Internet crushes are fickle. When we were first introduced to Peter Kavinsky and the world declared Noah Centineo the latest ‘Internet Boyfriend", I listed the slew of actors who had previously been given this designation. The Internet, as a collective, moved on from each of these hot actors to the next one and I don’t think any of them (except Tom Hiddleston) were mad at that. Since it is fleeting, the title of ‘Internet Boyfriend’ is not something to cling to. Noah Centineo did not get that memo. 

Lainey mentioned Allison P Davis’s profile of Noah in What Else last week. She isolated the phrase “thirst architect” because it is AMAZING and, as she put it, “apt AF.” Allison’s profile of Noah in The Cut where they go on a “perfect teen movie date” to Coney Island should be devoured in full. Savour every swoon-inducing word. Noah is hilariously corny at times and a genuine gentleman at others. He is not helping the problem that so many of us grown ass women and men have developed for him over the past month and I think he knows this. In fact, he is actively participating in his role as the object of our affections. He is a deliberate architect of thirst. After Noah RECREATES THE POCKET TWIRL move from To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before with Allison and makes me sufficiently jealous, she jokes that she “black[ed] out for a second.” 

 

If I seem thirsty, well, isn’t that the point? At 22, Centineo is the most effective, addictive sort of heartthrob: the kind who absolutely loves being one, the kind who does everything in his power to make us thirst harder than we’ve ever thirsted before — and, yeah, it works. 

There it is. Noah Centineo is GOOD at this. He knows exactly what he’s doing and it’s working because he’s doing it well. It takes a certain kind of skill to be able to show up to an interview with a writer SHIRTLESS and not come across like a total tool. At one point, he and Allison get in a fake rowboat and this whole passage was too much I think I blacked out for a second too. 

“I like this rowboat. Do you want to sit in this rowboat,” he asks, upon discovering a fake rowboat stuck in the corner of an exhibition about ponds. (Fake rowboat, a move.) Ever the leading man, he gets in first to steady the fake boat, and helps me in. Then, he directs yet another adorable moment for us, and starts rocking the boat back and forth, like we’re on a real pond, laughing this huge, full-throated laugh like the only thing he’s ever wanted to do was crouch in a plastic rowboat with me. 

COME ON. It’s a testament to Allison’s writing and to Noah’s charm that we’re all reading that paragraph wishing we were in a fake rowboat on Coney Island with a 22-year-old. The question then becomes HOW and WHY Noah is so good at this. What is it about this kid that makes us want to risk it all? The answer is nostalgia. Peter Kavinsky seems so far removed from the stereotypical, insensitive, hookup-culture young man of today and Noah Centineo taps into the pin-up star of years past. 

 

He has all the qualities deemed necessary by early-in-life fans of Teen Bop and Devon Sawa at the end of Casper.

“Devon Sawa at the end of Casper” is a reference so specific to my childhood obsessions that I made a sound no human should make when I read it. Noah Centineo is EXACTLY that. He is that throwback teen heartthrob. He incites the hysteria of every lead singer of every boy band of the ‘00s. He is Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Rider Strong and Andrew Keegan combined (yes, all of the ‘90s teen cover boys were white). He seems worthy of our delusional fantasies because he himself seems caught up in the romanticized delusion of love that his characters perpetuate. This is what happened when Allison P Davis asked Noah Centineo how he’s so good at flirting. 

“Am I flirting?” he laughs and leans and looks down at the floor. “I don’t know — I’m fucking so romantic. Like, such a romantic — it’s not even funny. I can’t help it. I swear to God, like, every day, the majority of my day is sentimental. You know, I’m thinking about past relationships I’ve been in, how I miss them so much or what I would do different, or why I wanna be with them again, or just moments I’d like to go back to or I know why I shouldn’t go back, and then you know, it’s just constantly love, love, love.”

Peter Noah’s love of love is the purest thing on the Internet. At least, that’s what he wants us to believe. When he tweets things like this, he knows exactly what he’s doing. 

He is feeding the frenzy. He is quenching our thirst. And until we all move on to the next Internet Boyfriend, we’re drinking it all up. If Peter Noah Kavinsky Centineo keeps doing sh-t like the video below though, he might have staying power. I pray to Beyoncé that this press tour never ends.   

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by 𝙻𝙹 & 𝙿𝙺 (@lovelycovinsky) on

For Noah’s full profile in The Cut, click here.