The Amazing TATINOF Review Is Unashamedly On Fire

Earlier this year, two nerds from YouTube took their massively successful UK stage show, The Amazing Tour Is Not On Fire (aka TATINOF), to America, where they ended up staging the final US performance at the very same theatre that's used for the annual Academy Awards ceremony.  Yes, a stage that has been graced by the feet of Hollywood royalty became the setting for Phil Lester to chant "mount the llama" at Dan Howell.

What a time to be alive.

I was only introduced to Dan & Phil (Danisnotonfire and AmazingPhil, should you be unaware of their YouTube channels...) towards the end of last year, when my best friend excitedly declared that she'd found "the male version of us!"  The timing wasn't great - I discovered two people I could enormously identify with and who made me laugh and kept me entertained no matter what mood I was in when I clicked that "play" button, just as I realised I'd missed out on their UK tour.  They had played in my best friend's hometown, too.  We were gutted.

But, despite having missed out on seeing TATINOF - and despite being rather older than the pair's general audience, at 30+ - I delved into their channels and, within months, I was writing on this very blog about how I had come to think that Dan & Phil were the cat's whiskers.

Fast forward to October 5th, when finally, those of us who missed out on the chance to see the show in person, were gifted with the release of TATINOF on YouTube Red (along with a "Making Of..." documentary).  I waited patiently until October 8th, so my best friend and I could watch it together, with a massive bag of popcorn and a box of Malteasers.  It's what the boys would want...

If you've not seen the show, this is the point at which things might get spoiler-tastic, so consider this your warning!

Okay, so...  Wow.  Like, seriously... Wow.

Let's face it, at this point in their careers, Dan and Phil have a massive audience.  They know that no matter what they do, people are going to watch.  Their live show could, therefore, have comfortably taken the form of the bare minimum.  Perhaps a Q&A, maybe the odd funny sketch.  But if you could think that these two would choose the "bare minimum" route, then I can only assume that you're reading this as someone with no idea who Dan and Phil are.  Because this pair took the idea of doing the bare minimum, ripped it into shreds and created something massive, instead.  And not only did they decide to create a fast-paced, action-packed, thoroughly entertaining stage show that would test their limits as performers and push them to learn new skills along the way, they also made the absolutely perfect choice to fill that show with in-jokes for their devoted fans and, even more crucially, to give the whole thing a vital message that would leave everyone watching feeling uplifted, cared about and encouraged.  More of which, later.

The show's storyline might, to the uninitiated, seem slightly bizarre, but then, if there's one thing we fans have come to expect from Dan and Phil by now, it's a trip into a world that celebrates its own wonderful weirdness.  And so, we just kind of accept the idea that Phil would decide to microwave his laptop to improve the battery life and that doing so would destroy the Internet and bring everything online out into reality.  Why not?!  And of course Dil - Dan and Phil's "son" from The Sims (their joint gaming channel is an incredibly entertaining rabbit hole to fall down...), would turn out to be behind the whole thing.  WHY WOULDN'T HE BE?!

Critics too often like to look down on YouTubers as being people making an easy living by creating very simple content and basking in the adoration of their mainly teenage fans.  Haters like to write off many famous YouTubers as being "talentless."  The simple fact is that to become good at YouTube (and arguably, you have to be "good" at it, in order to become successful), you have to be prepared to spend hours filming and editing.  You have to commit to the time it takes to turn a long piece of footage, with all its "ums" and "aahs," into something shorter, snappier and much more entertaining (believe me, this is a lesson I've learned since starting my own YouTube channel).  You have to be willing to put yourself out there for scrutiny by the general public.  You have to have an idea of what your audience wants and how to deliver it, consistently.  These are skills that Dan and Phil have by the bucket-load.  Not only are they incredibly aware of what their viewers want from them, they are able to ensure that the quality of their uploads remain at the same high level.  

And now, they've proved that their skills extend way beyond YouTube.  Talentless?  Over the course of a ninety minute live show, these boys prove their ability to translate from screen to stage.  They act.  They sing.  They dance.  There's improvisation, so that parts of the show are different each time it's performed.  Phil even learned magic tricks, for crying out loud!  From start to finish, the evidence is clear that both Dan and Phil have invested time and effort into making this the best possible stage show it could be.  They haven't shied away from learning new skills in order to improve it.  They haven't taken the easy route.  And for that, they should be applauded, because it pays off.  Big time.

