How One Producer Promotes Change With Boys Love Drama ‘Semantic Error’

SJ “Sinxity” Shin knows firsthand the power that entertainment has in affecting positive change. For 10 years the CEO of AXIS CCP worked as a creative director at YG Entertainment, the launching pad for major k-pop acts such as BigBang, BlackPink, 2NE1, Winner and Ikon. During his YG tenure, Shin helped introduce a global audience to the wonders of k-pop. Some of the best memories from his YG years involve artists whose work he helped produce and promote.

“The debut performances of the artists Winner, BlackPink, Ikon, Akdong Musicians, and Lee Hi,” said Shin. “They are personally very fine moments for me.”

With his new company, Shin’s creative endeavors have expanded to include other forms of entertainment like the popular Boys Love drama Semantic Error. As executive producer, he was instrumental in adapting the popular Manta webtoon into a drama that stars singer-actor Park Seo-ham and DKZ’s Park Jae-chan. The drama aired on the Korean OTT platform Watcha, becoming the most popular OTT content across all platforms in Korea during the second week of March 2022.

For those who have never seen a Boys Love or BL drama, they are simply very romantic same sex love stories. It’s a storytelling tradition that dates back to the Japanese manga niche known as Yaoi, but since the 70s the genre has acquired a worldwide following. While BL dramas focus on male relationships, they are often written by women and have many female fans. According to Shin, one reason for the popularity of BL dramas is that they satisfy the demand for fresh, diverse storytelling.

“We already have so many hetero romance movies and dramas,” said Shin. “I believe audiences need new content—a new point of view and new stories. I believe these dramas about boys’ relationships are really fresh to them.”

Thailand and Taiwan produce dozens of BL dramas every year. While a few mainstream Korean dramas, such as Itaewon Class and Reply 1997, explored LGBTQ issues, the 2020 drama Your Eyes Linger is considered by many to be South Korea’s first BL series. Light On Me followed in 2021 and Semantic Error in 2022. Shin stresses that BL dramas are a genre of their own, distinct from other gay romance stories.

“Recently there was a queer drama from Netflix, Uncoupled,” he said. “I really loved that drama with Neil Patrick Harris and Darren Star. It’s really fun, but it was a typical gay romance. BL is really different from that. BL drama is a kind of fantasy in its own world, where characters love each other boy-boy, girl-girl, it doesn’t matter.”

The characters in BL dramas live in a world without the problems that many LGBTQ individuals face, especially in socially conservative countries. When he auditioned for the BL series Park Jae-chan was advised by his management not to take the role as it might adversely affect his career. He took a chance and his role as the overly regimented programmer Chu Sang-woo only boosted his popularity. The drama also enhanced the career of his co-star Park Seo-ham, who played Jang Jae-young, the impulsive art student that falls for Sang-woo.

“This year the environment for actors worrying about playing a queer character in BL dramas changed because of the success of Semantic Error,” said Shin. “The actors who played these two characters were not that famous before the drama. Their Instagram followers before Semantic Error were approximately 6K and 5K, but after Semantic Error, they have 907K and 667K followers. It really increased. Also, one of the actors is a member of a k-pop boy idol group DKZ. Their album package sales really increased. Before Semantic Error their sales were reaching 4K or 3K but now they are at 100K. Because of that, many producers in the k-pop industry and management recognized that being in a BL drama is really great for an artist’s fandom. So, these decision makers are now more accepting and willing to reach fans through these dramas.”

The drama’s success not only influenced decision makers in the entertainment industry. Shin said it may also shape politics in South Korea, where progress in the public acceptance of homosexuality has been slow.

“In 2020 an artist named Holland was the first k-pop singer to openly come out as gay,” said Shin. “Twenty years ago the celebrity Hong Seok-chan came out, but in that 20 years there were no stars that openly publicized their sexuality. Now we have a political party talking about gay marriage. There was no discussion about that before this kind of movement, but now on the political side, they are talking about gay marriage. It is rapidly changing.”

AXIS CCP has more dramas in the works.

“On the AXIS production side, this year we’re going to open a new BL project,” said Shin. “To be exact, we are opening a drama label, Blue by Blue. We’re going to have a new project. The first content will be about vampires, so a BL vampire series. The drama will have the BL component to it, but we’re not going to label it as BL anymore because we want to be very open that there are different types of relationships.”

What Shin finds most satisfying about working in the entertainment industry is the ability to deliver messages that resonate on an emotional level.

“At the end of the day we want to make good content that inspires people and offers viewers another perspective. At YG, I witnessed the success of Gangnam Style and BlackPink and saw how the global perspective toward these artists and the content changed drastically. It was very inspiring for me and everybody who worked there. With Semantic Error we got to change people’s public opinion on LGBTQ issues. Slowly people are changing their views after the success of Semantic Error. As a person working in the entertainment industry I can see that the soft power of content changing people’s opinions and views is very great.”

Rather than take an activist approach to fighting for queer rights, said Shin, as a producer he chose to focus on the beauty of the characters’ relationship. Although it’s 2022, there are still places in the world where people are not free to love whom they want to love.

“There are still a lot of problems to solve,” he said. “So I want to keep on spending my energy to make meaningful content.”

Semantic Error airs on Viki.com.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.