TikTok’s Thirstiest Comment Sections Are Changing Catcalling

My algorithm was airtight before I was served a video of Greyson Hoelzel. It was a consistent churn of lesbian and bisexual memes, cat propaganda, comedians doing bits about their gynecologists or their own mothers. Then suddenly, a face appeared, the heavens opened, the angels sang. There was Hoelzel, monologuing at his phone about tax returns and getting drunk alone. In truth, he could have been talking about almost anything and I would have stuck around. He just has this charisma. Or maybe it’s those glossy lips and that can’t-be-tamed hair. That L-shaped jaw? I can’t say. All I know is that I — in the parlance of my people — was sat.

And that brings me to the comments section. Perhaps even more bewitching than Hoelzel himself are the comments he gets on his videos, people debasing themselves left and right to drop the flirtiest, occasionally filthiest, one-liners. Commenters seem to flock from all over the web for a chance to objectify this young man, to gas him up, to ask for his hand in marriage. As one commenter put it, “This comment section is the equivalent of panties being thrown on the stage at a Prince concert!”

And while he has racked up his fair share of truly cringe, borderline heinous comments, the majority do not have serial killer energy. Many of the flirty comments, even the spicy ones, are couched in a certain awareness, written by people who have clearly been on the reverse end of one-sided encounters with strangers who feel entitled to make unsolicited comments about their body. They’re quite often funny, sometimes shocking in their boldness.

Initially — as a woman who, like many of us, has endured unwelcome catcalling on the street since before I even got my first period — I felt there was something almost righteous about the way these (mostly women) commenters had seized on an opportunity to serve it back.

Still, I couldn’t shake the uncomfortable knowledge that there was a human on the receiving end, and I wanted to know how it all made him feel. I wasn’t sure how willing he would be to talk to a reporter about his own status as a budding internet sex symbol, but as I would soon find out, Hoelzel, 25, is a very good sport about a lot of things, especially fielding the hypersexual comments that pour into his notifications.

People close to him have expressed some anxiety about what they read, but he’s mostly made peace with the uncomfortable swarm of adoration. “When you get certain comments that are very hypersexualized, friends and family are sometimes concerned. They say, like, ‘Hey man, you are essentially getting catcalled in the comments section,'” he tells Popsugar. “And I see it, I read it. The comments sections I have on my videos are like the Wild West. But it doesn’t really bother me anymore.”

It did at one point, he admits, especially in his early content creation days. But the more he’s exposed himself to the internet, the more his perspective has shifted. “I’d like to think that most of these people are trying to be funny and not trying to make me uncomfortable,” he says. “I take those kinds of comments as a joke.”

It’s possible that as a man, it’s easier for him to brush off the feral comments section than it might be for a woman in a similar position. A 2021 study on the motivations behind street harassment found that “men who reported having engaged in catcalling demonstrated higher levels of hostile sexism, self-ascribed masculinity, social dominance orientation, and tolerance of sexual harassment.”

In addition to the catcalling that women have historically faced in person, we know women are also subjected to the majority of the abuse online, including women whose personal or professional accounts have nothing to do with their image. (A woman car mechanic, for example, could easily receive as many sexualizing or inappropriate comments as a model or influencer.)

The virtual sidewalk of the comments section is something anyone can access, which is part of what makes it so dangerous. As is the anonymity — though it sometimes has the opposite effect, empowering people who have traditionally been vulnerable to flip the script and try out something like catcalling for themselves.

Hoelzel is aware of this dynamic, acknowledging that he, as a straight white guy, can “handle it.” Where he draws the line, however, is at comments about his family. He’s gotten DMs from followers who say they’ve reached out to his two older sisters, or to his mom on Facebook, which feels like a massive violation. “My mom is a lovely woman, and she keeps to herself,” he says. “To no degree or extent do I want people to contact my family.”

For an internet pseudo-celebrity, Hoelzel has some pretty rabid fans. Some have created “stan accounts” on TikTok, posting edited versions of his videos and roundups of his photos. During a round of deep Googling, he’s even found an entire blog about himself, roughly 20 pages long, plus a cache of old pictures that he posted when he started making content, about five years ago.

But the comments on his videos aren’t always that deep: Some people are genuinely trying to flirt, while others are just passing through, casually dropping little quips on their way to the next piece of content in their feed. I spoke with some of the people who have left flirty comments on Hoelzel’s videos and who agreed to share a bit about their motivations.

Angel Quinn, 25, tells me she commented “fun and flirty things because he’s cute, and also I believe in innocent flirting that’ll compliment someone without harassment.” She adds that if she has a “shot with him or any guy” she finds attractive, she’s going to take it.

Sylvia, 22, agrees that it’s important to keep from harassing Hoelzel or anyone on the internet. “I would never say anything overtly sexual or harmful, but lean more toward making comments that are humorous and admittedly a little bit forward,” she says. “I guess it is catcalling regardless, though the power dynamics of a woman vs. a man, and it being behind a screen vs. on the street, definitely make it different than the stereotypical man yelling at a woman in public. It doesn’t feel empowering so to speak, but it is kind of fun to speak my mind, see other women (or any gender) who agree, and frankly, be on the other end of it.”

Sylvia says she leaves the occasional comments on Hoelzel’s videos because for her “it’s a form of entertainment.” She even feels a sense of silly camaraderie with other lurkers who engage with her comments — it’s less about getting Hoelzel’s attention and more about making other commenters laugh. “Just for the gag,” she says. “For the girls if u will.”

Whether it’s a full-fledged pop star or just a popular content creator, social media makes it all too easy to forget that there are (almost always) real people on the other side of the screen. Hoelzel himself is truly just a dude. He recently moved from Philadelphia to New York City, where he dreams of maybe one day getting into the comedy scene in a more serious way. But as of now, he works full-time as an environmental engineer, and uses his free time to record himself for social media and his podcast on the side. He amassed his more than 1 million followers simply by being pretty, and sometimes funny. Even he admits that he doesn’t really do all that much — one day, he just “kinda started talking,” and the internet listened.

The first video of his that I ever saw was him demonstrating how he can get his cat, Miso, to meow on cue. The whole thing was criminally adorable, that goes without saying. He frequently pokes fun at himself for how desperately he is seeking a wife, specifically a mother for little Miso. But behind the jokes is a sincere grasp at connection.

He self-describes as a “hopeless romantic,” and there’s a part of him that believes his content creation will lead him to The One. He’s gone on dates with a few women who have slid into his DMs, but only when they’ve asked nicely — not the ones who demand he take his clothes off before ever meeting them. None of the dates have worked out so far, so he remains single.

And it’s for this reason that his story is one of modern tragedy: thousands of people throw themselves at him, yet no genuine attachments form — perhaps because it’s too easy to dehumanize the disembodied heads on our screens. Even the ones with such alluring pouts.

Hoelzel is, of course, all too aware of this. He says, with a laugh, “I could bawl my eyes out on camera and still all people would say is ‘I want to see you naked.'”

Emma Glassman-Hughes (she/her) is the associate editor at PS Balance. In her seven years as a reporter, her beats have spanned the lifestyle spectrum; she’s covered arts and culture for The Boston Globe, sex and relationships for Cosmopolitan, and food, climate, and farming for Ambrook Research.