Be honest, we all quoted along and did the hand gesture, right?  "My name is [Dan]."

From start to finish, TATINOF is an absolute treat for fans of this pair.  If you have a favourite video, there's probably a reference to it.  If you're fond of a particular in-joke, they're almost certainly going to make it.  At the end of the ninety minutes, my mouth hurt from smiling so much.  I laughed more than I had in ages.  I clapped spontaneously just watching it through a screen.  And yes, there was even a moment at which my eyes got a bit... Moist.

Because, beyond the glittery gold hats and the big song and dance routine at the end, beyond all the fan-service and in-jokes, there was a message to this show.  And I don't just mean "hey guys, don't microwave your laptop."

Dan and Phil have, over the years, come to represent the nerdy kids.  The weird kids.  The people who are socially awkward.  The ones who don't necessarily fit in.  Whether or not it was intentional, this pair of "obnoxiously tall" guys from YouTube have come to mean something to those who worry that they're not "cool enough," or that their lives don't have a purpose.  And they know it.

Maybe it could have been schmaltzy, had Dan and Phil themselves suddenly decided "hey, let's talk about how it's okay to be nerdy and that you don't have to change to fit in, or that just making people happy in some small way is a really important way to spend your life!"  I mean, I wouldn't have thought so, but I'm sure there'd be critics who'd eye-roll at it.  So, it was something of a touch of genius to have Dil - the Sim whose lives the boys control - be the one who imparts that message onto them - and by extension, the audience.  

He's got some killer moves as well as some A+ life advice.

We should have known that two people so very aware of their audience and their influence would choose to use their stage show to put out such important messages.  I'm just so proud that they did it in a way that's as delightfully whacky as we've come to expect from them.

So, when it came to Phil finally getting to burst into song (as he had attempted to, several times throughout the show, only to be thwarted by Dan), it should come as absolutely no surprise that the song he (and Dan) sang was about rejoicing in your online activities and the friends you've made through the Internet.  It was a song all about being okay with your life and the person you are, even if society thinks you're weird.  It was a song celebrating Dan, Phil and every single one of their fans.  It even featured a tender nod to the fact that the pair themselves met online ("if it wasn't for the Internet, we never would have met").  

As our favourite YouTubers disappeared back into their microwave (not a sentence I ever thought I'd be typing...), I had SO.  MANY.  FEELINGS.

Gratitude to these incredibly talented performers, for putting together a show that fully celebrates their creative output so far and which makes it obvious that they were thinking of their fans every step of the way.

Pride at just how far they've come (and how far I know they're capable of going).

Encouragement to be me, even though I know I'm weird and I think too much and I sometimes feel like a square peg in a world full of round holes.

Determination to carry on with my own YouTube channel and create something that could, perhaps one day, make people as happy as Dan and Phil's videos have made (and continue to make) me.

Joy at knowing that I wouldn't have met my best friend without the Internet, either (she's the Dan to my Phil) and I am so, so glad I did find her.

I can't wait to watch it again.

Thank you, Dan.  Thank you, Phil.

Never stop being you.

Emma's Top Time Wasters!

If there's one thing any writer knows, it's the art of procrastination.  You sit at your computer, the cursor blinks back at you, inspiration begins to strike... Then half an hour later, you're watching a video of a dog who can talk and you can't remember what you were originally planning on doing.

Now, sure, when inspiration really strikes, I can totally lose myself in my writing.  I'll be hammering away at my keyboard for hours at a time.  But it's fair to say that we all - all of us, not only writers - have those moments when we just can't quite make ourselves get on with the task at hand.  

If you're someone who finds that happening to them on a regular basis, help is on hand!  No, I'm not going to teach you how to stop procrastinating - that sounds far too much like hard work.  Instead, I'm going to tell you what my favourite time-wasters are, so that you can enjoy them for yourselves.  You'll thank me one day.  Probably not on a day an assignment is due, though...

1. YouTube

You should watch Dan and Phil.  I mean, right after reading this blog.

Seriously, YouTube might as well be renamed "ULTIMATE PROCRASTINATION MACHINE."  Or something slightly catchier to that effect.

Since I "discovered" Dan and Phil (had them waved in my face by my best friend until I succumbed - thank you Lyds!), I have lost literally hours of my life when I should have been writing, but have instead preferred to watch two stupidly attractive dudes with amazing hair play The Sims 4.  Phil Lester is now my number one crush and I know a scary amount of random facts about two blokes I've never met.  In case you're wondering where the above gif comes from, it's from this video, which I watched in bed last night and laughed so much I had a coughing fit.

