The first episode of a gay-themed sit-com, posted on YouTube in Vietnam, has gone viral and been viewed more than one million times, vaulting gay life in the Southeast Asian country into the headlines.

Created by a 21-year-old gay student, “My Best Gay Friends" pulls stories from the lives of a group of gay and lesbian Vietnamese youth and dramatizes them in what the creator says is an effort to show that the lives of gay people are “very normal” and “to bring true images of homosexuals to everyone to change their perspective.”

Dang Khoa, a theater student in Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam’s largest metropolis, funds, writes, shoots and edits the show himself. He told 429Magazine that he put the program on YouTube to cater to the entertainment habits of young Vietnamese, and to avoid potential issues of trying to put a gay program on television in a country known for its repressive media laws.

“Most of the local youth never spend time to watching TV – most of their time is for virtual world, internet and social networks,” he said, adding that Internet broadcasts via YouTube make it possible to keep the production budget low.