only changed over the last 5 years or so, since metoo. Also I'm not Latin, but look Latin (or Mediterranean here in Europe), and definitely noticed the hypersexualization of latin actors, both in their roles and in their person themselves. It definitely felt weird growing up seeing everyone that looked like me being sexualized. I read Percy Jackson last year for the first time and I think it was the first time I was aware of a character looking like me and just treated as anyone else (I know they're not all specified as being Latin, but having olive skin and dark hair just made me picture them like that. Also, some are).

I remember the internet's obsession with Tom Hiddleston to the point that fans have been touching him or otherwise crossing his boundaries when he was giving autographs after the play he was in. People used to make montages focused on his crotch. He was playing along, just like Pedro, but after some time, it was evident that he was sick of it

I think the Latin Lover stereotype has evolved to have SOME depth to them and that is their appeal- the archetype is romantic, passionate, in touch with their feelings. And that is fetishized because masculinity in America requires men to have no real feelings at all, that romance is not “manly”.

After I heard about how Chris Hemsworth felt about having to always be shirtless in a movie feeling like a "slab of meat" I've never let myself hypersexualize real people, it just makes me so uncomfortable thinking of a real breathing human like myself in that way

I’m aroace so this is something I’ve always noticed in media… and as a kpop stan too, it’s just everywhere. I feel awful for the celebrities and idols whose personas are super sweet and wholesome and their fanbase is predicated upon sexualizing them. Bangchan of skz and Pedro Pascal come to mind first.

I really like the phrase “fame is something we do to people” as a reminder of why so many celebrities seem to implode after a few years in the spotlight. It’s so easy to think of actors and such as having it easy because they get high paying gigs and everything but there’s a definite psychological effect from being under that kind of widespread scrutiny.

THIS VIDEO IS SO IMPORTANT. It's bugged me for years that people don't take the sexualization of men seriously. I realize, as someone who is AFAB, that women get sexualized more often and relentlessly, but the way we defend them and realize it's creepy yet we don't do the same for men is disgusting. What you do or talk about in private and/or with your friends is your business, but interviewers and fans constantly calling them daddy and forcing increasingly sexual situations and topics onto them is not only annoying, it's creepy and dangerous. Imagine if they treated literally any female celebrity the way they treat Pedro Pascal, or imagine them talking about their bodies the way they did about Taylor Lautner, or if they groped and harassed female musicians on stage the way they do male musicians. It's disgusting and I'm glad you're talking about it.

This reminds me of how my dad, who’s from El Salvador, has said that he as a young boy was often sexually harrassed by older women. That didn’t stop when he got to the States; women did the same thing, but adding the fetish aspect. He says because of that he came to respect everyone, especially women. I just hate that he had to live through it to understand it :((

I love how transparent Salem is when talking about almost every issue. She gets her opinion across while also remaining unbiased and logical. That's hard for most people.

This whole video honestly applies just as much to the objectification of men in kpop, just swap the Latin lover trope with the "humble and lovely Korean hot guy" trope that's been around for ages, but that would be a whole other can of worms.... 💀

The worst things of all is knowing how uncomfortable he is with all of it. He's such a sweet person and it truly disgusts me how people oversexualize him against his will.

Ugh. I saw a TikTok that said "eyes closed, volume up" because he's breathing heavily and they wanted to make it sexual. His character was getting his arm amputated. Pedro is talented and seems like a very kind, interesting person. I love seeing compilations of interviews he's done and just him being a goofball but there's no way to escape all of the disrespectful filth. I hope people realize it isn't normal or okay to do this.

Pedro Pascal looks like the nice neighbour that would come by with a freshly made applepie when you're new in the neighbourhood

Thanks for covering this! It's not something that is talked about enough. Pedro Pascal is an amazing actor. To be able to express emotion while wearing armor and not even seeing his face takes serious talent. I understand people adoring him, but the oversexualization is too much. I cosplay, and once something sexual and extremely inappropriate was posted about me. People said I should be flattered, but I was disgusted. Feeling like you're nothing but a body for someone's pleasure is horrible. This was many years ago, and I'll never forget it. Hearing these comments over and over must bother these celebrities. It's not flattering. I'll bet anyone would rather hear how much someone enjoyed their talent instead of a crude sexual comment from a stranger. 🦆

We really went from hypersexualizing and objectifying women, to doing the same to men and acting like it's okay because we're not objectifying women anymore! Can we just not hypersexualize or objectify anyone maybe?

