President's movie, jealousy, rampant gambling advertisements
At 11:30 AM, Nguyen Minh Anh (28 years old, marketing staff) took the opportunity to open his phone to watch the remaining unfinished episode on YouTube. The familiar content is that a young, wealthy, cold director suddenly falls in love with a poor employee. Each episode is about 10 minutes long, culminating in a series of events, ending always in the middle to draw viewers to the next part.
When asked, Minh Anh said that she often watches these series on YouTube, TikTok or downloads applications to broadcast Chinese movies that are heavily promoted on Facebook.
Just about 300,000 VND per month is enough to watch unlimitedly, every movie is available, constantly updated," she said.
Movie watching time accounts for a large amount of time during lunch breaks, or in the evening before going to bed. Some days, Minh Anh watches until 2 am to "play" the rest of the short film about 64 episodes long.
Also according to the introduction, with just a few registration steps, users can access hundreds of movies "president", "crossing without revenge", "stepmother - stepchild"...
These contents appear with a dense frequency on short video platforms. Just swipe for a few minutes, users can easily encounter headlines such as: "General pretends to be poor to test his lover's heart", "Haunted biological child has to be independently revenge", "Poor girl suddenly inherits trillion-dong fortune overnight"...
This is a "micro drama" - a super short film optimized for phone screens. The duration of each episode is from one to several minutes, fast pace, many shocking details.
In Vietnam, the trend of watching short films based on the "president", "cross-space", "revenge" motifs is increasing sharply on digital platforms.
According to DataReportal's Digital 2024 Report, Vietnamese people spend an average of about 6 hours and 23 minutes per day on the Internet, of which more than 2 hours are spent on social networks and online videos. YouTube and TikTok are among the platforms with the highest number of users.
The Ministry of Information and Communications once announced that Vietnam has more than 70 million social network users, accounting for the majority of the population. Short video content, including micro dramas from China, is densely distributed through the proposed algorithm.
Parallel to short films are power role-playing games and online gambling. Many teenagers are drawn into the virtual world where they can become "bosses", "tycoons", "masters".
Luong Van Khanh (2007) - currently studying at a boarding school for special children - said that he started playing games and online gambling from 8th grade. Initially, only a few tens of thousands of dong, then the debt amounted to hundreds of millions of dong. Khanh said he did not realize the moment he lost control, only knew that the more he lost, the more he wanted to recoup it.
According to shares from teachers at this school, the rate of students addicted to games and online gambling accounts for about half of the total number of students attending. The age tends to be younger, appearing in the 10-11 year old group. Common manifestations are loss of concentration, irritability, withdrawal, and even falling into a state of near-autism when electronic devices are taken away.
Domestic studies show that the rate of Internet use over 3 hours per day in the 10-24 age group is high, with a significant proportion showing signs of addiction.
The most chosen content is social networks, online games and short videos. The culture of fast viewing, continuous consumption, and lack of selection has become a common habit.
Another consequence is that real-life behaviors are influenced by the "general manager" image on the internet.
Some cases of violence in public places have been labeled "CEOs" by netizens, turning wrongdoings into a trend of ridicule or applause.
The dominance of money
From a media perspective, the explosion of extremist motifs is not a random phenomenon but is associated with the operating mechanism of digital platforms.
Communications expert Nguyen Trieu Thanh Tam commented: "These motifs win big because they hit the instinct to relieve the psychology and personal hidden feelings of the majority. In a society full of competitive pressure, viewers have a need to seek scripts that help them live instead of unrealistic dreams such as getting rich quickly overnight or blatantly retaliating against those who bully them.
This is no longer artistic creation but actually a process of producing content according to an industrial formula. When a motif achieves a large number of views, the platform's algorithm will automatically recognize it as content that retains users well and prioritizes distribution to millions of others.
Producers only need to change the setting and actors, keep the script backbone intact to ensure revenue safety without investing brainpower in new and strange plots".
According to Ms. Tam, advertising is also a factor promoting this vortex. When a brand places advertising based on the number of views and viewing time, the more controversial or strongly emotionally stimulating the content, the more distribution advantage it has.
This creates economic momentum, causing producers to prioritize shocking scripts instead of in-depth investment.
Without a mechanism to screen and orient advertising budgets towards healthy content, the market will continue to prioritize products that easily attract short-term attention.
This is a direct consequence of the attention economy, where user time is directly converted into money. Short videos from 1 to 3 minutes are ideal hits because they are short enough for users to boldly click on, but long enough to insert shocking details at the end of each episode to force viewers to watch the next episode.
The content at this time is completely optimized for stimulating the active substance that creates an immediate feeling of excitement in the brain, instead of aiming for cultural depth. The consequence is that we are consuming a type of mental fast food, this type creates a virtual feeling of fullness but in fact lacks nutrition and is very addictive," expert Thanh Tam emphasized.
Ms. Tam also believes that the most dangerous impact is the breakdown in deep concentration ability. When the brain is accustomed to a rapid pace, every 15 seconds there is a shocking climax, young people will gradually lose patience with systematic information, complex arguments or values that need to be settled down.
In terms of cultural awareness, the intake of too much junk information obscures the boundary between good and bad.
According to Ms. Tam, extreme family motifs also create "virtual emotional standards". While real life is inherently multifaceted and requires empathy, short films simplify everything into two extremes: evil or good, rich enough to break down walls or poor and humble being despised.
This leads to young people seeing tragedy or injustice everywhere, even falling into a negative psychological state when comparing their real life with the virtual glamour on the internet.
Currently, the legal framework for social network management in Vietnam has supplemented many regulations related to the responsibility of the platform, the obligation to remove violating content, protect children in the online environment and punish acts of spreading harmful information. However, the gap between regulations and implementation is still a major challenge when content is produced across borders, changing continuously.