And it's not just Dan and Phil (well, roughly 75% of my YouTube time is taken up by them, but other stuff is available).  One of my favourite time wasting activities is YouTube karaoke.  You type in a song title, add the word "karaoke" on the end, find a backing track and sing your heart out like the frustrated diva you are.  What's not to love?!

My other top YouTube recommendation is definitely "Honest Trailers."  I could sit and watch these for literally hours at a time.  In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, it does exactly what it says on the tin: they're movie given a more honest trailer and they are hilarious.  Given that I'm obsessed with Les Miserables, it's no surprise that one of my favourite trailers they've done is for the movie version, which you can watch here.

Add to the above delights the fact that you can find all kinds of documentaries, music videos, old TV shows and assorted oddities and it's no wonder that YouTube is my number one time wasting activity, possibly of all time.

2. Social Media

I moan about Facebook.  I moan about Twitter.  I moan about Tumblr.  Would I be without any of them?  No, no and thrice no.

Social media is a marvellous way to lose an hour or three of your life.  You pop onto Twitter just to "see what's happening," you notice an unusual hashtag, you get involved... Next thing you know, it's dark outside and you haven't eaten since breakfast.

Besides which, social media doesn't have to be a total waste of your time (the fact that I follow several "puppy gif" Tumblr accounts is beside the point - they are SERIOUS BUSINESS).  Can anyone else remember how we as a nation reacted in unison to major world events before the introduction of Twitter?!  Twitter is the first place I head when anything happens, these days.  Sometimes, that strange bonding-effect of feeling as though you and a whole heap of strangers have joined together to discuss some big news event can actually inspire me to write something on the subject.  So, checking Twitter roughly eight million times a day is a totally productive use of my time, thank you very much.

3. My Best Friend

She's my number one time waster, obvs.  And never actually time wasted.

My bestie is pretty much the ultimate way I procrastinate.  Can't think of something interesting to blog about?  I text Lydia.  Seen a new video that has only served to deepen my aforementioned crush on a YouTuber?  I text Lydia.  

And, given that we're on the same, very strange wavelength, many times, our perfectly normal conversations quickly end up turning into something entirely off the wall.  Today, for example, we decided that our new greeting for one another should be to pretend to whack each other in the face with our imaginary penises.  

Luckily, I try surround myself with people who are weird as I am, meaning that I can do this form of procrastination with a couple of my other friends, too.  If I'm in a strange mood, I'll send one of them a random text and simply enjoy the bizarre conversation it leads to.  Procrastination's more fun when you're dragging someone else away from stuff they should be doing, too.

4. Google image search

I will often sit down to write a blog and immediately begin wandering off at a tangent, as I try to decide on which pictures or gifs I should include.  A perfectly innocent trip to Google, to find a picture that relates to whatever I'm writing about, can often lead to half an hour of sifting through images of animals that look like famous people, for example.  As a case in point, I think the dog above looks like Bjorn from ABBA and I will not be persuaded otherwise.

Since I started using more and more gifs on this blog, my time spent on Google has only increased further.  I dread to think how much space on my laptop is taken up by gifs, but I would hazard a guess that if you lay them end to end, they'd circle the world at least twice.  And now that I've finally learned how to make them myself, the problem has only worsened.  I have an addiction.

AN ADDICTION, I TELL YOU.

5. Games on my iPhone

I recently discovered that you can download classic Sonic The Hedgehog to your iPhone (I'm sure it's been available for ages, I'm just notoriously slow to catch on).  I've also recently discovered that I'm terrible at it.  I'm sure I never used to be - in fact, I remember kicking ass at it on my sister's old Sega Game Gear, but apparently as a 33 year old whose thumbs have been ruined by smartphones, I suck.  This knowledge, of course, only serves to make me more determined to improve and that can only be achieved by playing it for far too long, when I'm meant to be doing more important things.

Angry Birds is still a massive addiction of mine, too.  I have a strange compulsion to not move past a level until I have a 3* rating on it, which means my eyes are pretty much square from all the furious screen-staring I've done over the years.  

Add to that a rather more sedate love of playing Solitaire on my phone and you'll surely see why I get so little done.  And why I am destined to have arthritic hands and blindness in my later years.

