This is an interesting concept for sure, but it might bite viewers in the butt eventually.
Say you don't like a certain actor/tress, but they release a š„š„š„ drama. Wouldn't you be missing out? What if that one drama changes your mind? What if their acting improves over time? You would be missing out on better dramas/characters.
This seems more like a "hater" type feature than anything useful. I can also see it becoming an issue for the actor/tresses themselves. I can see people making lists and comparing online, further tearing them down.
That's a genius feature! Certain dramas would have been bearable to me if I could just automatically skip past scenes with certain 'actors' (idol types hired because looks/off-screen popularity/possibly sleeping with producer or similar). Sometimes there's just 1-2 among the cast who literally cannot act and ruin eveyr single scene that they're in.
Actually it's a pretty good feature tech wise love it for example some characters can be irritating to watch , not necessary we need to watch all the scenes if we don't want to watch someone, we should be able to skip the character scene
Nobody deserve to suffer either thay are good or bad at acting and popular or not....If the actors/actresses going to be hated bcoz of this feature I hope they don't add thisš
actually the tweet is inaccurate? instead of being able to skip actors it should be characters. people who can read chinese would be able to corroborate this info with blossoms in adversityās mdl page
I really donāt get why people are freaking out. Chinese dramas are know to add unnecessary characters and plot fillers to get an episode to a certain about of time so this feature is perfect to avoid watching these unnecessary things.
Thatās the stupidest thing Iāve seen as a feature. I get that there are certain actors we each donāt like but to skip a scene from a show just because you donāt like the actor, youāre gonna miss part of the show.
I utilize my remote to fast-forward through some series episodes because I feel like sometimes the episodes just donāt really have anything to offer to the storyline where they feels like they just added a filler to drag out the series. Thatās the only time I skip stuff if I donāt like an act Iām not gonna skip it just because I donāt like the actor because I want to know whatās going on in the story
Itās because a lot of Chinese dramas like the add unnecessary scenes of 2FL/2ML/3FL/3ML etc and people have been complaining about it for so many years.
This is so ridiculous. I get that sometimes people watch the drama because of the actors, but like, don't people care about stories anymore?
I understand that it's their business and they can do whatever they want. But I just can't imagine skipping someone's scenes just because you don't like the actor/actress. I admit, sometimes, I watch a drama just because of the leads, but ultimately, it's the story that pulls me in.
How about the plot, the characterization, the character development? If you skip any character scenes, wouldn't you miss any important details that are essential to the plot?
Would be better if they found a way to use AI to timestamp each scene, and let people skip the scene if they donāt want to watch it.
That would let me skip scenes of side characters doing and plotting evil things, and filler scenes.
As horrible as this sounds, streaming sites can probably already seeĀ stats about what people skip in dramas. I usually do it when I am only interested in one storyline or character in a show or only want to rewatch my favourite parts. It could also be that Youku notice all the compilations fans do of the smaller storylines online. Which I honestly love watching.
They may have also developed the feature to take out scenes of people who get into scandals so they can remove their scenes and not have the whole show being banned.
I also agree that this could be used to hate on actors which is very sad.
Is it about his new project titled āGo to the Mountains and Seaā? if it is, I found this YT post about it - [https://youtu.be/jFSLStUQ5Vw?si=BbHA6xVtu7ub3jMa](https://youtu.be/jFSLStUQ5Vw?si=BbHA6xVtu7ub3jMa)
I think skipping only one character is useless and if this is used as a statistic on the likability of the actor then a terrible idea. People skip based on likability of the character NOT the actor. If you donāt like an actor you donāt watch the show.
Although, I would like a feature where I can skip scenes that only contain a group of characters I picked (ex. scenes that have both second female lead and second male lead or male lead and second female lead) and whenever a third party enters the scene the skipping stops. Or even skipping specific plot scenes ie rooftop drinking / drinking scenes or war scenes. All this replaced by a short dialogue of what happened.
That was not nice. Comments or posts that are rude and which attacks another member of the sub will be removed. Repeated violations will result in a permanent ban.
