The Outskirts is a column by programmer Cristina Cacioppo that looks at films that merit cult status, which have fallen into obscurity and exist outside the categorical.
In the depths of lockdown, when plenty of movie trading was going on, my friend Drew Tobia, whose taste I trust implicitly, told a group of us about College Boys Live, a 2009 documentary without a Wikipedia page. The premise immediately captures the imagination: in the early aughts, before web cams were really a thing, a tech-savvy guy, Zac, rigs an Orlando suburban house with cameras, inviting a rotation of young men (none of whom seem to be in college) to live for free, but unpaid, putting their lives on display for a devoted online membership with whom they are expected to chat. The boys are also supposed to get naked at least for the final part of their “shift,” but there is an emphasis that CollegeBoysLive.com is not a porn site.
When our friend group watched together, even this set-up couldn’t prepare us for the complicated reaction we all had, equal parts engrossed and disturbed, quickly given over to the appetite for intimate details as many are with reality television shows. Though Zac had started a version of such a house as early as 1997, director George O’Donnell captured several months in the early aughts, in which we meet current occupants Chuck, Tim, and J.C., all aged somewhere between eighteen and twenty, and each at a different crossroads in life. At first, existing in the house seems freeing for them—as one explains, it is the first time many of them get to be openly, unapologetically gay. None of them considered themselves remarkably attractive before, so being pored over by the website’s members is invigorating. So is the attentiveness of Zac and his partner Jonathan. At one point, when Jonathan expresses concern over Chuck’s whereabouts, Chuck is visibly elated that someone cares that much.
And they do form a sort of family, though the conservative neighbors would disagree. Even the site members provide different versions of support: one buys Jonathan a car so he’s able to finish school, others chime in on the chat to tattle on the underage boys who are caught drinking. Most members are faceless but we do meet one, Charlie, at the time smitten with Tim, seemingly patient with the unrequited affection so long as Tim pays him a sufficient amount of attention.
Tensions arise, of course, mostly ignited by J.C., a compulsive liar magnetic enough to attract a rotation of boyfriends, but who ultimately pisses off everyone who attempts to get close to him. Then there are the neighbors actively looking to have the young men kicked out, ultimately finding a way by accusing them of running a business in a strictly residential zone.
Witnessing all of this inevitably provokes curiosity of what became of the film’s subjects, as it did for my friends and me, leading me to track down director O’Donnell, who it turns out is Brooklyn-based and will be in attendance at the screening at Nitehawk, with Drew Tobia leading the conversation.
College Boys Live screens tonight, June 29, at Nitehawk Prospect Park. Director George O’Donnell will be in attendance for a Q&A.
