Old man, why are you staring at the domineering boss?

In the digital age, short dramas have quickly taken over the entertainment market with their compact plots and fast narrative rhythm. However, recent data shows that middle-aged and elderly audiences are becoming the new favorites in the short drama market. This article not only analyzes the reasons for the popularity of short dramas about middle-aged and elderly bosses, but also discusses the potential impact of such content on the values ​​of middle-aged and elderly people.

Zhang Shule, a columnist for People's Daily Online and People's Post and Telecommunications, is not targeting the elderly with his short plays, but is back to reap the elderly.

Old people, are you really new to short dramas?

Are middle-aged and elderly bosses really so powerful?

Recently, the short drama market has ushered in a wave of middle-aged and elderly people's enthusiasm. Middle-aged and elderly people's dramas have "dominated the list" in the short drama list.

In a short drama popularity list, "Flash Marriage with a Rich Partner" topped the list for five consecutive days after its release, and the number of topics on Douyin has exceeded 2.3 billion.

The Douyin topic volume of "Flash Marriage at Fifty" and "Old Cannon and Father and Son Fighting Together" also reached 600 million and 300 million respectively.

The explosion of middle-aged and elderly themes has changed the industry’s concept of short dramas: a young and handsome man can become an “old boss” and can also become a “traffic code”.

Even though the heroine is replaced by a nearly 50-year-old woman, the domineering president routine is still quite attractive.

In "The Promise Returns of the Cleaning Mom", the 27-year-old boss meets the 45-year-old cleaning lady and he insists on marrying her.

What’s even more ridiculous is that this aunt is the domineering father’s first love and the mother’s love rival.

The ending is even more bizarre, the aunt turns around and strikes back, and turns out to be the hidden richest person in the world.

Among them, conflicts such as discrimination against leftover women and children in debt are infinitely magnified. When one of the male and female protagonists almost gives up on themselves, there is always a president or a big boss who comes down from the sky and solves all difficulties in an instant.

The slapping sounds were heard throughout the whole process, with both sad and exciting moments flying around, making people unable to stop.

The middle-aged and elderly market has become a new "traffic blue ocean" in the short drama industry.

However, behind this trend lies the harsh reality that middle-aged and elderly people are being hunted by capital and exploited in consumption.

A report published by a research institute shows that among the 1,022 short drama and micro-short drama users surveyed, about half were over 40 years old, and users aged 60 and above accounted for 12.1%.

It can be seen that the middle-aged and elderly groups, especially the elderly groups with relatively ample time, have become important users of short dramas.

There is endless news about the elderly people crazily following TV series and spending money to watch them.

According to Chao News, Xiao Zhang, who lives in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, said that his mother has gone "crazy" recently.

In order to watch "The Promise Return of Cleaning Mom", Xiao Zhang's mother, who is over 50 years old, spent thousands of yuan to watch the show.

The skit is crazy, how come it attracts middle-aged and elderly people?

What’s the magic of the domineering CEO skit that makes old people stare at it?

Will the “middle-aged and elderly boss” short drama become a long-lasting popular content type?

As more and more followers emerge, what risks do we need to be wary of in short dramas featuring “middle-aged and elderly bosses”?

In this regard, Cailianshe reporter Cui Ming and Shu Le had a discussion. I think:

It’s not that the skit is targeting senior citizens, but that it’s coming back to reap the elderly.

When short dramas first emerged, the main audience was actually middle-aged and elderly people who had a lot of free time but were not willing to watch dramas.

The reason for this is that from film and television dramas to online variety shows, young people, especially Generation Z, are the main target audience.

After the explosion of short dramas, a large number of entrants continued to choose young and middle-aged people as their target audience, once again neglecting the middle-aged and elderly people, which in turn turned the former traffic pool into a new blue ocean.

Themes such as middle-aged and elderly domineering CEOs have indeed evolved compared to the short dramas that were initially popular among young and middle-aged people but were acceptable to the middle-aged and elderly.

But in essence, it is still the middle-aged and elderly version of the Shuangwen short play, namely:

The storyline and characters tend to move towards those after the age of thirty, which is a vertical subdivision of short dramas after the domineering CEO theme is no longer popular among young people.

This iteration will also be accompanied by the aesthetic fatigue of the middle-aged and elderly audiences towards the domineering president theme, and will allow producers to continue to choose the possibility of "middle-aged and elderly" among the more vertically segmented themes of current short dramas.

In particular, TV dramas such as martial arts, which were popular in the 1980s, may completely become the next hit by repackaging the fairy tale theme.

Therefore, short dramas about middle-aged and elderly bosses may not be evergreen, but vertical segmentation of short dramas targeting middle-aged and elderly people will continue to be popular.

At the same time, short dramas about middle-aged and elderly domineering presidents are bound to repeat the mistakes of previous short dramas about domineering presidents. After the audience becomes aesthetically fatigued, they will use more bizarre and even vulgar stories to sensationalize and attract traffic.

It should be noted that although excessive amounts of exciting writing may bring certain emotional value and psychological compensation to some middle-aged and elderly people who are in the second half of their lives and may not be fully satisfied with their lives.

However, due to its over-emphasis on fantasy, strangeness and bizarre plot lines, it may also have a certain negative impact on the three outlooks of middle-aged and elderly people that seem to have been stabilized.

Some people even subconsciously imitate the behaviors in the skit, which leads to many conflicts in families such as discord between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and in society such as infighting in the workplace.

At present, the most important thing that needs to be standardized in short dramas about middle-aged and elderly bosses is still the subject matter, namely:

Don't over-exaggerate the so-called social contradictions and class contradictions, or over-use "adventures" to create a false illusion.

Their creations can still only be based on reality and be higher than reality, but cannot be separated from reality.