During High School I was fairly popular, not prom king but those four years were okay enough. The thing is, Freshman year i was virtual and a year later I joined the varsity swim team. So most people saw my 8th grade body compared to the rest and the obsession was extreme. I kid you not, people would look up pictures of me in swim gear (thank you coaches for not privating the swim socials /j). People brought up my body so much I started wearing really baggy clothing so it was harder to bring up. Swam because it was cheaper than therapy, ended up needing more after 💀

It’s just so sad because he’s genuinely such a talented actor and also just nice, kind and it started to feel icky when they started to ask him these weird questions in interviews. And this happens to several actors when they get famous because of a series/movie etc. and it’s just so sad that every move they make gets sexualized.

worth mentioning is the One Direction boys on X Factor particularly Harry and Liam. these boys were under 18 entering relationships with GROWN ASS WOMEN. media make light of this hypersexualisation with the "Harry being into older women" narrative. Cheryl, a judge on the show, having a child by Liam. tbh thank you for bringing up this conversation, it is uncomfortable how heavily sexual in nature relationships are presented. makes me cringe.

objectification is objectification and it will affect women and men the same way. it is traumatic, degrading, and completely humiliating. do these people upholding the double standard have to experience it themselves to understand something so simple? really sad so many people are this devoid of basic human decency

Yes!!! I'm literally in a group chat where the women are literally talking about how they "want to go feral" on Pedro pascal. Like omg, if men said they wanted to "go feral" on a woman we would not be okay with that. It's such bs

The objectification of Pedro Pascal I've seen on social media for the last few months has reminded me of how K-pop fans talked about (especially male) idols back when I was still in the fandom. I was very young back then and was surrounded by this objectifying discourse around male celebrities. Once I grew up a bit I realized how weird and horrible the whole culture of it was. Thank you for shedding some light on this topic, I hope people would finally wake up and see how icky this behaviour is.

Thank you for this video Salem Tovar. I work as a sexologist and behavioral scientist (and life coach), mainly sexologist, and the amount of men who don't know if they're men anymore if they find themselves with ED or PE, for example, is staggering. They often have depression, anxiety and the worst self esteems. It's a long walk, and for us a long Talk, where they have to find all other aspects of being a man. Like feelings. And social skills. And boundaries. And being a HUMAN, not a "man". So really, Thank you Salem for your educated voice in this subject!

I'm not a Pedro Pascal fan (I haven't watched anything he's in). But this is a huge HUGE problem in the kpop "world". When men sexualize female idols, girls will call them "creepy" and/or "predators" and talk about how they need to be "cancelled" or they need to be held accountable for the things they've said... but it's fine when they wanna post raunchy and explicit statements about what they'd do to their fav male idols... like, congrats! You're also majorly creepy! But on top of that, you're a massive hypocrite 👏 lmao. ...Really grinds my gears 😠😮‍💨

There's nothing wrong with being a fan of an actor/musician or even having a little crush on them, but it's crossing the line the moment it comes to hypersexualizing a real person, overlooking their talents and hard work for their very own fantasies. I've noticed the spike in hypersexualization in celebrities by a lot, to the point people stalk them, it's genuinely so creepy, makes me so uncomfortable at the thought that someone could be having these sexual fantasies about you. It seems people don't grasp on how terrible and wrong it is, like that could be you!

Honestly, while I would never say Pedro is not a handsome man, he deserves so much more credit for his portrayal of emotion, and what a protective and accepting family is. That is something that shines through in his choice of roles, and in his personal life through his unshakable support of his Trans sister Lux. We Stan a true Ally, King, and Daddy-by-proxy, because we should all strive to be that kind of role model for the future generation

I remember when twilight was really big being forced to watch it because my mother had a roommate who was obsessed with it. The woman was old enough to be my grandmother and it was so uncomfortable having to sit there while her and the other adults in the room kept making very sexualized comments about the characters/actors that were only a few years older than me, but to them it was somehow okay because "it's a movie, they're actors"

Glad to see someone speaking about this. Constantly on TikTok (shocker😯) I see people sexualising Pedro. As a fan of him, yes I’ve said he’s attractive, which he is, but ppl constantly saying “theres a tear dripping down my leg”, or seeing teenage girls brag about wanting him to impregnate them makes me wanna vomit, even typing out that made me.. ew. I’m sorry but it’s weird as fck. I, myself feel uncomfortable seeing these things, so I can’t imagine how it feels for him to see people s3xualising him. Look, there’s nothing wrong with finding someone attractive, but it gets the point where ppl are being obsessive over someone who doesn’t even know them. Touch grass y’all, PLEASE.

