Vertical poster for the 2023 Singaporean boys' love web series Straight Best Friend

Straight Best Friend

CompletedWeb Series🇸🇬

SYNOPSIS

Straight Best Friend is a three-episode Singaporean BL web series from Dear Straight People, premiered on 15 June 2023 and directed by Kieran Cheang. It stars Sean Foo, who founded the production company, opposite Prince Stefan; both performers are openly queer, as is the director. The complete run sits behind the company's Patreon, while the opening episode was posted free to YouTube, where it has since passed four million views.

Its subject is the situation the title names: being in love with a close friend who is straight. The production describes the series as an account of unrequited love, the strain it places on a friendship, and the self-discovery that follows, and it stays with the overthinking rather than hurrying towards a resolution. Episodes run a little over seven minutes each.

The series is better known for how it was written than for what it contains. Dear Straight People commissioned the initial script from ChatGPT and then had professional screenwriters revise it, which made this one of the earliest queer dramas anywhere to be marketed on that basis. Sean Foo was direct about the reasoning: filmmaking is expensive, small production houses struggle for attention, and the AI credit was a way to get a modestly resourced series noticed while building a paying Patreon audience. He also framed the project as an attempt to encourage wider acceptance of LGBT people across Asia.

Character names have not been published in any source consulted for this entry, so the record carries the two performers without the roles they play. Dear Straight People later posted a longer single-film edit of the material to the same YouTube channel, described there as an experimental gay short film.

CONTENT DETAILS

Native Title
Straight Best Friend
Original Title
Straight Best Friend
Adaptation
Not adapted from an existing work. The initial script was generated by ChatGPT at the production company's request and then revised by professional screenwriters.
Genres
Coming-of-AgeDramaFriendshipRomanceShort-FormSlice of Life
Themes
BL
Key Themes
Unrequited LoveStraight Best FriendAI-Generated ScriptSelf-DiscoveryFriendship Under StrainPatreon DistributionSingapore Queer MediaIndependent ProductionShort-Form StreamingOpenly Queer Cast And Crew
Country
Singapore
Networks
YouTube
Seasons
1
Episodes
3
Duration
over 7 min
Aired Start
Release Year
2023

WATCH ON

YouTube (episode 1)Patreon (all three episodes)

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Script drafted by ChatGPT: The production commissioned an AI-generated first script and then had professional screenwriters revise it, making this one of the earliest queer dramas marketed on that basis.
  • The reasoning was commercial: Founder Sean Foo said openly that filmmaking is costly, that small production houses struggle for attention, and that the AI angle was a route to visibility and Patreon subscribers.
  • Three short episodes: Premiered 15 June 2023, each running a little over seven minutes, for a total of roughly twenty minutes.
  • Split distribution: Episode one is free on YouTube; all three episodes sit behind the Dear Straight People Patreon.
  • A very large free audience: The opening episode has passed four million views on YouTube.
  • Queer cast and crew: Sean Foo and Prince Stefan star, with Kieran Cheang directing; all three are openly queer.
  • No character names published: No source consulted names the roles, so this record holds the performers without their characters.
  • A later re-edit exists: Dear Straight People subsequently posted a longer single-film version of the material to the same channel.

EDITOR’S VERDICT

5.5/10

Reviewed by Renkaze, editor of BL & GL Flix

This is the only record in this catalogue whose script was drafted by software, and that fact has done more for the series than anything inside it. Four million people watched the first episode on YouTube. Very few of them were drawn by the premise, which is among the most familiar in gay storytelling.

The gimmick, assessed honestly

Dear Straight People never hid what it was doing. Sean Foo said plainly that filmmaking is expensive, that small outfits struggle to be noticed, and that the AI credit was a route to attention and to Patreon subscriptions. As a piece of marketing it worked completely. As a claim about the work it is thinner than it sounds: ChatGPT produced a first draft and human screenwriters then revised it, which is a long way from a machine-written drama.

