“Black cat boyfriends” are dethroning “Golden Retriever boyfriends” as the new internet crush archetype

Sorry, Golden Retriever boyfriends—your time is up. It’s time for society to circle back to the era of black cat boyfriends.

What is a black cat boyfriend?

Using the term “black cat” to describe a potential romantic partner generally means they come across as aloof and mysterious, somewhat broody and reserved with their affections. It’s like you’ve got the spookiness of Halloween’s favorite cat and the, well, general cat behavior of all cats.

The term also made the rounds in the summer of 2024 when people were talking about the common pairing of Golden Retriever boyfriends and black cat girlfriends, suggesting that the friendly, good-natured vibe of GRFs balanced out their BCG partners.

Love Island USA season 7 stars Nic Vansteenberghe and Olandria Carthen have been described in such a way.

And now we’re kind of seeing it in reverse, as in media, at least, these black cat boyfriends often date outside their types. Conrad in The Summer I Turned Pretty has often been cited as a modern example, and it’s certainly something people who grew up in the era of The WB are familiar with.

Why do we love black cat boyfriends?

Sometimes people just love a little mystery! But honestly, since this trope seems to revolve pretty heavily around media interpretation and celebrity infatuation, the broody types who don’t wear their hearts on their sleeves have always had a certain appeal. Why that is, exactly, is up for debate. It could be that they’ve got the bad boy appeal with a seemingly soft underbelly. There’s also always the suggestion that women love the idea of men who can be “fixed” or “unearthed” with the right kind of love, and black cat boyfriends tend to play into that.

PR expert Chad Teixeira has a different perspective.

“This shift isn’t just about characters being darker or moodier,” he recently told The Daily Mail. “It reflects a larger generational shift in how people understand relationships, emotional growth, and vulnerability. Gen Z, more than previous generations, tend to value emotional realism over idealism.

“They’re not necessarily looking for someone to ‘fix’ or save, but they are drawn to characters with internal worlds, flaws, and depth so look for people who evolve, who challenge them and who aren’t immediately easy to understand.”

The claim that Gen Z is more interested in emotional realism than previous generations seems like a sentiment that deserves to be challenged, as does the implication that they’re the generation with more interest in everything else he mentioned. Those types of male characters pretty much defined the media of millennials’ youth, as we can once again point to the ever-influential WB with characters like Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Chuck Bass (Gossip Girl), Jess Mariano (Gilmore Girls) and so many more filling these exact roles—and being extremely popular among fans while doing so.

And some of media’s most famous brooding, mysterious heroes come from films that were memorialized by the generations before that. It’s not like we can really call James Dean or River Phoenix characters Golden Retriever boyfriends.

The simpler explanation might just be that the seasons change, and so do everyone’s interests. We had focused on Golden Retriever boyfriends for quite some time, and now everyone is ready for a different character type to shine. There is nothing new under the sun, even if a lack of media literacy makes people unfamiliar with the popular character types of generations past.