Troye Sivan is gearing up for something big, and he's decided to tease it in the messiest, cheekiest way possible. Over the past few weeks, the 31-year-old pop star has flooded his finsta with revealing images-lingerie shots, an apparent sixth toe, pics with ex Jacob Bixenman-before hitting his main Instagram with a sultry photo of himself in nothing but a lacy black bra and leather duster. "Soon," the caption promised.
The Video That Broke Gay Twitter
But it's his most recent stunt that has genuinely divided the gay internet. In a video shared across Instagram Stories and X, Sivan stands cheek to cheek with a still from the "Got Me Started" music video, mirroring the iconic shot from that 2023 hit. He's wearing a light orange sweater and black pants-both pulled down just enough to show off his rear, exactly as he did in the original video. The difference? Instead of the tight red briefs that defined that moment, Sivan is sporting red and blue checkered cotton boxer briefs.
On X alone, the clip has been viewed over 1.1 million times, and the replies are chaotic. "gays starting to replace briefs in favor of these patterned boxers must be a recession indicator," one user joked. Others were more direct: "Why the fugly boxers tho" and "boxers…? what are we doing here troye." The comments kept coming-some lamenting the outfit choice, others defending it, and a few gleefully noting that Sivan had given himself a subtle wedgie to better outline his cheeks for the camera.
I need you to know as a gay guy who owns so much crazy slut underwear my actual favourite to wear is a pair of baggy boxers they're so comfy and he's still showing off so I salute it.
Connor, on X
A Moment Bigger Than Underwear
The boxer debate, silly as it may seem, actually reveals something deeper about how Sivan has evolved as an artist and public figure. Earlier this year, he published a Substack post titled "F this guy!" responding to a plastic surgeon who had offered unsolicited advice on how to "re-twinkify" himself. In that piece, Sivan reflected candidly on his changing body and the cultural expectations around it.
"I'm 30. I've struggled with my body image for a lot of my life," he wrote. "I'm historically famously skinny, and i'm not THAT skinny anymore. I'm historically famously twinky (I am still the google search result image for 'twink'), and i'm not THAT twinky anymore." He acknowledged the choice between embracing his evolution or pursuing expensive treatments to hold back time-and made clear he was choosing the former.
That message-casual, unfiltered, refusing to apologize for aging out of a particular aesthetic-carries through to the boxer moment. Sivan isn't trying to recreate his 2023 self perfectly. He's riffing on it, claiming it, updating it with something that reads as more comfortable and less image-conscious. The checkered boxers are, in their own way, a refusal.
Whatever Sivan is doing, it's working.
The Bigger Picture
Sivan's comfort with provocative, body-forward teasing sits at the intersection of several cultural shifts in queer spaces. Jockstraps, thongs, and lingerie are thriving in what might be called a post-bottom-shaming era-a moment when the variety of how gay men present themselves sexually has become unremarkable. Simultaneously, baggy boxer shorts and Y2K dirty-boy aesthetics are having a genuine fashion moment. Sivan is casually straddling both worlds: lacy lingerie on the main feed, comfortable boxers in the promo video, Calvin Kleins in the latest Instagram shot. He doesn't appear to discriminate.
The album tease-technically unconfirmed but heavily signaled through these drops-continues a pattern that has defined Sivan's rollouts over the last few years: irreverent, increasingly body-positive, and designed to spark conversation rather than follow the playbook. Whether the gay internet is debating his wardrobe choices or parsing every finsta post, the end result is the same: sustained attention, genuine engagement, and a kind of intimacy that feels genuinely different from the sterile polishing of traditional pop rollouts.
For a 31-year-old artist who spent his early twenties as the industry's poster child for twink fragility, there's something quietly radical about that approach. The boxers may be "fugly" to some, but they're also a small, concrete reminder that he's not performing for the version of himself that made "Got Me Started." He's performing for who he is now.
Source: Queerty
Cover photo: PURE HONEY, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