So, what are your top time-wasters?  Let me know.  And then you'll know why there's been a long time between blog updates...

Why I Think Dan And Phil Are The Cat's Whiskers!

Dan and Phil. 

A few months ago, my best friend excitedly told me that she'd discovered "the male version of us!"  

It turned out that Lydia and Emma in male form were called Dan Howell and Phil Lester and were best known for making hugely popular videos on YouTube.  "They're so like us," my bestie said, when I next went over to her place.  "They even met online, just like we did!"  It was pretty clear that Lydia had fallen down the rabbit hole and had absolutely no desire to return, so we sat on her sofa and watched a few videos.  

And I smiled.  Then I giggled.  Then I proper belly-laughed.  By the time I climbed into my car to drive home, I was already planning which videos to check out when I got back.  I ended up spending my whole evening watching stuff online and I grinned like an idiot the entire time.  By the following morning, it was abundantly clear that I had joined Lydia down the rabbit hole and I was more than happy to stay there.

Why would I want to leave these weirdos?!

It's fair to say that I'm probably not really in Dan and Phil's target audience.  Visit the many fan pages that have been popping up online over the years and the general conversation ranges from what homework everyone has to do that night, to what they want to be when they "grow up."  Dan wasn't even born until June 1991, by which point I was 8 going on 9 (a fact that makes me feel seriously old).  But somehow, I've taken these two to my heart in a way that I haven't with any other Internet personalities that came before and almost certainly never will with anyone who follows them.  So, why?

Well, to answer that, you need to look at the reason for their enormous popularity with teenage viewers.  

Your teenage years are notoriously tricky.  You're growing up and trying to work out who you are.  There's all this pressure on you to do well at school and decide what you want to do with your life and beyond that, you're supposed to look and act a certain way in order to fit in with the "cool" kids.  If you're being bullied or you're going through any kind of personal problems, it all just adds up to a hugely confusing and sometimes scary period of your life.  I can barely believe the person I am now, compared to when I was a teenager.  I'm so much more comfortable in myself and, for the most part, a lot more confident.  In a lot of ways, I really am a completely different person.

For a start, I had surgery to remove that dog from my face.

So, just imagine you're 13 or 14 and you're not one of the particularly cool kids.  Imagine you'd prefer to be at home playing computer games, rather than trying to sneak into some dodgy nightclub with sticky floors.  You have all these aspects to your personality that you think are weird and it feels like there's nobody who gets you.  Then, one day, you're browsing the Internet and you stumble across someone who seems really confident, friendly and funny and they're saying: "Oh God, I'm so not cool."  And they're okay with it.  In fact, they're more than okay with it.  They revel in being comfortable with their own nerdiness and - as a perhaps slightly awkward, shy teen, struggling to come to terms with who you are - you think: "maybe it's okay to be me, after all."  

That random person online, for a lot of youngsters, was Dan.  Or Phil.  Or, let's face it, both.  

Suddenly you feel less alone.  And have an irresistable urge to draw on your own face.

Visit any Dan and Phil fan page and you'll find comments from teenager after teenager saying such things.  These two, slightly nerdy, wonderfully weird guys have taught youngsters that it's okay to just be yourself, whatever that means.  They've somehow made being mildly uncool the absolute epitome of cool.  I can say, with my hand on my heart, that when I was a terribly shy, scared and awkward teen, I would have given an arm and a leg to have discovered someone older and wiser who was proud to be themselves on camera, telling me that "school won't last forever" and "life gets better."  

And what's really, genuinely lovely is that both Dan and Phil know that they have enormous influence over a huge proportion of young people and have used that influence to speak out against bullying, to reassure kids that there's nothing wrong with preferring to stay in and play computer games rather than trying to keep up with the "in-crowd" and to let young people know that they're not alone with the problems they're dealing with and that things really will improve with time.

And so we come to me.  I'm not a shy, awkward teenager, anymore.  No.  I've blossomed into a shy, awkward thirty three year old.  YAY!

Seriously though, regular readers will know that I delight in my own weirdness.  I think it's so important to be accepting of yourself and know that whatever makes you you should be celebrated, not put down or hidden away for fear of ridicule (I even wrote a blog called "Embrace Your Weirdness!" a couple of years ago).  So, to find people who not only agree with that sentiment, but embrace it wholeheartedly and try to ensure that the concept is shared with the people who really need to hear it, is actually rather beautiful.  It makes me want to give both Dan and Phil the biggest of squishy hugs (avoiding touching Dan's neck of course, not that I could reach it).

