Why do cacs male and female and a few other weirdos like shipping two male characters together. I don't get it? When did shipping male characters become popular?
Fujoshi culture. Gay people and females watch anime too. They entertain gay ships the same way straight guys entertain female ships. You also have trolls that just do whatever to get a rise out of people.
Naruto and HxH in particular make it easy to for them entertain. Naruto is obsessed with Sasuke and spends 300+ episodes trying to make him his friend again. In HxH there's a gay pedophile clown and Killua has a strong emotional attachment to Gon, the show revolves around their relationship. Give readers a spark to their imagination and they'll act on it.