There was a whole era on tumblr where everyone was obsessed with one Peter Pan actor at Disney. That didn’t end well either 🙄 people are nuts

I was the Taylor Lautner 15yo fangirl back then. It was just a normalized behavior at the time, and still to this day and it is a problem, I glad you are talking about that.

I'm reminded of when Hot Ones announced Pedro as the next guest. I was at first worried - but Sean and his team knocked it out of the park with the questions and straying away from the daddy nonsense. Pedro even says thanks for the opportunity to be taken seriously, it really tells how his many many interviews have been so focused on him being a 'daddy' or the edits (including the gross AI ones). It's upsetting that interviewers don't look beyond what's trending for the actor and pushing that hypersexualized narrative.

As a Pedro pascal fan, I haven’t seen nsfw comments about him BUT I KNOW DAMN WELL that those comments exist. Objectifying and sexualizing attractive people is extremely damaging and can lead to more serious crimes. The double standards lead to people not taking it serious and it really shows.

No because what kills me most is underage girls going crazy over Pedro Pascal saying "age is just a number" but then turn around and get the ick from Leonardo DiCaprio 😂 like- Idk why we can't just all treat people like people anymore. And as a die hard Pedro fan I feel so bad for him. Yes he's handsome as hell, but he's still a person with feelings-

Happy to see a female youtuber talking about this topic. I try to spread this awareness about how men too are hypersexualized and are harassed by both men and women, but a lot of times when I open that conversation I just get disappointed that fellow women say things like "Well, women have been getting it more for a long time so it's about time men know what it's like" or "Men love the attention anyway." Worse it becomes some sort of competitive thing where it sounds like the experience of men is lesser than a woman's just because there are more reports of it happening to women and women being more vocal about it. So to see someone who has the platform use it to educate people about it is hopeful to see.

I would like to see your take on the infantilization of Asian men. Jungkook is a big example, despite being a grown man fans still treat him like a baby. He’s mentioned it time and time again that he doesn’t like it.

I completely agree that the objectification and sexualization of men is a concept that is many times either over looked or completely dismissed entirely, as a army, it’s become far to normalized to see the members sexualized to the point that you’ll see the top comment on a thirst trap tiktok edit be something along the lines of a sexual remark regarding their personal feelings or even straight up saying what they wish they would do to them, and people laugh and joke abt it but in retrospect, it’s completely disgusting bc these are real people with real bodies and feelings, it’s hypocritical bc these kind of remarks wouldn’t slide if it was a women celeb and it shouldn’t slide if it’s a male either, but it’s such a normalized concept that is seen in plain view that even if u attempt to call it out there will be people either saying it a joke or calling u sensitive

I'm in a groupchat with my friends from school and they sexualize Pedro pascal so much. It makes me very uncomfortable because while I can understand sexualizing fictional characters, they're sexualizing an actual person.

Ive been seeing a lot of things coming to light recently about Justin Bieber being harassed and worse in the industry and at such a young age…though I’m glad these things are coming to light it’s sad honestly that it’s taken people so long to realize that this over sexualization of literal children is not ok even if they are famous… the damage it causes that child/person for years or even a lifetime afterwards is worth talking about also. Great video btw lots of great insights and important discussions in here🦆

Yessss, thank you for talking about this!! Male hypersexualization is so rampant in K-Pop, and it’s so disgusting.

appreciate you bringing up the latin lover trope, i don’t think i’ve seen other people bring it up, but it’s Important Context