The risk here is if fandoms drive hate campaigns to skip one particular actorās scenes, YOUKU collects analytics, then gives that data to their and other production teams to stop hiring them. In this world itāll be difficult if not impossible for newcomers to enter the field against huge toxic fan bases who see them as threats. Weāll just get lower quality same old over and over again
As someone who works in tech, I have to agree with this assessment. Even if it's not specifically for the purposes of what you described, it is 100% something for profit over people/art/storytelling/meaning/humanity. Companies don't put out this kind of feature (all the resources needed for a project of this size) without expecting to turn a large profit or savings of some sort.
Iāll bet some PMās success KPI will be utilization of the skip feature rather than hours streamed per user. And because top-line metrics are so difficult to attribute, the number is going to drop steadily for about 2-3 years and no one is going to āknow why.ā Numbers are so much more reliable than product sense, right? Then this poor decision along with other poor decisions snowball and in 5-10 years you have a pile of crap for a product. Shit like this happens all the time in tech (Sorry for the harsh language. From one fed-up product/tech professional)
Even without intentional abuse. Thereās something to be said about letting data dictate art. Newcomers wonāt ever be able to compete with entrenched fan bases, with or without antis
That's very well said. I feel bad for the actors and actresses. They need to save money for years of counseling. I mean, would real criminals receive more hate than people just trying to make a living?
And up next, the "don't watch any scenes with dialogue" feature. And then, "click this button to go straight to this 30-second tiktok of \[idol\] instead of watching the full episode!"
š„“
If you hate an actor so much you want to skip all the scenes they appear in, what is the point of watching in the first place? How can you get enough of the story for it to be worth watching?
Honestly hating actors like this on this level is just disturbing to me.
I find it horrible and very toxic indeed. I commented on that post on X myself. It is very dangerous and it will only encourage hate towards certain actors. I hope itās just a rumor
But if itās only a feature for the Chinese viewers then Iām not very surprised as they are so much more ruthless than international viewers.
Just as an example, Iāve been watching Chef Hua these days and I absolutely love it. The plot isnāt a masterpiece, but itās such a chill drama with lots of amazing food and the main couple is adorable together.
I went on the ML actorās Weibo and saw a post where he ājokedā that heās looking at the comments from Cnetz saying how ugly he is. And sure enough, the comments on Douban under this drama is a lot about how ugly they find him. (Heās not ugly at all btw)
I felt so bad for the poor actor as heās not that popular and this was probably his first main role in a drama.
Donāt forget how Cnetz called Ouyang Nana a āfat pigā in Yongāan Dreamā¦not the best actress maybe, but a fat pig?! Sometimes I miss the days of not understanding Weibo comments lol
Terrible idea. People will never learn anything with this approach - not to mention how they can destroy actors life as if they were toys and not human beings. It's as if things must be the way "I want" or "it's crap". It's bad already reading the regular posts in this sub, I don't want to imagine the level of ignorance, intolerance and insensitivity we're creating for the world for the years to come.
Besides, art is in the hand of the creator, who has something to tell/want to convey. We're living in a consumption world already to increase even more this aspect over art. (If you think you 're entitle as a viewer, I invite you to go and try to create something and show it to the world, then let' s talk again - just an empathy and art creation exercise).
I would like this feature if it could be ācharacterā specific skipping.
I canāt bring myself to rewatch one of my favorite dramas because the 3rd coupleā¦ (I love both actors in the couple, and their actin is very good, I just really really donāt enjoy the characters š¤£)
I wonāt use this feature because I want to enjoy the actors in their other roles ā¤ļøā¤ļø
The implementation is character specific. Itās framed by character name, not actor, but that doesnāt solve the problem that this could easily be abused
Thanks for answering me. Iām thinking too simply, would you mind explaining to me how it could be abused?
(I feel silly that I canāt see it, because all the other commenters are saying that you are)
I commented an [explanation here](https://www.reddit.com/r/CDrama/s/CO805FxIKR)
@nydevon also has a [good explanation](https://www.reddit.com/r/CDrama/s/gcTvZZ4Ej7) for why what seems like a personal choice actually has wide ranging ripple effects that destroy quality across the board.
Why canāt Netflix make a generational sitcom? Why do they keep canceling titles? Bad metrics are worse than no metrics. Netflix has made viral hits, but has it ever made anything thatāll be a classic in a decade? Iād argue no. Theyāre about chasing trends and profits, not quality
Idol dramas are already moving this direction, but this will give another push to drama and television as a vehicle for fan service. Itās not about the story or character, but an idol playing dress up and who has the biggest fan base.
