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Friends Mark T. Cox and Denis Len sit down with Hadley Stewart to discuss why their weekly podcast has resonated with so many at a time of division.
When I tell Denis Len that what he is describing to me is allyship, he disagrees. “Can I be completely honest?” he replies. “I really struggle with the word ally.” Len approached fellow comedian and Irishman Mark T. Cox with an idea for a podcast, which would eventually become Your Internet Boyfriends. The premise for the podcast is this: a straight guy and a gay guy sitting down in a recording studio to hash out the issues of the week. Yet despite the simplicity of the idea, their viral podcast feels groundbreaking at a time when the language surrounding the LGBTQ+ community seeks to divide us from the mainstream.
“We shouldn’t need another name for just treating people decently,” argues Len of straight men being described as allies for simply taking an interest in the perspectives of queer men. “I don’t think that should be such an exceptional thing.”
As Len tells me the story behind the podcast, I must admit that I’m left surprised when I learn that it was Len who had approached Cox, rather than the other way around. At times it feels like queer men are being put in positions where they’re having to almost teach some straight men how to behave around them, yet here is an example of a straight man who wants to take the first step. Len is unfazed by this, bringing me back to the notion that these conversations ought to be normalised. “I think it’s about being a good friend and a decent human being,” he tells me.
Motivated by his own observations that there “weren’t too many conversations happening between straight men and gay men” and gaps in his own understanding about the queer community, Len set about trying to find a gay man who would join forces with him to start a podcast. How did he go about choosing Cox, I ask. “I knew one gay man and that was Mark,” he replies, before the pair start laughing. Cox chimes in, “I was the best one.”
The duo are joining me on video call just before their weekly recording session. They’re both seated in different rooms of the same building, which to my disappointment means no behind the scenes tour of their recording studio. Well, I say recording studio, but as Cox will later explain, the flamboyant decor that forms the backdrop to their weekly check-ins is an attempt to recreate a TV studio in the 1980s.
(Denis Len by Declan Kelly)Len, who is from Cork, and Cox, who is from Clare, had never crossed paths in their native Ireland until meeting on London’s comedy scene. (For avid listeners of the podcast, I chose not to ask the pair where they’re from or how long they’ve lived in London, as these questions are some of Cox’s bugbears). Len tells me that he sheepishly asked Cox to help him with his idea for a podcast, after quizzing him about his life as a queer man in London.
“I could definitely get an idea of who he was,” recalls Len of seeing Cox’s stand-up set. “I’ll be honest, I don’t laugh at a lot of things, but Mark kept making me laugh. I suppose it was his take on life. I thought, wow, he’s very real and I’m very real.” It was a risk, admits Len, who argues that asking someone to do a podcast with them is usually the “kiss of death for any friendship.”
Did Cox agree immediately? “I was in a very funny place at the time,” replies Cox, who had been doing comedy for a decade. Whilst he explains that he loved it, he was nonetheless feeling somewhat jaded and disheartened by the industry. Cox says he found in Len a person who he could speak with honestly about these misgivings, and had initially assumed that the podcast would focus more on discussions around the pair as comedic artists.“But as we kind of got into it, it was more about our very different lives outside of work. Like just our day-to-day lives are so parallel, but kind of go off in completely different directions sometimes.”
Your Internet Boyfriends is not Cox’s first podcast. “You might do ten episodes over a couple of weeks, and then you finish, and that’s fine,” he explains of previous podcasting experiences. “It doesn’t have to be a huge, massive success if it’s just a fun thing to do, and you enjoy doing it.” He thinks that the enjoyment of doing this podcast with Len is what has resulted in its success. “The people listening are important, and the growth is important. But it’s an enjoyable thing to do, and that’s what makes it work,” he adds.
Having started the podcast in February of last year, the show now attracts thousands of listeners every week, with clips of each weekly sitdown being shared widely on social media. The podcast has, for instance, 284.9K likes on TikTok, at the time of writing. Back home on the Emerald Isle, the podcast is a hit too – the pair were even invited to do a TV interview on Ireland AM. There has been, as they tell me, a lot of effort that has gone into making it such a success. Both aware that sometimes the hard work doesn’t always pay off when it comes to creative projects, they were surprised by just how quickly they began garnering a positive response from listeners. “I suppose we both didn’t realise how much the podcast was going to resonate with people,” explains Len. “And how much of a unique experience it was.”
But why has this podcast succeeded? It’s no secret that the podcasting market is saturated, with seemingly everyone who has an element of notoriety through social media trying to start their own. I return to Len’s earlier comments about the notion of podcasts being the kiss of death for any friendship, as he puts it, when I ask the pair about the secret to the success of Your Internet Boyfriends. Perhaps what will surprise listeners, is that the pair were never really friends before they sat down to record their first episode. “That helps to keep everything quite fresh,” explains Len. “So we can discover things week to week, and they are our actual honest reactions to learning about each other.”
Another way they’ve been able to keep things fresh, is by not sharing any details about their weeks with each other until they’re in the recording studio. Granted, they’ll send messages about the admin of the show, but any conversations about life updates or what’s happening in the world that week have to be strictly on the record. “It’s an incredibly intense coffee date for an hour,” says Len.
