news

Stay away from the short drama "The Overbearing CEO Falls in Love with XXX" with outrageous values

2024-08-17

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

"When you are fifty, you get married to a boss." If you replace the male and female protagonists in the boss drama with middle-aged and elderly people in their forties and fifties with gray hair and crow's feet at the corners of their eyes, would you watch such a short drama? Have you contributed to hundreds of millions of traffic? This summer, an entertainment phenomenon that has attracted attention is that such dramas target the wealthy and idle silver-haired mobile phone users. There are many slapping scenes, but with the blessing of the boss, it's a good show all the way. Experts have also given warnings to netizens who are worried that the "love brain" routine of short dramas with middle-aged and elderly bosses will bring negative effects.
The mother-in-law turns into the heroine of the domineering drama.
The heroine played three films in one go
"My motto for love is to keep your partner company until old age. Otherwise, let's just make do with each other." In order to find his other half, the busy president hides his identity and wears plumber's clothes for a blind date. He hits it off with the 45-year-old heroine Li Shufang, who is forced to marry by her ungrateful son. After a flash marriage, they beat up all the villains along the way, and finally get the title of "A harmonious family brings prosperity". Working in the company of the overbearing boss, although there is a scheming woman who replaces the speech manuscript with blank paper, the overbearing boss quietly protects her and always turns danger into safety. There are also scenes such as the mother-in-law pretending to be a cleaner to test whether the daughter-in-law is snobbish and the wife of the flash marriage turns out to be the biological mother of the adopted son.
Look at this familiar formula: the mother-in-law in the play becomes the heroine, most of them have an unhappy marriage, gentle and virtuous but their life is a mess, no matter how many hardships they have experienced in life, they still have the courage to find true love, so they meet the male protagonist of the same age at the next stop in their life, and the male protagonist uses his money and true love to "rescue the beauty". The original family oppression, the embarrassment of the rich wives in the elderly cheongsam team, and various difficulties encountered in the workplace were all resolved by the male protagonist one by one, and a sunset love was achieved.
The male and female protagonists look familiar. The actress Liu Meixi, who plays the female protagonist Li Shufang, has starred in many film and television dramas such as "The Mistress of the House" and "The Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils". However, due to her performances in many micro-short dramas, she has become a "professional domineering wife". She became well-known for micro-short dramas of the same theme such as "At Fifty, I Get Married to a Domineering Boss", "Flash Marriage at the Age of Forty" and "After Flash Marriage, the Fifty-Year-Old Domineering President Spoils Me". The number of views of these three dramas alone is nearly 600 million.
The plots are similar. For example, in "The 50-year-old Married Boss", the president still ignores the company and disguises himself as a driver to find love. Fifty-year-old Tan Bing is a single mother of a tailor shop, and is repeatedly harassed by her alcoholic and domestically violent ex-husband. At the suggestion of her daughter, she went to the park for a blind date and got married to Chen Yifeng, the president of the Chen Group, who was disguised as a motorcycle driver. After marriage, the two gradually fell in love, and together they overcame the entanglement of her ex-husband Hu Qiang and revealed the truth about Tan Bing's daughter. Their love became stronger after going through the ups and downs.
In this regard, many netizens left comments, "I have watched three or four dramas about marriage at the age of fifty," "How many dramas with this theme has this aunt filmed?", "This elder sister is getting married everywhere." The plot is not strictly logical, there are many bugs, and the plot is not enough to make up for it, and the netizens often hit the nail on the head. Some netizens also lamented, "Capital has begun to brainwash my mother's generation!" The funniest thing is that the plot is so rustic that it is not only the middle-aged and elderly audiences who follow the drama, but also young people active on the front line of the Internet. They commented, "Such a familiar plot, such a strange age."
In fact, short dramas targeting middle-aged and elderly people are not limited to the sweet pet track, but also include family-oriented dramas such as "I am a Mom", "Three Sons Respecting Mother", "Ten Fingers Connected to the Heart", and "Riding the Wind and Waves at 50 Years Old", which are classified as urban emotions. They have subdivided the pain points and pleasure points of mothers. There are also "The Return of the Designated Driver Dad", "Dog Father and Tiger Son", "Old Cannon Goes to Battle Father and Son", etc., which also take care of the viewing needs of middle-aged and elderly men.
The entertainment needs of middle-aged and elderly people
Opening up new directions
The entertainment needs of the middle-aged and elderly are no longer a new topic. In the past, legendary dramas, family dramas, and anti-Japanese war dramas were the favorites of middle-aged and elderly audiences. Grandpa and aunt are also fighting bravely in blind date shows on the screen, which has caused many hot topics. In terms of dramas, Tencent Video launched the boutique short drama "Aunt's World" in 2021. It is rare to see the lives of middle-aged and elderly men and women as the main line, using a funny, humorous and highly ironic form to show the life and life scenery that is increasingly ignored by us. The site score is as high as 9.3. The 2023 word-of-mouth king "The Long Season" and the short drama "The Rest of Your Life" both use middle-aged and elderly protagonists as selling points. In 2023, iQiyi's exclusive comic-adapted female short drama "Grandma's New World" was well received. The sunset industry has become a sunrise industry, and short dramas for middle-aged and elderly people are also constantly opening up new tracks and directions.
