On November 21, WeChat Coral Security, Kuaishou Security Center, etc. issued an announcement saying: During the special governance period, the platform found that the micro-short play “Black Lotus’s Handbook of Ascension” exaggerated the bad values of extreme revenge and using violence to counter violence, confusing right and wrong. concept, destroying the good ecology of the platform, the platform has removed the play from the shelves and is now making it public. As the relevant departments halted the short dramas of the Mi Meng team, the answer to whether the regulatory hammer will fall on the short drama industry has become increasingly clear.
“Black Lotus” is invisible, the Mi Meng-style short drama triggers reflection
The reporter noticed that the Douyin account of “Black Lotus Master’s Manual” has now become a private account, all published content is invisible, and the account name has also been changed to emoticons, only the “Hot List of Short Dramas” The label has left traces of its popularity, and 1.64 million fans are still paying attention.
This paid short drama was launched on November 16. Two days later, it became a hot search topic and sparked widespread discussion. According to market news, it was reported that it attracted 20 million yuan in 24 hours. In just three or four days, it detonated the entire Short drama industry. Some netizens said that with the plot of the concubine’s revenge, the show is fast-paced and has many twists and turns, which makes netizens happy. It is regarded as a combination of “The Legend of Zhen Huan” and “Story of Yanxi Palace”.
What is striking is that public information shows that the producer of “Black Lotus’s Ascension Manual” is Shanghai Silver Earth Culture Media Co., Ltd. The Tianyancha APP shows that Zhang Jingsi is the legal representative and executive director. Intellectual property information shows that the company has applied for Internet celebrity blogger trademarks such as “Qiao Qiyue” and “Jiang Shiqi”. The current trademark status is mostly awaiting substantive review. It is reported that Zhang Jingsi was once a partner of Mimeng (Ma Ling).
As a result, Mi Meng, who was once popular on the public account track but fell into the dust, once again appeared in the public eye. In 2020, as the number of followers of Jiang Shiqi and other Douyin accounts exceeded 10 million, Mimeng-style short dramas began to appear in the circle, and the content produced by its experts was mainly short dramas. The popular short drama “Dirty Maid” during the National Day was also produced by the Mi Meng team. However, some viewers complained that when the Mi Meng style short drama was opened, cheating continued, quarrels and fights continued, and anger, madness, and worry were all over the place. Waiting for negative emotions, this is not creating content, but creating emotions. At the same time that “Black Lotus’s Handbook” was removed from the market and banned from streaming, another popular short drama of the team, “Li Special Assistant is So Beautiful” was also banned from streaming due to its content being suspected of being pornographic and vulgar. said. flow.
The short play “Crazy” is well versed in psychology to manipulate the audience’s emotions
During the interview, the reporter found that from the film and television teams that had been dormant for a long time to the leading companies in the industry, they have all turned to short drama creation. Industry insiders said that there may be more than 100 procedural short drama groups starting production in Hengdian alone, and more than 200 groups are in preparation. The leading MCN agencies have produced more than 100 short dramas this year.
Because of the paid modelThe format is simple and crude, coupled with the huge number of short video users, the playback volume of mini-program short dramas often exceeds 100 million, and good news spreads frequently in the circle. A short play screenwriter told reporters that short plays have different revenue methods from theatrical movies and online movies. The platform will not adopt prepayment or buyout, but basically broadcast and traffic sharing. In order to retain viewers, platforms value gimmicks and attention-grabbing far more than quality. To put it bluntly, short dramas do not rely on the quality of the series or word-of-mouth to attract audiences. Most of the time, they fall into the trap of “customary payment”. Arousing the audience’s emotions often makes people pay for their emotions and pay impulsively.
The makings know how to make fun of lately. Happy parents. Zhou Xiao, the young director of the hit “This Hero is a Little Cold”, seems to be fine with her own son not kissing her. She even thinks that she is a thorn in the flesh and wants her to die. She knows that she was framed by those concubines, but she would rather To help those concubines lie, rather than following market trends and betting on blockbuster themes, they would rather start from the collective emotions of the female audience and analyze the emotional compensation they desire to get from the short drama. They look forward to a man who is both abstinent and full of sexual tension; they like the “coldness” of keeping away from strangers, and they are fascinated by the “pampering” that contrasts with it. “The more restrained we are in real life and the less we believe in what we can have, the more subconsciously it will be magnified and the more we want to have it. Ancient puppets and reality are complementary.”
Han Ning, a national second-level psychological counselor, a member of Jiangsu Nanjing 12355 Psychological Expert Think Tank, and a senior lecturer on ideological and political affairs at Nanjing Transportation Technician College, told reporters that the pace of work is getting faster and faster, and short plays are more suitable for people to take advantage of fragmentation. “You can get short-term happiness every once in a while. The director is willing to make the subject matter from a female emotional perspective because women bear more responsibilities in reproduction and childcare, and require more keen perception and emotional expression, and their emotions will be more delicate than men’s. It is also easier to empathize.
Catering to the audience cannot be without a bottom line, and the normalized management mechanism is being improved
But satisfying psychological needs does not mean satisfying bottomless desires. Recently, the three major short video platforms, WeChat, Douyin, and Kuaishou, have actively responded to the State Administration of Radio and Television’s regulatory management of the online micro-short drama industry ecology, and have successively banned a large number of accounts that illegally publish micro-short dramas. They all emphasized the need to control “Promote bad values, pornography and vulgarity, promote violence against violence, extreme revenge, gang involvement, and violent behavior.”
The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television also took action. Beginning in late November 2022, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television spent three months intensively organizing and carrying out special rectification work on “mini programs” online micro-short dramas. As of February 28, 2023, a total of pornographic, vulgar, bloody, violent, and pornographic short dramas have been offline. More than 25,300 micro-short dramas with low-style, vulgar aesthetics and other content, totaling 1,365,004 episodes, were removed from the shelves. 2,420 “mini programs” containing illegal content were removed from the shelves.
Since then, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television has normalized the management of online micro-short dramas and established an online micro-short dramaThe short drama “blacklist” mechanism supervises the timely removal of all online platforms, promotes joint participation in governance, and effectively prevents and prevents illegal online short dramas from shifting positions and changing broadcasts.
Next, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television will continue to improve the normalized management mechanism, including accelerating the formulation of the “Detailed Rules for the Creation, Production and Content Review of Online Micro-Short Dramas”, studying and promoting the inclusion of online micro-short drama APPs and “mini programs” into daily organizational management.
Yangzi Evening News/Ziniu News reporter Zhang Nan