A weekly podcast is quite an undertaking, I venture. As the podcast has continued to gain momentum, how have the pair also managed to ensure that their friendship grows with it? “We’ve always been clear to keep it pleasant, to keep it light,” says Cox, who wants to avoid turning their weekly recording sessions into just another job. “I have a lot of friends who are stuck doing weekly podcasts or even weekly live shows, and they end up kind of hating it because it just becomes a bit of a chore. I think we’ve found really nice ways to keep this pleasant and enjoyable.”
The candor between Len and Cox is undoubtedly what makes listeners come back for more each week. Like any conversation between two friends, I point out that they sometimes share quite personal and intimate details about their lives. Do they have a filter when it comes to the podcast? “Every week we stop recording and I think that we should not have said that,” replies Cox, massaging his temples. The pair have an agreement that they listen back to each episode and if there is anything either of them are not happy with, it gets edited out. “But it’s rarely the case.”
“It has to be interesting, it has to be honest,” continues Cox. “We don’t chop out big sections of the recording. We just sit down and pretty much go start to finish, and whatever comes out, comes out.”
They’re also learning how to read one another when they’re recording the podcast. “It’s a small facial expression,” adds Len. “Something that says, let’s not go down that road. Or we’ll laugh it off, and that could be the kind of indication to maybe move it along.” Yet Len also thinks it’s about knowing when to take a risk and go beyond what feels comfortable. “I think sometimes we actually have to trust the other person who might be asking the questions. We have to trust them that this is actually going to be really funny, or it’s going to be a really important thing to talk about.”
One of the unique elements of podcasts is that listening to them is often an intimate and solitary experience, something which podcast fans may value in favour of other forms of media. When I bring this up with Len and Cox, I ask them about their decision to film episodes. “I’m extremely vain,” answers Cox, totally deadpan. “I have a couple of years left of being very beautiful, and I’m happy to flog it. It’s absolutely fine to show yourself off a little bit and dress up nice, and be handsome and let people see that.”
(Mark T. Cox by Declan Kelly)Alongside being a means to feed Cox’s vanity, filming each episode has allowed the two to realised which facial expressions they make when they’re in the throes of conversation. For their fans, the video format has allowed some of them to watch the pair on mute. When Cox tells me this, I’m momentarily confused. “Oh yes!” he replies when I question him, before the penny drops. “They don’t listen to a word we’re saying. They’re zooming in on our socks and all sorts. You have no idea, people are enjoying this for lots and lots of reasons, and that’s great. And we respect all of the viewers for whatever they’re getting from it.”
Speaking of those who are taking a closer interest in the podcasting duo, are people sliding into the DMs? “It’s too much,” replies Cox. “I love it. It’s all my own doing.” As he describes it, the pair are at a funny level of fame, whereby those who listen to them on a regular basis feel like they know them. “They know everything, because they’re listening and you’re in their ear and you have this almost private relationship with them every week” Just the other week, Cox recalls someone stopping him on the street to congratulate him on finding a new pair of shoes. He was puzzled, before he remembered that he’d previously mentioned on the podcast that he needed new shoes.
Footwear wasn’t the only thing that caught the eye of another loyal listener, who messaged to ask if he’d just seen Len on the Northern line wearing a Vivienne Westwood mushroom coloured top. “I didn’t even realise I was wearing a Vivienne Westwood top!” laughs Len of the almost forensic description of him. “I’d just got it on Vinted.”
As Len gets an education in fashion, Cox says that the growing number of podcast fans means that he now pays greater attention to what he’s wearing when out and about in east London. “You’re a little bit more conscious that someone might see you,” he explains. “So you know, you make a small, little effort. Dress sometimes a little bit decent in case you bump into someone. But it’s great. It’s a good sign. It means people are watching.”
Yet neither of them are shying away from meeting their fans IRL, in fact quite the opposite. When I sit down to speak with Len and Cox, the pair are preparing for a speed dating event in south London, one of many live events that they’re hoping to host. “People forget that it’s a one-way conversation that we’re having every week,” says Cox.”They’re getting so much detail about your life, and it’s not going the other way. But we’re trying to combat that a bit by having these events and meeting people.” He hopes that those who come to these events have an opportunity to connect with other people who enjoy the show too. “I like the attention, but also I’m trying to deflect it back,” continues Cox. “If they can give each other attention as well, that’d be great.”
Laughs aside, the two Irish comedians hope that their podcast will bridge the gay-straight divide, as well as exploring topics like body image, dating and mental health from their respective vantage points. “One of us is straight, one of us is queer, and normally we wouldn’t really interact that much,” says Cox, who argues that despite living in London, the capital can easily cipher different groups off from others. “Often you see queer people having little or no interaction really with straight people, or vice versa.”
Len echoes this sentiment. “It’s just great that we can create a normal space as well,” he adds, saying that Your Internet Boyfriends demonstrates that conversations between straight and queer men can be easy. “This doesn’t have to be difficult. This doesn’t have to be a big hurdle.” He hopes that people listening will wonder, “If it isn’t a problem for them, then why can’t we do it too?”
Your Internet Boyfriends is a weekly podcast hosted by Mark T. Cox and Denis Len. Photography by Declan Kelly.