I don’t think I genuinely understood how bad fans could get when it came to oversexualizing male celebrities until the Arcane series on Netflix came out. I know it came out almost two years ago, but I don’t think I’ve seen anyone talk about this specific situation involving one of the cast members, which is sad because the main reasoning behind it was that fans were oversexualizaing his character, and eventually the actor himself and it got way out of hand. It was actually a lot different than Pedro Pascal’s experience, but anyway: If you’ve seen the show, you’ll remember the main antagonist, Silco. After the show came out, I saw a bunch of edits on tiktok of him, and I’m assuming you can imagine how vulgar they could get. At some point, the voice actor, Jason Spisak, posted a tiktok saying things that encouraged the very inappropriate portrayal of his character, and I feel like I should mention that many of these edits were made by young girls, and for more context, Jason himself is 48. After that tiktok blew up, all of the attention from his character in Arcane transferred to him, a real person and not a fictional character, but I don’t think a lot of people understood the difference. Over the next couple months he would continue to post videos like these and they all got progressively more disturbing, and I remember he would actually refer to himself as “daddy”. Sometimes he would duet or stitch videos of Jinx (in the show Jinx is Silco’s adopted daughter, and their entire relationship was very toxic and the writers themselves confirmed they wanted their dynamic to feel uncomfortable, they didn’t want people thinking that the things Silco was doing was okay), her character’s outfit is actually pretty cool it’s like a steampunk version of a crop top and leggings and spiky boots, but I feel like I should also mention that in cosplay it’s very easy to sexualize the outfit. To me, it definitely seemed that Jason viewed it as sexual whenever he would duet these videos (once again, all of these girls were either in their teens or early twenties). Basically, for almost a year it was very young girls idolizing Jason, who at this point has a lot of influence as a celebrity, and him responding to all of this oversexualized attention with even more sexual innuendos. I can’t remember when exactly but during this time, he met a fan (I’m pretty sure their name is Lu) at one of the many conventions featuring Arcane and SIlco, and this fan was like 22 or something (another uncomfortable fact: his daughter is 20), again, this is a 48 year old man with a lot of influence as a celebrity and as a voice actor of a very popular show. A little before this Jason’s entire tiktok feed was him duetting Lu’s videos of them cosplaying as Jinx. They finally met in person at one of the conventions and started dating, and also while this was all happening he would he get a lot of DMs from fans calling him stuff like “daddy” and saying things that are so inappropriate for a KZfaq comment section, and he would interact with most of these comments, once again encouraging them. That’s kinda all I can remember right now, there’s a lot more I’m forgetting I just can’t remember because it happened a bit ago, but I just wanted to share that as another example of the consequences of oversexualizing male celebrities.

Salem, I love how you're able to discuss controversial topics and talk about really messed up things that people do whilst being so kind, understanding and honest. It's really refreshing 💕

🦆 Pedro looks like just a nice man that you can talk to about anything and he would be happy to answer, so its so scary for me how people can say that they would do things to him... Thats so gross. Its so scary that people dont see others as real humans with feelings.

TYSM for making a video on this. i went off in a tiktok comment section about how a certain user was asking her followers if she should make "spicy audios" with pedro's AI voice! i couldn't believe it, i was so disgusted and really taken aback by the whole thing. the user saw nothing wrong with it... it just goes to show how the oversexualization and fetishization of people can just make others view them as objects :(

The Justin Bieber videos are awful, I cant imagine how uncomfortable he must have felt with that lady grabbing him and kissing his neck. He literally said he felt violated and people laughed…

Thank you for covering this, Salem! I personally think simping, and talking about how hot or sexy, attractive etc. an (edit: ADULT) celeb is, is completely normal. And I mean if there’s a sexy scene or whatever I get the sexualising part. BUT the key is respect and holding boundaries. The way some dudes and dudines talk about male and female celebrities is so disgusting and disrespectful. They really dehumanize them and overstep boundaries. When I think about those thirst tweet reaction videos, KZfaq and other comment sections of posts about celebrities, characters and what not. - yuck. I personally wouldn’t and let’s be honest with a lot of the thirst tweet videos you see also a lot of the celebs actually don’t feel that flattered about some of those comments. So I think as long as the simping is respectful, doesn’t overstep and isn’t insulting, creepy, objectifying and doesn’t just only ever focus on looks or whatever imo it’s okay. I watched a clip from the lying detector test of Pedro and I feel like that is the standard of how it should be. As context he admitted watching fan accounts around him being a „heartthrob“ when he feels down. So if your freaking comment is something that could uplift someone when they’re feeling down, then yea. If not, just don’t say, type or whatever it. Also focus on other things as well. No one wants to be only reduced to their looks (even if it is said respectfully etc.). They are talented, hardworking, seem to have great personalities. Compliment on that as well, on their work etc.. It generally icks me when I see too much comments focused on (only) looks when there is so much more to those ppl.

🦆 I'm so glad someone is talking about this because I see so many instances on the internet where celebrities are being sexually harassed but its not being portrayed as such. I definitely feel like the older generation was very gross with young celebrities that I loved growing up, and now they probably have so many body image and mental health issues. I hope in the future we can put an end to this, especially when it comes to minors.

