It's been a long time coming, but the Hollywood heartthrob is back!

Jeremy Allen White, Jacob Elordi and Barry Keoghan all have one thing in common: they've been deemed the heartthrobs of the moment by the internet. 

White is currently in the spotlight for his role as Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto in The Bear and for his steamy Calvin Klein ad. Elordi and Keoghan star in the black comedy psychological thriller Saltburn.

But the way that people are thirsting so publicly after these leading men is something we haven't seen in a while. They're the kind of men whose posters you'd rip out of a teen magazine. 

Writers Manuel Betancourt, Lainey Lui and Jen Sookfong Lee join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to share their thoughts on what makes a heartthrob and why they're currently having such a moment.                                               

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast on your favourite podcast player.

LISTEN | Today's episode on YouTube:

Elamin: Manuel, I'm going to start with you on this one. I think we have to start with a definition, because it's a slippery term. I think when people hear the term heartthrob, they may think of a lot of other things. What comes to mind for you? I'm asking you because you've literally written the book on this.  

Manuel: To me, it's a very slippery term, but it feels self-evident. Heartthrob is someone who makes your heart throb, like someone who elicits a visceral, very physical reaction that maybe you didn't even know you were going to have. 

So when you see a really hot actor or musician and you're swooning or thirsting over Jeremy Allen White's Calvin Klein ads, you gasp and your heart is throbbing and it's pumping blood everywhere. And when I think of heartthrobs, I think of those men in my teenage years, although I continue to thirst after a lot of people. 

Elamin: It feels like something changed for a period of time. Desiring men felt publicly uncomfortable for a lot of people. And maybe that was in the shadow of "MeToo." And now we are fully in our, you know, back in our heartthrob era — or at least that's how it feels to me. Lainey, who's the heartthrob of the moment for you? 

Lainey: My crushes are fleeting and often. Right now I'm crushing on a heartthrob. His name is Cha Eun-woo. He's a Korean pop star. He is a member of the boyband Astro, but he's about to launch his solo debut. He's so beautiful. So that's that's the guy for me right now. 

I was listening to Manuel speak, and I was thinking about even just the term heartthrob. It's so corny and cheesy. It's not the coolest thing to call someone or to label yourself, right? You laugh at yourself for those feelings that Manuel is describing. It's like, "I'm so embarrassed for how I feel, but I can't help it." That's what a heartthrob is, isn't it?

Elamin: Who was it last week, Lainey? Because we're moving from heartthrobs week to week.

Lainey: Last week, it was Barry Keoghan. It's still Barry Keoghan.

Elamin: We got a lot to talk about in terms of Barry Keoghan. I'm going to come back to that in a minute. Jen Sookfong Lee, is your heartthrob at the moment Barry Keoghan?   

Jen: Well, he's like a half-heartthrob for me. Donald Glover has been my heartthrob for a little while. I love him so much.

Elamin: Also, the reaction to Jeremy Allen White's Calvin Klein ads. Lainey, it was nuts. I've never seen anything so unabashedly "thirst trappy" happening right now. Why do you think that is happening? Are we just more comfortable with men being objects of lust right now than we were for the last ten years? 

Lainey: I am pretty sure we were always comfortable with men being objects of lust, but I think it's a very specific kind of lusting. And I think it relates to the whole "babygirl" thing. That took off last year. 

Elamin: Want to explain what that is? 

Lainey: So "babygirl" reached critical mass with Kendall Roy from Succession. The internet started calling him "babygirl" because Kendall was constantly a loser and we were pulling for him. But he kept disappointing us. And then all of us were like, "Should I just hold you, maybe?"

Elamin: I think the one we have to talk about for a moment, meanwhile, is Jacob Elordi. I see the internet having collective vertigo over this man. 

It also sounds like you can be a hot actor but you don't quite qualify for heartthrob status, which is to say, you're not really doing anything with your personality. What is the difference, would you say between the two of them, Lainey?

Lainey: It goes back to if we're talking about actors, right? The heartthrob actors were the matinee idols. Those are the ones who get blown up on a poster. Then there are the actors who are not the heartthrobs, but they get the serious roles. And there was always a disconnect.

As we're getting more varied in our tastes and our attractions are more diversified, I wonder if the distance between the heartthrob and the serious actor is closing. And in that respect is where we find Barry Keoghan. I have a different opinion on Jacob Elordi. I feel like Jacob Elordi has a complicated relationship with his looks. He's in his 20s, so he's kind of like, "I don't care about just my looks. I'm a serious actor." He did The Kissing Booth and I'm kind of embarrassed about it because my content is really more Emerald Fennell and I want to work with these auteurs. And all of them have been down this path. Ryan Gosling went down this path, Robert Pattinson went down this path where he was like, "Don't just think that I'm just a hot guy. I want to make serious [movies].

Manuel: I think the heartthrob sort of ties into this crisis of masculinity. Men are not supposed to want this attention. And if they're not supposed to want this attention for the sheer pleasure of this attention, which is obviously what we demand of young starlets, especially of young women all the time. And they get to leverage it. And that is more socially sanctioned then young men flaunting their attractiveness.  

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jess Low