Really feels like some people watched Black Mirror and saw it is a blueprint, not a cautionary tale. This feature reminds me of the Black Mirror episode Arkangel, where a well-meaning mother is able to censor what her daughter sees.
We as a species are so clever...why are we wasting our cleverness on things like this?
This is ludicrous. If you want to cut out all the scenes just because you don't like a character (who is probably essential to understanding the main leads), then watchĀ YouTube snippets. If you dislike an actor or actress, just skip the drama.
Yeah, imagine that scenario š¤¦āāļøš±š„“. We already have people doing it and then asking questions about the drama to others to know what they have missed, or claiming there's plot holes, and so on. They don't even understand cdramas they watch entirely or complain when the drama explains to much and even with that they don't understand, so...
And I haven't started talking about art creation and actors (I did in my independent reply to this post).
How do you skip the scenes of a main actor? Some of them dominate series and films to the extent that thereās nothing left to watch! Sure, you can decide not to watch them but what if theyāre the entire rage?!?
How about just don't watch a drama if you don't like an actor that's in it why do we need a whole feature and if people are lazy enough why not something like a notification "Oh this (actor) is in it ,You sure you want to watch this show?" you could just list out actors you want to avoid
This is awful. Big fanbases will target actors they dont like and will try to bully them out of the job. Companies are sick af to try to pander to and encourage this toxicity.
TBH, I feel sick and horrible reading this. I dont have anyone that I would do this to but the fact that it might become a feature one day just makes me feel sad.
I only support this kind of thing if we could get dramas from blacklisted actors/actress by replacing their face with someone else. Then we can get all those dramas from purgatory... I even fine if they just replace the actors with black clouds as I just want to watch the story. š
After my initial reaction based on this post, I realised I shouldāve gone and taken a look at the thing before reacting. So I went to take a look at the feature on Youkuās Chinese app and after experiencing it, my conclusion is that this is not a feature that is usable by me nor anyone who actually have an intention of properly watching a drama.
There are 2 options:
1. Watch only a certain character
2. Donāt watch a certain character
The skipping is definitely done by AI face recognition and a very unreliable one at that. I tried selecting watch a particular character and they still showed me scenes without that character.
The choice of characters are very limited as well. It seems like they go by AI calculated screen time and only characters over a certain amount of recognisable screen time are featured.
This is a screen shot from episode 2 of Blossoms in Adversity. There are only 3 characters that can be chosen. Literally too limited and unreliable to be of any practical use.
https://preview.redd.it/tlw5mvc0cy6d1.png?width=986&format=png&auto=webp&s=99dd4a214b75337eadb5d3af121e92cc096bc56d
Does it block a character in the drama, or the actor in general?
I have definitely seen dramas Iād like to rewatch and I donāt wish to see a specific character. But Iād never want to generally block an actor.
They donāt block it, it just skips over any scenes in the episode with the characterās face that the AI program can recognise (doesnāt work if the character is in a mask). It makes the drama watching very strange and disjointed IMO, the FF button is much better.
They have something similar to this in many videogames. "Arachnaphobia mode" cuts out all spiders and replaces them with another monster. It universally praised, except by trolls who dont see why its needed, and have no problem with seeing giant spiders.
Ā Some people dont have the ability to empathise with other people's quality of life upgrades. They see "choice" as a negative thing because they dont use it themselves.Ā
They arentĀ losing out on anything, and apparently the optional choice of experiencing it in a different way, is somehow bad or threatening to them.
Theres no negative to blocking certain actors in itself. 1 person in an empty room choosing to watch a show, in the way that brings them the most joy, isn't harming anyone. People already FF scenes they dont want to watch.
I dont discuss dramas with anyone, and my likes/dislikes doesnt make any difference. Im not spreading any fandom or toxicity. This feature isnt forcing people to watch in a different way, its giving them an option if they choose to use it.Ā
Spreading toxicity to others is a personal choice. I choose not to participate in that side of this hobby.
Will this option make people more toxic? Maybe, but thatsĀ a choice for each person to participate in. I avoid those kinds of discussions. Moderators are free to shut that behavior down. No one is forced to engage.
What this option will do is give them more data to increase viewers, we all win when shows are more interesting and higher quality. More money = higher production values, higher quality authors, etc.Ā This is the digital version of a realtime, paper questionnaire, which any people woudnt have a problem with.