As someone who's part of a kpop boy group fandom, the objectification here is pretty normalized, too. You talked about the Latin lover trope, and you have many examples of white actors being sexualized too, so I also want to point out an East Asian example. BTS fans are constantly criticized for liking them "only for their looks", and while majority in the fandom are actually interested in their music and talent as performers, songwriters and producers...there are a pretty loud subset of people who sexualize them, fantasize about doing something to them and vice versa. During BTS' first (and last) appearance on the Ellen show, they were asked if they ever "hooked up with a fan", Ellen insisting to their translator to translate the question for them exactly...these boys were just starting to blow up in the US, it was a huge opportunity to introduce their music to a new audience, and while BTS are incredibly intelligent and articulate in Korean, the language barrier prevented non-Korean speakers from seeing them as anything other than eye candy. Many "fans" also talk about them like they're objects of sexual fantasy, and it's justified by "they're so famous they'll never see my tweet/Tiktok" or "official accounts are blocked". I have seen people demanding BTS "read thirst tweets about them"...and that worries me because some of that stuff is gross, and yet it's so normalized to make that type of content. (side note: notice how "thirst tweet" content is always gross towards men but relatively tame towards women?) Sexualization is not okay in any capacity. I think it's perfectly alright to find celebrities attractive - I'd be lying if I said the BTS boys weren't attractive to me, they are a bunch of good looking people, after all. BUT there's a clear distinction between admiration and straight up harrassment.

Well done. I agree 💯 with everything you said. Brittney Spears is a great example of this. Does anyone remember the questions that they would ask her? She was only 16!!! Grown men were asking her about her breasts…. I didn’t watch that much music interview as a child but watching it as an adult 😮 I was appalled. No one should have to go through that, male or female 🦆

When I was a teen i got into the Twilight craze. The Twi-moms were concerning. I didn't realize how disturbing it was at the time, but the way these moms, who were old enough to be the actor's parents drooled over the guys was just... Ewww I knew someone who was a family friend and Girl Scout leader who took us to the movies and would make comments about Taylor Lautner. To girls in their early to mid-teens btw I don't like how women objectifying teen guys isn't considered nearly as creepy as it is when men do it to girls. Sometimes it's even treated as flattering to the guys. Don't get me wrong I know the dynamics dont correlate 1 to 1, but any adult sexualizing a teen is wrong and shouldnt be tolerated

Thank you for talking about this! As a kpop stan I’m so disgusted by how normalized it is to hyper-sexualize idols, especially male ones. And this is mainly coming from gen x so I hope we can move away from that

Yes!! when I see an interview asking him to read the most inappropriate comment on the internet, I feel so bad for him. The dude has not been in this industry for three decades just to finally have his break and only be seen for his looks edit: I will admit I discovered him via that Pedro edit but it wasn't until I saw him in his works where I became a fan. After watching and reading his interviews, I came to love this guy's personality and how caring he was to his friends and family

🦆 Really great video. Something else that seriously grosses me out is that sometimes I see girls as young as 15 or 16 engaging in this disgusting behavior and seemingly having no clue that what they're doing is wrong. We have reached the point of normalization where even children aren't being told that fantasizing/talking about a real person like this is extremely disrespectful at best, and downright dangerous at worst. It's scary to think that Pedro Pascal is just one of many victims of this kind of thing, and that there will be countless more if society/internet culture continues to excuse this.

def feel like this is a conversation that needs to had more amongst a lot of Kpop Stans. obvi not all, but a whole lot.

The thirst tweets have always felt weird to me so I'm glad Pedro said no. Good for him!

there are so many people who don’t understand boundaries especially when it comes to how they treat men and it’s incredibly disturbing Thanks for talking about this, It’s not a topic i’ve seen many people covered so i’m happy someone with ur platform size is giving it attention 💗💗

Thank you! I'm glad you took the time to talk about this. It does get VERY weird sometimes and I think, just like bullying, people think that online they are bulletproof and say whatever they want without consequence. 🦆🦆🦆

Thank you for this video. I've felt like the Pedro Pascal obsession has been insane and haven't seen anybody pointing it out. I recently went to a cast Q&A for the mandolorian and he couldn't even answer questions over the croud screaming whistling and whooping. Women were yelling out calling him daddy and catcalling. It was insane to me and he looked and seemed so uncomfortable. I just don't understand this massive dissonance between people claiming to love him and the way they actually treat him.

