About

Hot Yaoi Base is an exploitable art template depicting a large, generic, muscular Yaoi character standing next to and looking at a smaller character with wide eyes. The artwork, created and posted by DeviantArt user K3nel1OS in December 2013, became the subject of a redraw art trend on Twitter in June 2023 in which artists draw their ship pairing characters from various fandoms using the template for reference.

Origin

On December 2nd, 2013, DeviantArt^[1] user k3nel1os posted a piece of artwork titled "Hot Yaoi Base" showing two men, one large and Chad-like and one smaller, garnering over 23,000 views in 10 years (shown below).

DeviantArt users began to draw over the template the next year, some sharing their artwork in the comments of the original post. The earliest known redraw was posted by DevianrArt^[2] user hikarijade on February 2nd, 2014 (shown below, left). On June 14th, 2018, DeviantArt^[3] user zzAuguss used the template (shown below, right).

Spread

2023 "Draw Your Ship" Trend

On June 8th, 2023, Twitter^[4] user @chaldkicker posted the artwork, writing, "Draw your ship using Hot Yaoi Base," garnering over 51,000 likes and 15,000 retweets in six days. The post inspired numerous redraws and fan art pieces referencing the template over the following days. For example, on June 9th, Twitter^[5] user @bamboomface posted a version of the meme drawing the characters as Sans from Undertale and Baldi, garnering over 5,600 likes in five days (shown below).

On the same day, Twitter^[6] user @saloonboy posted a Spider-Man redraw of the meme, garnering over 76,000 likes in the same span of time (shown below, left). On June 13th, Twitter^[7] user @Render_Point posted a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic version of the meme, garnering over 2,300 likes in a day (shown below, right). Over the same span of time, the trend also gained notable spread on Tumblr.^[8]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References