In their weekly YouTube show about all things gay, Artem “Art” Bezrukavenko and Cooper Hayes complained they haven’t seen the Empire State Building illuminated in rainbow colors for Pride Month this year, as it has been in the past. They said they’ve seen other New York skyscrapers lit up for Pride Month and wondered what’s going on.
Bezrukavenko, a 28-year-old native of Ukraine, who moved to the United States in 2017 and creates content for several social media platforms, lives in a Manhattan high-rise from which he can see three tall buildings with lights that change color to mark different events.
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“I don’t know if it’s a hot take, but I think Empire State Building is being homophobic,” he said in his sweet Ukrainian accent. “Empire State Building usually switches to rainbow, and this year it’s just gold. And the two other buildings are rainbow, when I look outside my window. So yeah, Empire State is… not even trying.”
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“It’s pretty sad to look up and see that they’re obviously not participating,” agreed Hayes, 23, who lives in the same high-rise.
Bezrukavenko had prefaced his remarks by noting that many companies aren’t using rainbow graphics and packaging to market their products during Pride Month this year, either.
“Companies are not changing their logos anymore,” he observed. “I think it’s our fault a little bit, too, because we’re like, ‘OK, why do you change your logo? We don’t need this.’ But I was like: I really wish they’d change all their logos because then I’d feel more iconic.”
While he was more or less philosophical about the corporate logos, Bezrukavenko appeared to be taking the Empire State Building situation as a personal affront.
“They betrayed us,” he said, sounding wounded.
Bezrukavenko’s lament was one of several provocative observations voiced during a recent episode of the Cooper & Art Show, a podcast that drops every Wednesday on YouTube.
The two content creators film each episode from Bezrukavenko’s apartment on the Upper West Side. The format is always the same: the two of them sit side by side on a couch, sometimes shirtless, almost always in tight shorts that show off their thighs and bulges, with Manhattan’s skyline in the background. The first program appeared in February. They’ve since posted more than a dozen episodes, each lasting roughly 30 to 40 minutes. The show has more than 100,000 followers on Facebook.
It’s a simple, refreshingly wholesome concept: Two young men just sort of shooting the breeze about whatever subjects come to mind. Bezrukavenko is the inquisitive outsider who has graduated from the ‘kiss or slap?’ interviews that earned him more than a million followers on TikTok.
A New York City resident since 2021, he’s still learning about and questioning the ways of America. Hayes, who was raised in Philadelphia, is a rabid Eagles fan who has a deep, soothing voice that makes anything that comes out of his mouth sound profound and convincing. Plus, he can sing. This is his first time co-hosting a podcast.
The two have great chemistry, but they aren’t a couple. Bezrukavenko has a partner, whose nickname is “Pumpkin.” Hayes is single and dating. They’re both Capricorns and consider themselves “twunks.”
Although they kid about moving in together and forming a throuple with Pumpkin, they’re showing that it can be possible for two easy-going gay guys to be comfortable with each other and enjoy each other’s company in their underwear while engaging in nothing but conversation.
“From binge-worthy shows like The White Lotus to the wildest internet phenomena like ‘Duolingo Death’ and the latest in pop culture, nothing’s off limits,” they say.
Each week brings a grab bag of topics, drawn primarily from current events. They tend to talk about things that either bother them or are on our minds or that people can’t stop talking about. They don’t dwell on any one subject for very long, which keeps their conversations fast-paced.
They’ve talked about living in New York; their favorite TV shows and performers; favorite foods; going to the gym; going to the doctor; their plans for the weekend; negotiating a lease; Uber horror stories; moving stories; karaoke; allergy season; ChatGPT; Tesla; Jeff Bezos; window seats versus aisle seats on planes; plane crashes; The Simpsons versus Family Guy; approaching a midlife crisis; robot wars; getting “blasted to smithereens” by a meteor; and the “erosion” of American society in general.
Relatable LGBTQ+-themed subjects figure prominently in their discussions. They’ve chatted about growing up with a “gay voice”; coming out; their love lives; gay vacations; gay bars; gay hookups; gay breakups; gay parenting; the ideal length of time to have gay sex; and gay-friendly islands to escape to.
Also: threesomes; open relationships; power tops; drinking; incest; Twitter drama; whether to shave chest hair; Grindr versus Tinder; DL guys; Timothee Chalamet; Taylor Swift; Andy Cohen; Love, Simon; the need for Pride parades; the removal of Harvey Milk’s name from a U. S. Navy ship; and actress Jennifer Coolidge’s shoutout to “some very excited gay students” during her recent commencement speech at Emerson College.
These weekly conversations are more light-hearted than hard-hitting. The hosts mostly stay away from politics, and they don’t get angry or argumentative. They’re not competing with The View.
But every once in a while, they hit a nerve with a provocative “hot take,” like Colin Jost aims to do with his “Hear Me Out” segments on Saturday Night Live, or John Mulaney with his variety show monologues.
Besides ranting about the Empire State Building in their June 4 episode, the two provocateurs weighed in on the national debt (“Does it really matter? Who do we owe that to?”), The Handmaid’s Tale (“It gives me anxiety,” Bezrukavenko says of the series), and headless torsos on dating sites (“It’s easy to make a good torso; it’s hard to make a good face.”)
In a previous episode, Bezrukavenko predicted that singer/gymnast Benson Boone “is going to be the new Justin Bieber,” but better. Hayes said he thinks East Coast boys have something over those on the West Coast. “California boys… don’t know the struggle of winter,” he contends. “That builds you as a person.” Both are obsessed with The White Lotus. Bevrukavenko says the words ‘iconic’ and ‘low-key’ a lot.
Along with the amiable chats, there’s plenty of eye candy packed into every show, always captured from a strategic camera angle. The podcasts are far from X-rated, but for those who turn the sound down, the Cooper and Art Show is essentially one big, long, in-your-face crotch shot, and the hosts know it. It’s no wonder they have 100,000 Facebook subscribers, and counting.
As it turns out, their worries about a New York landmark’s homophobia (if phallic works of architecture can indeed be homophobic) may have been premature. According to its official Tower Lights Calendar for June 2025 the Empire State Building is scheduled to be illuminated in the colors of the Inclusive Flag on Sunday, June 29, “in celebration of 2025 NYC Pride.”
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