Curate, connect, and discover
my (long ass) thoughts on the "felix looked uncomfortable on hong seok-cheon's jewel box" discourse now that it's coming back with hyunjin being on the show
1) y'all are entirely too quick to jump to "these gays are predatory!!" about felix and hyunjin interacting with men you perceive as gay (not just the hosts of this show). check your internalized homophobia and shut the fuck up, and if you can't check it, then EXTRA shut the fuck up. also they are grown ass men, stop infantilizing them.
2) the whole way felix acted on that show was a bit. the whole [blink blink] uhhh heh heh [blink blink] about maniac gay version was a concept. you can clearly tell he's hamming it up and acting, especially considering how he and changbin referenced it during one of their TV performances and how hyunjin said the whole group loved it.
3) if any of his hesitation was real, it was probably because he was literally the first stray kids member to appear on a gay show. stray kids doesn't even SAY the word gay usually like talk about the quickest switch up for him. bro was probably like "how tf do i engage with this without getting my ass reamed by jype"
4) there was also probably a bit of "how do i engage with this without seeming too flamboyant" bc people are constantly talking about his sexuality and skz don't really talk about shit like that openly (see #3). there is a difference between doing something within the group and doing it on a solo schedule, especially to a cishet audience, so if there was real hesitation, he was probably trying to keep up with his curated idol image. (note: this is a point that people who pass as/are cishet may not understand, and that's fine)
5) if felix really was super uncomfortable, hyunjin wouldn't have gone on the show, and he wouldn't have recommended i.n to go on either.