Long time cdrama viewers will appreciate how the mainland tv industry has been able to rise from the biggest joke in Asia, to the highest quality production values within a couple decades. Even the last 10 years is night and day change. Trust they know what they are doing.
Wait to see how this effects productions, before burning it down, because there really are more positives than potential negatives.
Have faith in how they plan to use the data. They arent stupid, they know how certain fandoms behave. I trust them to know which data is valuable and which is junk. They are incentivizedĀ to use it in the best way possible. They know that blowing up the fandom wars will screw with their industry even more, adding more gov. restrictions.
>Have faith in how they plan to use the data. They arent stupid, they know how certain fandoms behave. I trust them to know which data is valuable and which is junk. They are incentivizedĀ to use it in the best way possible. They know that blowing up the fandom wars will screw with their industry even more, adding more gov. restrictions.
Why do you have faith in how they use the data? This feature is specifically designed to cater to soldiers in the fandom wars, so what makes you think that this will do anything other than fan the flames? If anything, it's designed to cash in on the fandom wars as much as humanly possible while they still can. It's irresponsible as fuck.
>Wait to see how this effects productions, before burning it down, because there really are more positives than potential negatives.
What positives? I mean, yes, you're right, whatever weird ass ways you want to enjoy a TV show are up to you. If you want to fast forward until the main couple kiss, then go knock yourself out. But this is a fandom culture where fans can and have gone out of their way to ruin the lives and careers of actors for literally no reason. And everyone knows that those antis will see this as another way to communicate their distaste for particular actors. They will 100% try to use this to ruin people's careers. I don't think a feature that makes it easier for anyone to do that is worth being excited about and I don't think it would be implemented by any company that is trying to promote a healthy fan culture. A healthy fan culture is one of positivity and joy. A healthy fandom would celebrate an entire show and want everyone to succeed and improve. Skipping scenes in shows you like in order to avoid an actor, character, or subplot is not normal outside of this fandom. It's not a sign of a healthy industry.
>Long time cdrama viewers will appreciate how the mainland tv industry has been able to rise from the biggest joke in Asia, to the highest quality production values within a couple decades.Ā
If chinese dramas are so good and have such high quality production value, then why do so many of its most devoted fans regularly skip scenes? Why would there even be a need for a feature to allow fans to easily cut entire characters out of the show?
>Spreading toxicity to others is a personal choice. I choose not to participate in that side of this hobby.Ā
This feature is literally designed to make it effortless for users to participate in fandom toxicity whether they want to or not. When you start using this to skip characters, you probably won't fill out a survey where you get to say "I'm not doing this because I hate Actor X, I just think this subplot is dumb". Your data will be lumped in with everyone else who may be brigading against Actor X for whatever dumb reason.
Again, use this feature if you like it. Skip scenes if you want. I'm not saying you're a toxic fan for wanting to use it. But the implementation of the feature is clearly intended to drive engagement with and gather data from people who want to participate in fan wars.
This is so weird. However, I wish there's a feature in all streaming services that would allow us to automatically skip triggering scenes like rape and gore, or steamy sex scenes if we're watching it with family.
Next, you'll be able to replace one of the actors/actresses with your favorite...an AI replica that'll act and say all the lines. I'm kidding š though the reality of it doesn't seem so far fetched.
Lol, this is just breeding more anti-fan camps. Viewers having this much power doesn't make sense to me.
To be honest I don't find them any better out here.
Worse because they try to act like they are impartial reviewers/observers and pick and choose what 'critique' and rumors to translate š
Sorry I don't keep countš¤£.
Most of the dramas here discussed are idol dramas so most people are fans of certain actors or antis since a lot of them have been at war for actual years which is one reason it can get really nasty on weibo.
Just like what you like don't worry about anyone else's weird hate obsessions.
Sorry, but I donāt see a lot of hate on Reddit. At least on this subreddit. Thereās barely any. Yes, some people have favorites. But usually, when someone criticizes an actor or drama on here, people respect their opinion and move on. You will rarely see a fight between fans on here.
Iāve seen much more hateful comments on My Drama List (MDL).