What nobody involved seems to have said out loud is that the premise chosen is the one a language model would handle best. Unrequited love for a straight friend is so heavily precedented that fluent, unsurprising prose is close to guaranteed. The experiment was set up to succeed.

The series underneath

Three episodes of a little over seven minutes is roughly twenty minutes of drama, and it shows. The writing is serviceable and never embarrassing, which given the process is itself notable, but it is also without a moment that could not have been predicted from the title. The series sits with its protagonist's rumination and declines to resolve anything, a choice that reads as honest at this length and would read as evasive at any greater one.

Foo and Prince Stefan are likeable and the direction is unfussy. No character names appear to have been published, which tells you something about how much the production expected anyone to become attached to the people in it.

Verdict

Worth twenty minutes for its place in a genuinely odd footnote to queer screen history, and for the question it raises about how standardised this particular story has become. Not worth it for the drama, which is competent and forgettable. The free first episode is a fair sample; the Patreon paywall on the remaining two asks more than the material returns.

Final Score: 5.5/10

What Straight Best Friend is about

The choice of story is the most revealing decision here, and it was almost certainly not made by the machine. Of all the situations available to a queer drama, falling for a straight friend is the most thoroughly worn: it has been told so often, in so many places, that its beats are effectively standardised. Which makes it the ideal thing to ask a language model for. A system that produces the most probable next sentence will be at its most fluent exactly where the material is most conventional.

So the experiment is quietly rigged, and interestingly so. Handing ChatGPT a premise this well established is not a test of whether a machine can write a queer story. It is a demonstration that one particular queer story has been repeated often enough to have become predictable, which is a finding about the genre rather than about the software.

A second reading is available and it is less comfortable. The reason the scenario recurs is that the experience recurs: a great many gay men have lived some version of it, and the repetition in the fiction reflects repetition in life. On that reading the series has a machine reproduce an experience so common it has hardened into a template, and what comes out is a story about loneliness assembled from a very large record of other people describing the same loneliness. Neither reading flatters the marketing. Both are more interesting than the series itself.

OFFICIAL TRAILER

EPISODE SCHEDULE

3 / 3 episodes aired · Completed
EP 1
15 Jun 2023
Aired
EP 2
22 Jun 2023
Aired
EP 3
29 Jun 2023
Aired

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Was this really written by ChatGPT?

Partly. The production commissioned an initial script from ChatGPT and then had professional screenwriters revise it. Sean Foo described it as ChatGPT writing the script and screenwriters making revisions to it, so the finished dialogue is a collaboration rather than raw machine output.

Why did they do it that way?

For attention, and they said so. Foo explained that filmmaking is costly and small production houses struggle to be noticed, and presented the AI element as a way to draw eyes to the series and grow the company's Patreon following.

How many episodes are there and how long are they?

Three, each running a little over seven minutes, so the whole series comes to roughly twenty minutes.

Can it be watched for free?

Only partly. The first episode is free on the Dear Straight People YouTube channel; all three sit behind the company's Patreon. A longer single-film edit was also posted to the channel later.

Who appears in it?

Sean Foo and Prince Stefan, both openly queer, directed by Kieran Cheang. No character names have been published in the sources consulted, so this record lists no cast-to-character mapping.

How does it relate to Getaway?

Same production company. Dear Straight People made both and Sean Foo stars in each, but they are unconnected stories with different directors, casts and settings.

Was the 2023 date ever in doubt?

One database lists it as a 2025 mini-series. Contemporary press coverage of the ChatGPT announcement is dated June 2023 and gives a premiere of 15 June 2023, so this record follows the earlier and better-evidenced date.

Written and verified by Renkaze · Last updated 20 September 2026

Assembled from press coverage of the production and the company’s own channel; part of this series sits behind a paywall that was not accessed for this entry. Our disclaimer sets out how to flag an error.

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