I guess what I'm saying is, in amongst the hilarious videos, the games, the "day in the life" anecdotes and the general fun of Dan and Phil's world, there are genuine lessons that you're never too old to take to heart.  With great power comes great responsibility and these two aren't afraid to speak to their audience about real life and how to treat other people with respect as well as respecting yourself.  That's worth more than just a "thumbs up."  That's the kind of thing that makes an isolated person feel like they're not alone.  It's the kind of attitude that we want to be encouraging the next generation to adopt.

So, thank you Dan and Phil.  Thanks for making me laugh and for encouraging me to bake more, blog more (seriously, every video makes me want to write, for some reason), play games more, cherish my best friend more and be proud to be the weird little nerd that I am.  Don't ever change.  You're the cat's whiskers.

In Praise of THE INTERNET.

So, I'm writing this blog, right?  And then you're going to read it (all three of you) via the magic of THE INTERNET.  That fact is something I take for granted every single day, when actually, it's pretty bloody mindblowing.  The fact that I can waffle on for a few thousand words about whatever random nonsense is occupying the space where my brain should be and then post it online, to be shared with other living, breathing humans all over the freaking world is absolutely incredible.

I grew up in a largely Internet-less era.  I don't remember even having any kind of access to it at home until maybe 1997, when I was 14 going on 15 and was super-astounded by the ease at which perverts could ask me for my age, sex and location (not creepy at all, guys).  Back then, it was this shiny new thing that was supposed to be used primarily for communication and homework.

Nowadays, we use the Internet for literally everything.  If we have a nagging question we don't know the answer to, we Google it.  If we need to buy something but can't be bothered to leave the house, we order it online.  Everything you can imagine, from listening to music and watching films, to actually meeting the love of your life can be done via the Internet.  That's utterly insane. 

Much can be said about the darker side of the World Wide Web.  Online bullying is a very real problem and some people hide behind their screens, flinging metaphorical shit at anyone unfortunate enough to cross their virtual path (a subject dealt with rather magnificently by the rather magnificent Dan Howell in his The Internet Is Mean video).  I've experienced it myself, so I definitely know what it's like to receive death threats, rape threats and general abuse from total strangers based on nothing but my opinion of a book or film (same title for both - guess which?!).  You can't talk about the Internet without discussing the negative side, so let's get that out of the way...

Okay, so I've met horrible people, online.  I won't even go into it too much, because hot damn it's a mess.  I can definitely understand why some people get taken in by a convincing manipulator, making out that they're someone they're not.  It may never have happened to me in a romantic sense (although I've experienced the weirder side of the Internet that way, too - and blogged about it, naturally), but in the "hey, we should be BFFs" sense, for sure.

The Internet is creepy at times, the sheer variety of porn available is ridiculous and unfortunately, the freedom to speak freely can be enjoyed by people whose opinions are more gross than that moment when your friend pronounces a "p" really violently and spits on your face.

I like big buts and I cannot lie.

But for all the weirdness and creepiness of the web, I still think it's quite frankly one of the greatest and most life-changing inventions ever.  I mean, up there with penicillin and all that shizzle.

Think about it.  If the Internet didn't exist, I would be sitting here, with all these ridiculous thoughts in my head and nowhere to express them in a whimsical fashion.  There would be no YouTube, which would mean I would not be having the hysterically funny conversation I am currently having with my best friend, regarding our favourite YouTubers, Dan and Phil.

Even more importantly, I wouldn't have a best friend in the first place.  See, my best friend was someone I met online.  I discovered that she was local (well, an hour away) and set about being hilarious and brilliant on an Internet forum, so that she'd liked me.  One wedding invite later and a friendship was born.  I had previous, to be fair; my much-loved friend Kirstie was also "found" on an Internet forum and I did the exact same thing with her.  Basically, if I'm extra nice to you online, I am plotting on adding you to my friend-collection.  I'm not a stalker, I promise.

But this IS the face I pull when I find a new friend, online.

