I know what some of you are thinking: what the heck is a flower boy?
Well, to cut to the chase, here’s the definition of a flower boy by Urban Dictionary, which sort of only get it half-right (I mean, it’s Urban Dictionary—what were you expecting?): “A boy that looks and acts feminine/ girly.”
There’s a better definition in My Drama List, which lists down some main traits of a flower boy: slim-figured, feminine features, well-groomed, smooth skin ,gorgeous hair, fashionable and my favourite: high maintenance.
Kind of, you know, like this.
As for manly man, I don’t I need to explain much: just look at me The Rock.
Yeah, see the spider crawling on his shoulder? He DGAF, because #manly. In fact, if he’s hungry, he might just eat that spider, because #manly.
So, between a flower boy and a manly man, which do you think girls prefer?
This is really very subjective, so let’s just take a look at what the Internet says first. In an online forum in Soompi, one of the oldest K-pop websites, the question was posted and out of the 135 posts, 27 preferred manly men, 4 preferred flower boys while the rest were on the fence or did not answer directly.
Given how sensitive this topic is, I asked all the girls in the office on their preference. Guess what’s the results? All of them preferred manly men (even one who’s a hardcore K-pop fan), and the main reason given was the same as what was repeatedly mentioned in the forum: they won’t want a weak boy (which they somehow associate flower boys with).
Now, to show you yet another example, just take a look at these two guys.
In the latest K-drama that was written and directed by the writer and director of Descendants of the Sun, there’re two main male leads: a flower boy and a manly man.
The flower boy sort of work in an office environment—his job, as a grim reaper, is to take away the souls of people who has died. The manly man, an immortal who used to be a general and had killed many people to defend his country, isn’t afraid of anything—including death. In fact, he’s so manly that he “died” with a sword in his chest.
This K-drama, Goblin, has taken Asia by storm, just like Descendants of the Sun: it gets the same rating of 4.8/5 in DramaFever, and the third episode has achieved AGB Nielsen Ratings in Seoul of about 14%, which is similar to Descendants of the Sun.
Goblin started airing on 3 December 2016 in Oh!K every Saturday and Sunday at 7:00 p.m. But now, the drama will be aired earlier at 11:15 a.m. instead, while you can still watch the episodes at 7:00 p.m. (because, you know, you might still be sleeping at 11:15 a.m. #sundaymorningbesttimetosleep)
Singapore viewers can watch it on StarHub TV Channel 816 and Singtel Channels 525 (Mandarin) & 611 (Malay). If you’ve not watched it yet, you can view the first full episode on Facebook here, but here’s a warning: you’ll get addicted to it. And you’ll cry then laugh for 1.5 hour.
The channel that aired the series in Singapore has a website in which viewers choose their preference between the two leads, flower boy Lee Dong-wook (#TeamLeeDongWook) and manly man Gong Yoo (#TeamGongYoo).
At this moment, after two episodes (at the time of writing), who do you think take the lead?
Me. Manly man. Again.
If you’ve watched the drama, you’ll sense Gong Yoo’s manliness, from his battles as a General to his cool and DGAF reactions. In fact, he even teased Lee Dong Wook’s dress sense, laughing at his hat (which, really, I’d have to agree: when the heck did a grim reaper started wearing such a hat, be so fashionable and even have such good skin!?)
You know, I’m not being bias because I shamelessly think that I’m a manly man, but the results are pretty clear from my little experiment: it seems like manly men get the girl.
But don’t take my words for it—the results might change, because you have the ability to support #TeamLeeDongWook, the flower boy. Then again…really?
There’s actually another way to show your support, because you might be so hardcore that you want to show the world how important it is to be with a manly man or flower boy.
Simply go to this website, upload your image and ta-da! You’ve just taken an image with #TeamGongYoo or #TeamLeeDongWook. If you want to, fangirl all you want, just like our colleague Cassandra who was duped convinced into this.
I don’t know about you, but this looks more like a #teamcassandra to me.
This article was first published on goodyfeed.com and is written in collaboration with Oh!K TV Channel.