Everyone has become accustomed to various idol dramas and romance dramas in domestic film and television dramas, which mostly revolve around the preferences, psychology and emotional tendencies of young people. However, short dramas for middle-aged and elderly people have attracted a lot of traffic. This is due to the curiosity of the public, but it is also interpreted as people's aversion and even disgust towards the increasingly rigid and routine "youth-oriented" film and television dramas.
During the interview, an industry insider of micro short dramas told the reporter that the silver-haired people are "high-quality people for short dramas", and the middle-aged and elderly are a fairly large audience group, and are also the group most willing to recharge and spend money. According to data from QuestMobile (Beijing Guishi Information Technology Co., Ltd.), a domestic mobile big data company, in March 2024, the size of the silver-haired population over 50 years old in my country reached 325.85 million, and the penetration rate of the entire network reached 26.5%. The Internet usage time of the silver-haired population reached 127.2 hours, an increase of 5.2% year-on-year, and it is still in a stage of sustained growth. Watching short videos, short dramas and live broadcasts have become one of their entertainment methods.
Why do middle-aged and elderly people become the ideal audience for the short drama market? Industry insiders said that they have money and time to spend, and their information sources are not as abundant as those of young people, so their needs are more stable and easier to satisfy. In fact, the common situation of many middle-aged and elderly people is that when they reach a certain age, they are ashamed to share their thoughts with their children. They would rather watch TV dramas that are far away from life to dream and forget the unpleasantness of life.
Middle-aged and elderly people are "on top",
How to prevent addiction
Han Ning, a national second-level psychological counselor, a member of the Jiangsu Nanjing 12355 psychological expert think tank, and a senior lecturer in ideological and political education at Nanjing Traffic Technician College, told reporters that the reason why short dramas are so popular is that the audience has established a deep emotional connection with the characters. "The characters in the drama are more in line with the middle-aged group who are under great pressure in their current lives. From the perspective of psychological needs, such short dramas will give them room for imagination, a sense of relaxation from reality, and better immersion. We like to see the struggles and struggles of the characters in the drama when facing difficulties, and like to see the joy of their success after experiencing all kinds of twists and turns. Going back 20 years ago, this group of people also loved romance novels."
After a short escape, we still need to face reality. Han Ning also reminded that in the current entertainment market, the marketing strategy and business logic of micro-short dramas will undoubtedly have a profound impact on our consumption behavior. Micro-short dramas are essentially just a form of entertainment, which provides us with a temporary place to escape reality and relax. However, this does not mean that we can completely immerse ourselves in it and ignore the existence of real life. On the contrary, we should keep our attention and thinking about the real world while watching the short dramas. This balanced attitude can help us better cope with the psychological impact of the short dramas and avoid over-dependence or addiction.
Previously, many short video accounts pretending to be "Jin Dong" were still active, "creating" love for middle-aged and elderly women. Therefore, netizens were also worried that the "love brain" routine of the middle-aged and elderly domineering micro-short drama would have a negative effect. Han Ning said that we should have critical thinking. When watching short dramas, we should not only enjoy the fun brought by the plot, but also learn to think independently and objectively analyze the characters, events and viewpoints in the drama. In this way, we will not be easily manipulated by commercial logic, and we can look at commercial means such as advertising placement and recommendation in the drama more rationally, and avoid blindly following the trend or impulsive consumption.
In addition, by formulating a reasonable viewing plan and controlling the viewing time, we can better balance the relationship between short drama entertainment and real life and achieve harmonious development of body and mind. At the same time, we should also maintain good work and rest habits, do moderate exercise, and cultivate other positive interests and hobbies, which will help us better cope with the psychological impact of short dramas.
This also expects the content review mechanism and the platform's self-discipline to work together to play a protective role. Recently, the China Network Audiovisual Program Service Association monitored and found that short dramas such as "Return to 1990: The Life of the Richest Man" and "Return to 1990: The Domineering Life" (formerly renamed "Return to..." and "Rebirth...") have problems such as vulgar content and deviation in value orientation. At present, the relevant works and illegal clips have been taken offline across the entire network, and streaming is prohibited. Illegal materials have been included in the blacklist library to prevent them from being broadcast after being renamed. At the same time, the accounts, mini-programs and delivery entities that published the relevant dramas and videos were dealt with.
The China Internet Audiovisual Association calls on all online audiovisual platforms, producers and broadcasters to strictly abide by national laws and regulations, consciously resist bad content, strengthen manual review, and intensify the crackdown on illegal short dramas. At the same time, it also calls on the majority of netizens to promptly discover and actively report illegal content, and jointly maintain the health and prosperity of the online audiovisual market.
Yangtze Evening News/Ziniu News reporter Zhang Nan
Proofread by Tao Shangong
Report/Feedback