寻找“情感代糖”——微短剧何以让爱好者“上头” - 开云

近年来，微短剧作为短视频与网络剧的融合新形式，正迅速渗透到年轻人的日常生活中。据北京大学国家发展研究院的《2025年中国微短剧产业发展格局与就业拉动效应测算报告》预测，从2020年到2025年，中国微短剧市场规模将从不足10亿元激增至千亿元，五年内增长近百倍。DataEye研究院的数据显示，2025年中国微短剧及漫剧的总产值已接近同期电影票房的两倍，其中18至40岁的青年群体占用户总数的54%，是主要的消费群体。

然而，在微短剧热潮之下，一种有趣的现象值得关注。年轻观众一边批评微短剧的低俗和过时，一边却又沉迷其中，无法自拔地追看，展现出一种矛盾而复杂的情感状态。本研究通过对17位微短剧青年爱好者的深入访谈，旨在探讨微短剧如何满足年轻人的情感需求，以及在多大程度上反映了当代青年的现实困境。

微短剧如何成为“情感代糖”

在食品领域，代糖的特点是能迅速提供甜味（带来即时的满足感），但自身不含热量。微短剧所提供的 Thus, the "weak attention" viewing mode makes micro-short dramas an emotional buffer for young people in their high-energy lives, transforming the pressures of complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty in the real world into simple, direct, and controllable emotional release in the virtual world. While artificial sweeteners are not real sugar, they are effortless to consume.

"Emotional Artificial Sweeteners" in Four Aspects

Although young people are aware of the fictional nature of micro-short drama plots and understand their "satisfaction" tropes, this does not prevent them from deriving genuine emotional satisfaction from them. Through in-depth interviews with 17 young micro-short drama enthusiasts, this emotional satisfaction can be categorized into four interwoven types.

Escapist Emotions: German philosopher Byung-Chul Han points out that the 21st century has transitioned from a disciplinary society to a performance society, where individuals self-impose performance pressures, leading to widespread emotional exhaustion and psychological friction. In the face of pressure, micro-short dramas offer young people an emotional space to temporarily suspend real-world worries through satisfying narratives. As one interviewee stated, "Some pain is truly painful, and temporary avoidance is also a way; not all problems require us to confront them head-on." However, this avoidance cannot truly escape the logic of the performance society. The narrative core of protagonists achieving comebacks through rebirth or transmigration in micro-short dramas still replicates mainstream success values. The sense of victory young people gain from watching is more like an emotional illusion compensating for their real-world circumstances.

Controlled Emotions: In work and social settings, young people often need to perform emotions continuously to maintain their social image, leading to the long-term suppression of genuine feelings. In micro-short dramas, this dynamic is reversed. They can freely select plot segments, control playback speed, and even exit at any time. If a protagonist isn't satisfying, they can quickly fast-forward. "I'm already emotionally drained at work, so I refuse to be emotionally drained in short dramas," stated one interviewee concisely and powerfully, demonstrating a practice of anti-emotional labor. The emotional energy expended in daily life is recouped in this small virtual space, even if it's just the "power of life and death" over a short drama, which provides tangible psychological compensation.

Dependent Emotions: Amidst increasing social mobility, more and more young people are drifting alone in unfamiliar cities. Traditional family ties and community support are gradually weakening, and solitude has become the norm for many. Micro-short dramas fill this void. They offer not only the plot itself but also real-time interaction through bullet comments and comment sections, as well as light social engagement by recommending the same drama to friends. One interviewee mentioned, "I'm working in a different city now, and I don't have friends in the same city, so I can only recommend dramas I've been watching to my friends." The sense of belonging provided by micro-short dramas, though not stable, is readily available and serves as a way for young people to rebuild connections within loose social networks.

Wasted Emotions: Several interviewees admitted, "Watching short dramas is easy, even though I know it's meaningless." On one hand, they are well aware that this leisure activity provides no real-world value. On the other hand, they crave pure downtime, carving out breathing room for themselves amidst the high pressure of work and societal expectations. The deliberate pursuit of "meaninglessness" expresses young people's counteraction to "meaning overload." Micro-short dramas play a dual role: they act as a pause button in a fast-paced society and also serve as a mirror reflecting their deep-seated loneliness.

These four types of emotions are interwoven, forming two pairs of internal contradictions. Avoidance and dependence are in opposition: young people use micro-short dramas to suspend real-world anxieties, yet they eagerly seek emotional resonance within this virtual space, desiring connection while escaping. Control and waste are intertwined: young people enjoy the right to freely manipulate the viewing content, yet they know deep down it's merely a way to pass the time. Thus, the contradictory experience of wanting to escape yet yearning to belong, of controlling everything yet feeling profoundly empty, constitutes the fluid and authentic emotional landscape of contemporary youth when watching micro-short dramas.

The Real-World Boundaries of "Emotional Artificial Sweeteners"

The emotional satisfaction provided by micro-short dramas is real, but its boundaries are equally clear. Just as artificial sweeteners can mimic sweetness but cannot provide true nutrition, micro-short dramas can precisely address the accumulated emotional needs of young people in their high-energy lives but cannot reach the root causes of these pressures. After the "satisfaction" fades, the pressures of reality remain unchanged. Moreover, the commercial logic of micro-short dramas itself exacerbates these pressures. Some platforms habitually set paywalls at critical plot points, guiding young people into continuous consumption through small fees, causing viewers to be unconsciously drawn into the consumption process, deepening their immersion and dependence on the medium. The narrative logic, centered on appeal, solidifies characters into archetypes like "beautiful, strong, tragic" or "innocent white lotus," and compresses plots into assembly lines designed to generate satisfaction and twists, prioritizing attention capture over narrative coherence. Long-term immersion may, in fact, reinforce young people's reliance on immediate gratification.

In conclusion, labeling the act of watching micro-short dramas as youthful self-indulgence is neither fair nor accurate. The micro-short drama craze reflects the collective mindset of contemporary youth actively seeking respite and solace under the dual pressures of intensified competition and a lack of emotional support. Therefore, in a state where "the drama ends but the audience remains," it is more worthwhile to delve deeper: behind the prevalence of "emotional artificial sweeteners," where are the genuine nourishments that cannot be replaced, and how can they be attained?

(Authors Wang Zhihao and Leng Xiaoyu are both doctoral students at the School of Sociology, Renmin University of China)

Authors: Wang Zhihao, Leng Xiaoyu Source: China Youth Daily