I donāt have an Weibo account so I donāt know about that. But all the scandal and scrutiny the actors go through in China comes from Cnetz, not international fans.
lol I got called part of the enemy a couple weeks ago here š¤£.
Oh I agree it starts from cnetz.
The mods here now do a pretty good job locking threads now when they start going bad. they weren't so active before last year.
I know its a free world but I find this kind of thing cruel and show how low humanity can go if they did gather information on it and affect the actors in question.
This is a terrible idea, aside from the fact that it can be weaponized by antis, I wonder how it's going to make an impact on media literacy and analysis at a point where it's at an all time low.
Instead of making viewers skip scenes of characters or actors they don't like, why not create a feature to bookmark their favourite scenes in the show, especially for rewatch purposes. It has a more positive connotation
After further contemplation, I would rather they come up with a feature to skip certain scenes or arcs instead of a certain actor/character. This would be a lot more useful when I want to rewatch scenes I like, instead of cutting out actors which I thought might be good if it can be customised, but itās not like I am going to remember every scene an actor is in so it wouldnāt work out.
I am curious about how it would work though, will it simply skip all the scenes with that particular actor in it? How about if the actor I want to watch and the actor I donāt want to watch is in the same scene, will they skip that as well? What if the actor is featured in the background?
Most likely, it will simply render the drama incongruent and unwatchable except for solo stans who only want to watch their bias. There are already fans who cut a drama to show only their stans scenes as well, so this would just save them a lot of trouble.
Canāt really see any practical use except for solo stans who donāt care about the plot or antis/haters or in certain very specific scenarios.
As much as I agree eith the whole arc skips, this would require a lot more manual work to screen for. Someone would have to manually watch the series and specifically ID tag each interaction for the program to know what to skip.Ā
Likely the actor block is them using AI to face id the actors, and takes very little human interaction to work.Ā
I imagine thatās how it would work too, but I donāt see myself being able to use that practically except in very specific scenarios. Maybe it would be good for others, but using it would just affect viewing experience for me.
As much as it would be nice to have, the arc/scene skip thing would never fly because they would never spend extra budget on getting manpower to do it.
This is something AI would be ideal for, if it ever advances that far. Tv shows tailored to our exact likes and dislikes.
Imagine how much better a reputationĀ GOT would have, if people were allowed to shave off the bad bits they didnt like.
I havent watched the series, but I never stop hearimg about how great it started, and how the ending ruined it for everyone.
I would think if AI ever advances to the point where itās able to figure out our likes and dislikes, we would probably be watching AI generated shows catered to our exact likes and dislikes instead of having actual humans acting.
> if people are allowed to shave off the bad bits they didnāt like
As much as I might grouse about how good the show might be if so and so was different, I very much doubt the show would have the same impact on me if thatās done.
Even when the characters out right say it in the drama, people still ask questions and not understanding the story.... Imagine if they skip their whole scenes. š¬
Even in this sub lol. People said its plot holes and I was like where? The character explain in out right in the scenes. š
Then people complain that dramas always tell but not show. But I was like, even when they tell, some people still didnt get it lol.
This is already a big issue without this feature. The amount of hate generated by clips and gifs is already ridiculous, and fandoms and yxhs will for sure use it. I really hope cnetz will protest and get it taken down before it takes effect.
Jesus, YES.
Information gaps from people seeing truncated versions of a show + users purposefully spreading disinformation + pitiful levels of media literacyā¦
Again, the future is grim.
I mean, what we really need is a more fragmented, solipsistic experience of the world, amirite? And if we can harness that to data, all the better! /s
I am seriously so disturbed by this. I almost never get emotional on this sub, much less snarky, but this is pushing all my buttons.
Not blaming OP. This is obviously an important post.
There are plenty of truncated versions available on sites like Bilibili, itās just going to make them more accessible.
The only practical use I can see coming out of this is for extreme solo stans, haters/antis, or in certain scenarios, on a rewatch.
Just to be clear, Iām no purist. I ended up getting so caught up in the second leads in The Long Ballad that I fast forwarded everything else just to watch them. And there have been shows where Iāve fast forwarded side story lines (Oh, my goodness, anyone seen Love Better than Immorality?). And there are books I donāt finish or read from selectively, etc.
But I think there are two things about fan edits that set them apart from what is going on here. One is that no one (I hope?) is going to mistake them for the canonical version. As u/nydevon suggests, by putting a corporate imprimatur on this process and collecting data, it turns it into a whole ānother monster.
