When love becomes an exhibit for display and appears frequently, and the authenticity of emotion coexists with scripted presentation, can we still expect "love" correctly now?
✎Author | Shuai Penglian
✎Editor | Tan Shanshan
"It's 2024, who still watches sweet pet dramas?" has never felt disgusted, and it has become a basic operation for young people to examine the romantic scenes in film and television dramas with a critical attitude. .
Taking ancient dolls as an example, "love between humans and immortals" seems to have become the basic setting of sweet myths. Putting aside the plot, the all-pink skirts and warm-colored petals in the promotional posters repeatedly emphasize the high sugar content of the show.
However, no matter how exquisite the service is, it cannot cover up the plot that is full of loopholes. It is difficult for the audience to understand the inexplicable heartbeat of the protagonist, and the sudden change from hate to love - the heroine is disgusted with the hero one second, and falls into his arms the next second, and the two fall asleep with their pillows on the stars. Not only did these dramas fail to win tears from the audience, but they also contributed a lot of material to site B’s complaints and ghost videos.
From the production side, beautiful candy wrappers cannot support the cloying sweetness; and from the consumer side, in an era when love has become a problem, the happiness needs of young drug addicts are even more intense. As a result, young people no longer expect movies and TV series to make them sweet. They turn their attention to couple video bloggers-for a change of taste, "eat something good."
is different from the wholesale production of assembly line romantic dramas. The short videos of couple bloggers reveal a more lively atmosphere: the male and female protagonists finally escape from the CG-synthesized virtual scene, and the love scene is set to a smoking barbecue on the way home. stall, or a peaceful and healing aquarium on weekends.
Such a daily and real sense of romance makes the audience fall in love without knowing it. They seem to get a confirmation from this kind of daily observation of others: it turns out that love exists, even if they don't have it - maybe it is precisely because they don't have it that love is more valuable.
But if you watch too much of this kind of "online love story", it will have counterproductive effects. There is a huge contrast between the "model lover" on the other side of the screen and the "ordinary lover" around you, which inevitably makes people feel disappointed: Am I not worthy of sweet love? When love becomes an exhibit that can be displayed and appears frequently, and the authenticity of emotions coexists with scripted presentation, can we still expect "love" correctly now?
Couple blogger, the more contemporary "sugar substitute"
traces back to its origins, sweet pet drama is not directly equated with "industrial saccharin" .
Bloody and sweet plots already existed in early Taiwanese idol dramas: in "Mischief Kiss", Yuan Xiangqin was walking and talking to herself, and then bumped into Jiang Naoshu who was walking in front; in "Princess Little Sister" , Xiaomai suddenly learned of her identity as a wealthy daughter, and in a face-to-face confrontation with Nan Fengjin, she opened the Enemy dungeon. These plots that now seem embarrassing enough to dig your toes into the ground once truly touched the heartstrings of a generation of girls.
However, the stage background has changed with the times, and the way of showing love has also changed. The scenes that are mindlessly reproducing old plots and ignoring other script elements seem particularly out of place. It makes people feel the "deliberate" atmosphere, except for the sweetness, there is no other taste bud level.
The rapid development of the entertainment industry and communication media has caused romantic dramas to lose their scarcity in the millennium. The result of mass production is that the love scenes are the same: dear, let us hold hands and kiss according to the process! As for the process of why the heart beats and how the heart beats, it can be saved as much as possible.
In comparison, the couple bloggers who put the label "While in love" are more convincing. Their works often use flashbacks to tell the story of how the two first met and got to know each other, giving them a sense of calmness and narration.Love is walking on the road, I hold you on the inside of the trail; love is the street lamp outlining the outlines of you and me, and then holding our palms together, dancing to the song "Snowman" on the quiet street... Such a real and detailed portrayal is more in line with Young audiences understand love, and couple bloggers have gained a higher ability to explain love.
In recent years, couple videos have become one of the hot topics in the self-media army. It can be subdivided into different types: according to the love situation, there are campus love series, roommate love series, office love series; according to the matching type, there are cool cp, happy enemy, boss + sweet girl, etc. Although the production and investment of short videos are far less than that of sweet pet dramas, as long as there are enough bloggers in business, there will always be one that can capture your imagination of love.
Essentially, what couple bloggers do is the same as romantic movies, TV dramas and even romance dramas, which is to provide with intimate relationship text for the public. Young people love to read their works. On the one hand, they satisfy their fantasies about sweet love, and on the other hand, they use them as emotional teaching to help them grow. In addition to the content of
, the instant nature of couple videos has also won the favor of contemporary young people. Relying on short, flat and fast explosive output, they have become small snack-like existences that can be "eaten" anytime and anywhere during commuting and queuing, and can be shared immediately. For example, how do you deal with a disagreement between a couple? How do other people coax their girlfriends?
Between the real and the plot, "love" is expanding.
After the couple's video became popular, calls for "anti-couple videos" also began to emerge on major platforms. In couple videos, your partner will comfort you when you can’t find something and patiently help you find it; but in reality, your partner is probably still playing games on the sofa, and then says “Look for it slowly” ,Not in a hurry".
