I have a confession.

I got sucked into the smutty trash. Only a wee bit.

The men are hot. Yeah, I know, that’s not an excuse. I’ll allow a small amount of judgment. But just a little.

If you’ve been on Pinterest lately, or seen an ad while playing a game, you’ve probably come across at least a couple teasers for one these entertainment streaming services, the short form of DramaBox, ReelShort, ShortMax, or VibeShort, among countless others.

I was on Pinterest when an advert for a DramaBox series played for a long time, way longer than when you’re in the actual app. I would scroll and it would pop up a little later giving me more story, so at some point I had watched a fair amount of this particular series. It was a story about a dragon king, who looked human (most of the time), falling for a human woman. Maybe it was the fantasy genre pulling me in. Maybe it was the destined lovers from different worlds. I’ve been in a romantic phase for a little while now…I blame my current screenplay.

I’m out again with a back injury and have to seriously consider new employment. I’ve been looking on and off for a while now, but when my doctor told me I wasn’t built for manual labor, yeah, thanks, I’m a princess, I already knew that, I realized it was officially time. The writing jobs I’ve seen more often lately have been for screenwriters to create this specific type of content, and they want experienced writers, even though this is still a fairly new medium, at least here in the West. They want experience, but they’re not putting out quality. No offense, each one I’ve watched has been riddled with errors. So, after finding myself somewhat intrigued by the content I had seen, I decided to investigate, and decide if I wanted to be a part of this kind of entertainment.

I’m sure many of you will guess how I feel about it given what you know about me. I’ll leave my final thoughts to the end.

Now, while I have found a number of stories that were actually fairly enjoyable to watch, after viewing a handful of different ones, I started to notice a pattern – just how bad this kind of storytelling is. Not only because of the errors, but the toxic characters, the abuses, the glaring red flags, and most of them are presented without an age requirement or any kind of warning, trigger or otherwise.

I downloaded the DramaBox, VibeShort, and ShortMax apps based on the samplings I had seen on Pinterest. The age rating in the App Store for most of them is 13+. Thirteen years old to watch the main character being slipped GHB or some variation, in nearly every. single. series. Some of the apps have a higher age rating of 16+ or 18+, but I am not exaggerating when I say that nearly every story I watched had an aphrodisiac, a “lust potion”, or something similar being used. There are minor trigger warnings, like forced love or age-gap, in the descriptions, but those are few and far between, and they do not reflect at all what’s being presented.

A simple “PG-13” or “Mature Content” label, at least, is warranted. I was unprepared to witness some of the things I’ve seen. There is a great deal of bullying, assaults of every kind, being rejected and abused by family or significant others, being sold to settle debts, questionable age gaps, and sexual content, again, in nearly every. single. series. I watched one story where an older man used his position of power to take advantage of young boys and there was a graphic moment, so unbelievably unexpected that I actually recoiled, and there had been no warning, and yet in a vampire story I watched, they occasionally blurred out a drop of blood, and in another, halfway through the series they’ve started to obnoxiously blur out a woman’s cleavage. They’re using a square white brick to blot out just the tops of her breasts. Her dress is not in any way inappropriate.

I have only had to verify that I’m an “adult” twice so far, and not on the graphic one, and I didn’t even have to put in my date of birth, just pressed a button.

If you’ve heard about this kind of format, you’ve probably already heard about the obnoxious length of video to advert ratio. It’s bad, and the ads are glitchy making it even less accessible. These apps are asking for anywhere from $15 – $20 a week to go ad-free and gain access to subscriber only content. The annual subscription is a much better value at $150, but as I mentioned, because of the quality of the work, paying just to get out of the ads is not worth it. Not yet anyway.

So besides the worst of the worst listed above, here are the other major flaws that churning out such content has created:

1. The heavy reliance on AI. Not only are they using it for the story, because there are many that are nearly identical with different characters (dragon king vs pirate king, for example), but the actual characters are AI generated (I’ve only seen two series with real people), as are their voices. How do I know? Because in nearly every series I’ve watched, Henry Cavill as the Witcher, Geralt is present either physically or vocally. In one series I watched, two characters were Geralt, white hair and all. Are there no other fantasy or sci-fi characters to use as a reference? Where’s Lee Pace? Where’s Alexander Skarsgaard? Where’s Michael B. Jordan?
2. On that note, there are very few people of color represented, which is a whole other problem.
3. The glaring errors. Not only do characters’ appearances change from one chapter to the next, but I’ve encountered appearances changing within the same scene. There are voice over errors with mispronunciation of names, subtitle problems, and characters’ voices changing from American to British often.
4. The terrible titles. I think some of this may be due to translation, but goodness there are so many strange ones. Just an example, because it’s ludicrous – The New CEO Turns Out to Be My Gynecologist. Yeah. I did not watch this, FYI.
5. The repetition. Across these stories, it almost seems like they have a handful of names at their disposal. Every single series shows hands clenching, arms being pinned above heads, and there’s always at least one dramatic moment in the rain. Then there’s the ridiculous attractiveness of the love interests, and their abs for days. Not that I’m complaining, because I don’t want to admit how it perpetuates unrealistic expectations, a side effect of the romantasy (I hate this word, by the by) genre. The LIs also are also usually from extreme wealth or from old, noble families or bloodlines, which harkens back to the romance novels I was reading in the 90s.
6. The love interest is idolized by showing them being overly noble, going against their nature (like a vampire not feeding), and showing up to save the day.
7. The use of aggression, jealousy, revenge, and betrayal, in addition to the overt acceptance of bullying, even among adults, and the aggressive nature of not only the antagonist, but sometimes the love interest too. There is so much yelling, and forceful grabbing, or pushing into walls or tables towering with glassware, drinks being thrown onto the protagonist, the threat or follow through of a slap, gun violence, and knives and swords with self harm or threatening action.
8. The over the top antagonist. The villain is always a cliche portrayal of jealousy and lack of subtlety. It’s their whole personality. They continue to harass the protagonist to the point that you’re thinking, “Why you so obsessed with me?” They are given too many chances to continue to be a thorn, and then relish in their short lived victory, because they immediately confess their ploy in the hopes they’ll win the affection of the main character’s love interest. They are poorly created, annoying characters. They are so unlikable and so obviously the villain and they quickly grow tiresome.
9. They almost all use the idea of “fated mates” and finish with the fairytale/happily ever after ending. Actually, one I watched ended with a bit of tragedy, so that was interesting. Yes, they’re mostly fantasies and romances, but not every finale has to end so neatly, and that’s coming from me.

While this was an interesting experiment to discover whether writing this type of content was for me, as you’ve probably concluded, it’s not. I don’t write like this. I don’t want to write like this.

I would be open to editing their content though.

I have more to say, but this is long enough as it is. And this is apart from Hollywood’s new interest in the medium now that it’s grown into a multi-billion dollar business. That’s another post.

My final thought is this: This type of content shouldn’t be so readily available, not without some oversight and safeguards put in place. Archive of Our Own (AO3), the fan fiction site, uses content warnings and tags to protect readers. If there is subject matter you don’t want to be exposed to, you are given a forewarning, to the best of the author’s ability, in order to give you the option to opt out, and not proceed blindly to be surprised and potentially traumatized. Vertical Dramas should follow suit.

What are your thoughts?