Troye Sivan Owns Up to Critiques of Twink-Filled New Video

While Sivan's new video, "Rush," set the internet of fire, some gays were feeling left out in the cold thanks to the video's cast of what seemed like nothing but skinny white guys.

The lead single to Sivan's forthcoming third album, "Rush" is a celebration of post-COVID socializing, depicting what might be described as a revenge rave in which scores of young people – mostly white men, with a few Black men and some young women in the mix – dance, cruise, rub up on each other, drink, and smoke.

Six-pack abs abound among the shirtless guys, but what's not in evidence are other sorts of body shapes, and social media users took notice.

Sivan's owning that, according to a Rolling Stone report. He explained that the lack of body type diversity in the video was a simple oversight.

"I definitely hear the critique," the article quoted the pop star telling another music news outlet, Billboard. "To be honest, it just wasn't a thought we had – we obviously weren't saying, 'We want to have one specific type of person in the video.' We just made the video, and there wasn't a ton of thought put behind that."

The author of the article, Tomás Mier – who described himself in the report as a "homosexual journalist" – was one of those calling the video out on Twitter. "It seems like a case study on how white gays choose to view queer people as a whole," Mier tweeted. "There's not a single fat person in the entire video. Just white twinks and chiseled bodies."

In his Rolling Stone followup, Mier said the video pushed a "WeHo gay-endorsed narrative" about who gay men are and what they look like, and called it a "twink, orgy fantasy."

But, the RS article added, Sivan also did some calling out of his own, decrying a "quasi-review" in Vulture that, the pop star observed, dealt out some body shaming of its own.

"There was this article ... and they were talking about [the lack of body diversity], and in the same sentence, this person said 'Eat something, you stupid twinks,'" Sivan told Billboard. "That really bummed me out to read that – because I've had my own insecurities with my body image."

"I think that everyone's body is as beautiful as it is, including my own," Sivan continued, "and it just sucks to see people talking about other people's bodies."

"He's right," Mier acknowledged, though he also called it "concerning... that no one in his cohort of queer friends (or fellow creatives) thought this decision [to include only cast members with toned bodies] could lead to controversy and division."

Still, Mier declared himself "ready to forgive" Sivan, and wrote, "I respect him for being honest."

Sivan's oversight aside, are you feeling the "Rush?"