The thing is, for all the bad, creepy stuff going on, the Internet can be a powerful force for good.  Communities like YouTube or Blogger give people a platform from which to air their views and the freedom to be themselves, or simply provide somewhere for them to discover people who are likeminded, if they're not quite up to producing their own content, yet.  Places like Twitter allow us to connect with all kinds of different people.  Time and time again, the Internet has proven that when you think you're alone in your thinking, or even alone full stop, there will always be someone to prove you wrong and take your corner.  For every troll, there's a passionate activist.  For every bully, there's someone who's part of the same fandom as you and wants to squee obsessively over the shape of your favourite pop star's arm.  And for every creepy Internet weirdo, there's... Well, another one, because they're literally everywhere.  But don't let that put you off.

Imagine a world without the Internet.  A world in which you had to rely on snail mail if you wanted to write to a friend overseas.  A world in which you couldn't just cheat and ask Google the answer to literally any question.  A world in which cats looked grumpy and all you could do is take a photo and show it to your friends in the hope that they laughed.  

A world in which you couldn't make gifs like this:

I regret NOTHING.

And now, having written this little love letter to the World Wide Web, I'm going to post in on the... Well, you know.  Who knows, maybe reading it will make someone chuckle.  That's the power of the Internet.  You put something out there and it can create a ripple that spreads further than you ever imagine.  And that of course has the capacity to be either a good or a bad thing.

So, make your ripples online positive ones.  Mmm, positive ripples.  Someone's going to turn that into a euphemism.  I mean, this is the Internet.

In Praise of The Bestie-Boys!

Is it just me, or is it ridiculously lovely when two guys are best, best friends?!

I've been thinking about this a lot, recently.  There are plenty of people out there who will immediately jump to the "THEY ARE SECRETLY IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER" conclusion, when faced with two guys who are extremely close.  And that's cool - there's nothing remotely wrong with being gay, or even about fantasising that people might be - but for me, that's not why I like "Bestie-Boys."  Although frankly, that is probably the campest title I could possibly have used to describe male friendships.  Oh, well.

BESTIE BOYS HIGH FIVE.  YEAH.

For me, it doesn't have to be about sexuality - at least not in the sexy sense.  I think personally, it's more that being so close and open about your affection for one another is kind of a stereotypically female thing to do, so to see two guys (regardless of sexual orientation) acting the same way feels really refreshing.  Dare I say it, heartwarming.  Clearly I do dare, because I just said it.

I guess it's perhaps about how relatable people are, too.  I have really close friendships in my life and I feel very lucky as a result of that.  Because I feel so lucky, I often tell those close friends that I love them and try to make sure that they know they're valued in my life (I recently made them a video and everything... I'm still hoping it straddled the right line between cute and creepy...).  So, when I see guys who aren't afraid to be honest about how special their besties are to them, I instantly get them, if that makes sense?  And yes, I also "get" the sexual overtones, even if they're just jokey.  After all, you're reading a blog written by an entirely straight woman, who frequently tells her female best friend (who's married to a dude) that I "would" her.  It's just a thing we do.

As is this sort of thing.  Usually at gigs.  But sometimes just because...reasons.

Early last year, I developed a crush on a real-life person.  I know; shocking, considering my penchant for celebrity crushes.  But one of the reasons that person went from being "dude I see now and then" to "dude whose face I want to nibble" (shut up and don't judge me), was the fact that he has a best friend and he's not afraid to show his affection for him.  

The thing is, if a guy is unafraid to show his affection for his male best friend, it stands to reason that you might feel like he'd be unafraid to show his affection for you, were you to be in a relationship with him.  And I think that's a big part of the attraction of male double-acts to female viewers/listeners and to women in "real life," too.

Despite the fact that it's 2016 and we're supposed to be this very liberal society, we still cling on to these outdated ideas that men can't be affectionate towards one another, without their sexuality being called into question.  And to be fair, if two guys are besties and they happen to also be gay or bisexual, does it really matter?!

The fact is, I for one am glad that more and more men - of all orientations - are open about their strong friendships and their feelings for one another.  If women can be all cuddly and "love you, babe" with their closest friends, then why the heck can't blokes do it, too?!

It reveals a sensitive, caring nature and I think we can all agree, those are positive qualities in a partner, heck, in a person in general.

So, here's to the "Bestie-Boys."  The blokes who aren't afraid to show their affection for one another.  The ones who, secretly or not so secretly, so often top our crush lists. ;)

NOW, LOOK AT THE AMAZING GIFS I DISCOVERED WHILST PLOTTING THIS LITTLE BLOG!