Young viewers who are familiar with short videos are not completely immersed in those almost perfect sweet daily routines, but are somewhere between belief and doubt.
b website up owner @人志达 once simulated the daily life of a couple blogger in the form of role-playing. In this revealing video, which has been viewed nearly 1.4 million times, the takeaway preserved egg and lean meat porridge is heated up and turned into a "love breakfast made by my husband"; the husband rushes to wash the dishes, but actually throws the bowl into the sink That's it... The title of the video is called "You think they are in love, but in fact it is just a job."
In the commercial video production industry, even if you label it as "couple", you cannot confirm the blogger's identity as a couple and the authenticity of the content produced. The
video script models not only the process of lovers getting to know each other and falling in love, but also the gender roles in the relationship. Although video creators have a variety of choices, in order to increase the playback rate, they often simply choose the highest-traffic setting of "husband-like men × silly, sweet women" because this traditional division of gender roles will give viewers Bringing the most direct and convenient happiness.
Amidst the sighs of "pure love", for the audience, this kind of emotional compensation is also a variant of fast-food love to a certain extent. "It's better to fall in love by watching others talk." When the pursuit of a quick love experience extends from offline real relationships to watching others online, love may be being alienated.
Along with the love performances of couple bloggers, there is also the "expansion" of love. The interactivity and algorithm of the platform push this love script to tens of millions of remote mobile phones.
Love is no longer an affair between two people. Whether it is barrages, comment areas or private messages, the audience not only gives instant feedback on the video, but also specifies the content they want to see - "Couple Weekend One Day Vlog" and "Blogger Can" I can’t put together a Q&A in the comment area”...it even has the implication of being on-demand on the TV Times Channel.
The audience's sense of participation is not only reflected in the moment, but also further extended to "sense of development" . From first meeting, confessing love, trying on wedding dresses, to following the formal wedding ceremony, the audience watched the couples go through ups and downs, and when they finally entered the marriage hall, they sighed, "I shed my mother's tears." If you like and collect it, you will be a follower.Although
knows that it is difficult to tell whether a couple’s video is genuine or not, and that being away from trivial daily life is just an artificial dream, the audience will still pay attention, watch and actively interact with it. Some people are even sober and restrained, and deliberately collect bloggers who are not "script-flavored" to recommend.
As sociologist Anthony Giddens said in the book "The Transformation of Intimacy—Sex, Love, and Eros in Modern Society": "Romantic love embeds self and others into the broad scope of the individual. In the process of self-narration, fanatical pursuit of romantic novels and love stories is, in a sense, projecting the frustrated self-identity in social life into individual dream hallucinations."
In the moment of emotional explosion, Whether it is the sincerity of following couple bloggers or the short-term sweetness brought by couple videos, the happiness woven through the Internet cannot be completely denied.
Rethinking Love in Romantic Anxiety
Backstage in reality, bloggers who create romantic couples have an equally difficult time facing real life.
On Xiaohongshu, the blogger "Sneaky Tree", who studied political philosophy abroad, has just experienced her husband's affair with her best friend who she has known for ten years. When her husband suddenly filed for divorce on the grounds of her "strong personality", she seriously reflected on herself, but later found out that this was just an excuse. The former soul mate suddenly "rotten", and the comment section was filled with voices such as "I don't believe in love anymore." The collapse of
sweetness is not an isolated case. Recently, the love affair between couple bloggers Alfie and Angle has aroused widespread comments on social platforms. The two met in 2018 and received their marriage certificate in 2024. Alfie, who has a high degree of education and a strong family background, is enviable. Many people think that Angle is lucky to find such a good husband. But under the cover of the filter, their perfect persona was exposed as fake, and their family members may also be suspected of fraud. The sales and turnover of
bloggers broke the audience’s illusions. But the pink bubble has formed and the romantic angst won't stop anytime soon. No matter how rational they are, it is difficult for the audience to escape the huge inertia of longing for "perfect love".
The romantic scenes staged by couple bloggers have evolved from a source of happiness into a standard of comparison. Friends on the Internet can do laundry on the Internet, cook on the Internet, and do all the housework. Even if they come home from work overtime, they will not forget to bring supper for their partner. In reality, there are very few partners who can replicate this. "If he doesn't do this, it means he doesn't love me." This inference reflects people's psychological gap.
In fact, replicating the so-called perfect love model not only sets limits for the other person in the intimate relationship, but also limits one's own perception of love and affection.
In an era of uncertainty, having a clear indicator can always make people feel at ease. How to measure love? Is love created through romance, or is it confirmed in the trivialities of life? We may not be able to answer this question, but one thing is clear: the understanding of love should be diversified. Uncertainty may make people panic, but it also adds to the charm of love.
Whether we are watching sweet love on the Internet or running an intimate relationship in reality, we do not need to ridicule other people's ways of obtaining love. Perhaps, while watching others fall in love, we are also deconstructing and reconstructing the word "love" in a personalized way. After the affair of
, "Sneaky Tree" read passages from "The History of the Robberian Wars" in the podcast to express her thoughts on the betrayer. She ended this podcast with the words of the 20th century political thinker and philosopher Oakeshott: "This world is the most beautiful world among all possible parallel worlds. Although there are cockroaches in it, I still Will choose to love it."
What we can do is to establish a true connection between ourselves and love, don't forget our dominant position in love, expect happiness, enjoy happiness, and think about happiness at the same time.
·end·
author丨Shuai Penglian
editor丨Tan Shanshan
proofread丨meet
