Every now and then, social networks pour their devotion into a celebrity who goes viral because of an interview or a role that captures the zeitgeist and the hearts of the spectators. This is how the so-called ‘Internet Boyfriend’ of the moment was born, a title held by names like Timothée Chalamet and Benedict Cumberbatch, two good examples that this fleeting digital fame has little or nothing to do with aesthetic regulations. “When men in the real world disappoint us, the “Internet Boyfriend” stands as a model of enlightened masculinity,” . “It is usually a man with enough mystery to keep the desire they generate from becoming too much, but with enough charm that achieving popularity is simply a matter of time. Typically, he is a man in his 30s, old enough for a teenager to find him refreshingly mature and an adult to desire him without impunity,” the journalist points out.
The usual thing is that this figure is represented by an actor who until then was not on the mainstream radar, but Andrew Garfield has become the exception by being the man of the moment despite the fact that he has been accustomed to fame for some time. The reasons? in ‘Chicken Shop Date’ with which it is impossible to watch without sighing (and without envy) and a video with the muppet Elmo in which he talks about the grief in which he is immersed following the death of his mother, who died in 2019 due to pancreatic cancer. The era of love for bad boys is over: now men who are not afraid to show their emotions and who claim to be feminists triumph. “I consider myself feminine and of course, feminist.”
The hottest quote in the history of the internet
Amelia Dimoldenberg has become one of the women of the moment thanks to her dating show ‘Chicken Shop Date’, in which she meets at different fried chicken restaurants with celebrities with whom she flirts. To date, the one that had generated the most headlines was , since the singer proved to be an expert flirt and the chemistry between the two made many Internet users wish that this digital date would go further, but the most anticipated was undoubtedly the meeting with Andrew Garfield . On the red carpet of the British GQ Men of the Year, in 2022, they had a commented encounter that was captured by the cameras and that made clear the chemistry that existed between them, and when the following year they met again on the red carpet of Golden Globes (on both occasions, Dimoldenberg was a reporter), the actor said he couldn’t go on her show to have a date with her because he was afraid of what might happen. A year later, his words made sense, because when the meeting finally took place, those 11 minutes of interview have been marked by the internet as the romcom of the year. “I think there is something between us. So much so that you have been avoiding me for two years, because the chemistry we have seemed too much to you,” the presenter told her. “Leave all this aside. “I think we could have had a real date without cameras involved,” the actor responded. From those words, the date really became a romantic comedy with no apparent script. In a world in which everything is measured and built for the external gaze, that talk was a gift of intimacy, naturalness and chemistry.
The most public duel
Grief is usually silenced by those who go through it to avoid making others feel uncomfortable, and celebrities who have faced the death of a loved one usually approach such a delicate issue when they have already overcome the process, but Andrew Garfield, immersed In it, he has spoken openly about his pain on ‘Sesame Street’, where he has kept talking about how he feels after the death of his mother. “It is important to talk about death because it is still an issue. Something disturbing has happened: until recently, people believed in the gods or the afterlife, but when that expectation was dismantled, a feeling of emptiness and despair has been generated,” says the author of (Roca Editorial, 2024), Rafael Narbona, who lost his father at the age of eight, an event he alludes to on many occasions in his book.
Andrew Garfield explains to Elmo that grief is making him feel closer to his mother, a revelation that has touched many. “We must assume that in grief, the feeling of separation and loss are inevitable, but acceptance comes little by little and I think it is advisable to keep loved ones alive in memory,” he tells S Moda Narbona. “Sadness is a very uncomfortable place, but more for those who see it than for those who feel it. When someone is sad about someone’s death, they feel a certain comfort in that place, while others are used to asking someone who has lost someone what they can do to make them well. It is essential that there are people who show that being sad in situations like this is not only normal, but necessary. People say that grief is something to overcome, but if public figures like Garfield show that it is something natural, perceptions begin to change. The phrase that “you have to overcome grief seems extremely insensitive to me,” says Gabriela Consuegra, author of ‘A minute has passed and a life remains’ (Temas de Hoy, 2021), a book in which the author transmit with the reader a path in which to learn to live in a world that continues there despite the death of his father.
In just a few minutes, Andrew Garfield has become an ally for those who need comfort, a reference when it comes to making pain visible without obstacles or filters and, ultimately, a public figure who has achieved with his sincerity and his absence of fear When it comes to sharing your pain, you will fall in love with a digital world tired of traps and displays of sadness rehearsed, made up and performed to gain ‘likes’. What does it say about this world that a date in which a man who is emotionally available and a video in which he talks openly about pain generated such a reaction? The desire that people have to find men who openly show their vulnerability.