When you talked about male sexualization/ objectification being either ignored or promoted and celebrated I immediately remembered the 'hunk quizes' from the Ellen show. I found it kind of objectifying since the moment I saw it, but I wasn't even sure whether I should find it sus or simply laugh at it.

Salem, it's great to see you upload because I'm feeling a little down but you swept in to my rescue and I remember reading some comments about Pedro Pascal on Insta and boy did it make me uncomfortable and it makes me annoyed that people treat celebrities like they're gods but what they forget is they're still human. I hope you have fun in Vegas and I love that you're a System Of A Down fan and creeps make me roll my eyes as deep in my head 🙄🙄🙄

I really appreciate Pedro’s physical acting on the Mandalorian. His character is very expressive despite not having access to facial expressions and at times minimal dialogue :)

I had this realization when I was watching Tom Hiddleston clips and there was one where a girl was telling him she became a stripper because of him and he just looked so embarrassed and shutdown like plz that’s so cringe omggg

People don't seem to understand power dynamics. If someone is like a CEO or producer, you might let them do stuff you don't want them to do. Hopefully Terry is doing better now, cause that happening after sharing your story would be hard.

You certainly educated me, a Gen Z, about the Hypersexualization of Men Celebrities and Men in general, So I would say this video is very helpful. 👍😄💜

people need to learn to differentiate between admiration of talent/beauty and plain over-sexualization which is just dehumanizing

pedro has such a beautiful personality and is a kind and genuine person. his life hasn't been easy so I'm so happy that he has reached a level of success but I hope the exposure isn't exhausting and isolating him

Buzzfeed's thirst comment reading also irks me. It's uncomfortable and awkward whenever i watch celebs read people thirst over them. And tbh when people made those posts (on their social media accs for example) i know they dont rly think said celebs would notice first hand but bc of that kind of videos it blurs the gap between celeb and fans. This also more rampant in kpop bc the industry exploitation of the parasocial relationship w fans, where i think to stop it must come from the fans themselves but i knoe its gonna be hard bc each day they're getting more and more capitalist.

Recently i saw a post on Gay Times on insta talking about him playing a in a short film with gay lover in it (or something like that). And people started to say he was gay cause apparently Pedro Pascal is really private about his private life, so we don’t really know his partners. I was really confused and angry, like wtf, who even cares, it’s not your life

Pedro is my comfort actor, almost in a fatherly way. It's so weird seeing him being treated like that.

People also don't think the male objectification is as much of a problem as the female objectification because usually male fantasies tend to be more active than female ones. A man wants to DO something to a famous woman, while a woman wants a famous man to do something TO HER. But people forget that women ALSO fantasize about being the one in control, and that there are men who also fantasize about other men, and can be just as toxic.

🦆 great essay Salem I might dare to say that Hollywood finds it easier to catalog a man like Pedro Pascal as a latin lover than to engage with a south american progressive man who has shared his family story scaping a dictatorship, who celebrates both of his sisters accomplishments and who uses his platform for political awereness. Those are also reasons why people are fans, but it is terribly confusing for the media to unwrap that phenomenon.

🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆 I like how sweet his relationship with Ellie's actress is. He's not creepy towards her and he's very kind overall.

27:07 the word you were looking for was "partaken," salem :)) love your content!!

I never really paid all that much attention to Justin Bieber. He was just another popular singer, and I’m kinda disconnected from pop music. So I missed out on all of these clips when they happened and have only recently discovered them. And what strikes me, every time someone plays one is how clearly he sets boundaries and points out when these adults are being inappropriate. And every time he’s just steamrolled. It’s terrible.

as also a dylesxic i SCREAMED when you said you confused pedro pascal with fidel castro💀💀💀

Great job Salem!! Such a mature woman! KZfaq needs more of this great content!! ❤❤

First of all: THANK YOU! I've been saying this for ages but people always react like I'm being too serious or feminist (when it's said with the inflection of an insult) Second: the worst part of the harassment of celebrities is that it's part of their job to act like they are okay with it. What would happen to their careers if they didn’t have these "fun" interviews or clips were their fans could see their "real"/great personalities. You can see some people reading thirst tweets being genuinely uncomfortable. But because it's a trend that gets people talking about them which can potentially lead to casting agents choosing them over someone else, what else are they going to do?

Side note: the voice over for the edit KILLED ME 😂 that was just so funny