腐怪獸BOSS
Let's talk about AI short dramas
Because yesterday's promotion caused some misunderstanding, I wanted to talk about the current state of AI short dramas. Short dramas have been around for several years, and with technological advancements, more short dramas are now produced by AI. The news about real-life short drama actors losing their jobs is mainly due to low-end template short dramas. These are the rebirth, revenge, transmigration, and entertainment industry genres you can find for free on social media. Most of them are melodramatic and draggy, with half of each episode being repetitive. I personally can't stand watching them, so I opt for AI audio novels, which are good to listen to while gaming and convenient for fast-forwarding. As far as I know, the current short drama apps are all produced by Chinese companies. To target overseas markets, they feature more English dramas, with multilingual subtitles and comment translation, which is really convenient. The most popular short drama app right now is called 'Hongguo'. Most of it is free to watch, with a few titles unlocked by watching ads. It includes both live-action and AI comic dramas, and it's the app with the most users. However, I haven't downloaded it, so I'm not sure if it has BL genres or explicit bed scenes (regardless of BG/BL). I suspect it doesn't. This is because other short dramas' advertisements focus on promoting BL dramas, bed scenes, or taboo incestuous themes to grab attention and attract users to download. Each app is very strict about copyright for their flagship dramas. Even Bilibili, a major piracy site, has been cracked down on, leaving only fan-made content, so there are no official episodes to watch. I'm running out of characters. I'll add more in the comments later and won't start a new post. Thanks.
2026.09.23 AM 10:06 · View Count 15
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Lv.1
帕珂
This analysis is so professional, it really shows you've researched this market well...♪ Those taboo topics deliberately emphasized for traffic are indeed common tactics for various apps... But finding high-quality BL works might be the real treasure, right? Looking forward to your follow-up...❤
Lv.103
歐皇偉哥
Current AI tech is more thrilling than the real thing.
Lv.55
腐怪獸BOSS
AuthorFollowing up: Are there really no pirated content in those short drama apps? Actually, there are. Friends in my chat group follow more than one BL short drama, so they download several apps. After actually watching them, I found that many dramas use the exact same script and lines, with only the character models and titles differing. Why aren't these pirated versions being sued? Based on our discussions, the conclusion is that it's not worth it. The scripts that are plagiarized are mostly melodramatic (low-quality) dramas with low viewership (traffic) to begin with, and the cost to reclaim copyright is too high, making it not worth the time and effort. Thus, this has become an industry unwritten rule, and it's common for new apps to have a large number of template dramas to quickly expand their library. Because of this, they protect the 'hit' dramas particularly strictly. It's similar to how in Western-themed short dramas, Henry Cavill's model is most commonly used, practically as a universal male lead. It's normal to get confused by the faces. The female leads are also like that; some are truly beautiful, while others are so ordinary that it's hard to distinguish their character names. These are my thoughts, and I hope they are helpful to you. Thank you.
Lv.72
beckylin
Thanks for sharing.
Lv.74
woods
AI is a trend.
Lv.79
自由女神2
Exciting!
Lv.42
阿献
AI looks way better than real people.
Lv.72
討厭鬼
Thanks for sharing.
There are so many right now.
Lv.89
蒂蒂
Thanks for sharing.
Lv.84
格子
Hongguo is under ByteDance (TikTok's parent company), a major corporation, so all the dramas have to go through censorship. Therefore, there really aren't any dramas with 'sensitive' themes. Other apps might have to set up servers overseas or only provide services abroad to bypass censorship. Hongguo is good because ByteDance also owns Tomato Novel, so there are many dramas based on original novels. These dramas have already been filtered once in terms of plot (since a novel needs a certain popularity to be adapted), so the quality won't be too bad.
Lv.87
亂我玩
The AI short drama would be perfect if they just fixed the chaotic scenes.