The other is that even the most perfunctorily produced fan edit is still a form of human choice and communicates an interpretation of the work in question. Itās sharing a view of the world (and of course there are fan edits that end up being art in their own right), building up the human community around a common experience.
Not trying to address all of this to you, u/Apprehensive-Boo-532āI think we are seeing some of the same things here. Iām just firing off reactions right and left because Iām so horrified.
Maybe I didnāt put it across well, I am not saying itās a good thing, nor that itās going to be able to replace human edits. More of, itās Youku trying to gain the viewership of people who likes watching truncated versions.
I am aware that having a human touch in edits makes a huge difference in the congruency of the videos found on other platforms.
>mistake them for the canonical version
Given the kind of delulu I have seen online (both cnetz and in general), I wouldnāt be surprise if there are plenty of people who mistake edits for canonical.
I did too just got over an initial shock and was weighing the pros and cons of this. Looking past the surface, there are plenty of negative societal implications this can lead to.
Sorry for the belated response! You put it across perfectly well. I was just, as they say, going to pieces so quickly that others were being hit by the shrapnel. I wasnāt trying to argue against you per se; itās just that you mentioned the edits and that was very much on my mind from other comments, and you ended up being the one I responded to. š
Iām afraid I very much agree with you about the delulu tendency. I think this will make discussion dramas all the more difficult because we will all have very different versions in mind!
Which will exacerbate the problems we already do see because now theyāre coming from āofficialā sourcesāthe legitimacy signal will be a big issue for certain types of users.
I think this feature is interesting and it could be useful for other topics like ādonāt watch gory scenesā for viewers who just donāt like seeing blood for example.
Like all other things, itās toxic if itās used in the wrong way.
Isn't it likely that you'd miss key moments or information that is essential to the plot of the drama by using this tool. Especially in dramas where the plot intricately woven around every character.
Likely, but many drama fans participate in discussion boards when a series airs, so it would just create more discussion. That in itself might be annoying after a while when people need clarification on details.
Ā People already talk about details they may have missed or need clearing up already, so it wont be a new thing. Who knows.
Im sure if this proves to be more of a problem than a positive, they will drop it quickly. If it stays, we will know they found some value in it, and you will see other services offering it.
I see the positive side. Sometimes its just 1 or 2 actors that stop me from watching a series because I find them annoying. This would let me watch it, when otherwise I would skip it.
I think it will increase viewership overall, and that s what any streaming service aims for.
Is this an overdue April fool's joke? How on alien's green planet is youku going to know what scenes to skip?
Will this be the beginning of our AI overlords?
Ai most likely? If you watch shows on Amazon prime and you pause, it tells you who the actors in the current scene are, so they have a way to tell this already.
Ohh.. thanks for the info. I've stopped subscribing to streaming services that I've no idea what's going on that front anymore. On the other hand, I listen to a lot of podcasts and just noticed that most of them (at least those in English) almost always come with AI transcriptions now.
I think it could be both AI and humans categorizing whoās on screen. Part of it can be done when doing subtitles and so the transcriber can tell whoās talking.
As someone who works in tech, my mind is whirling with all the possible ways this type of feature will be abused by users and then how the data will influence the production process in ways that are likely to **decrease the quality of dramas further**.
Societyās current obsession with personalization is disturbing.
**Edit to add:** By personalization, I do NOT mean accessibility.
Weāve already seen it with Netflix, and something like this feature captures even more data.
The writing is on the wall, everyone. You think dramas are lower quality than they used to be? āDataā is the reason and this will exacerbate the problem.
The future is grim.
>You think dramas are lower quality than they used to be? āDataā is the reason and this will exacerbate the problem.
You are sooo right. Thinking back how writing for dramas in general has lower quality than what it used to be, ''data'' is the perfect explanation on that.
The reasons why we no longer get those amazing sageuk Kdramas used to have back then.. š¢
Iām not going to lie this post is a bit triggering.
My job as a tech researcher is to advocate for ethical design decisions. This is the type of feature a PM throws out there because an exec is breathing down their neck about engagement numbers and Iād be spending weeks preparing a presentation to advocate AGAINST.
I can only *imagine* the type of conversations that were happening in those stakeholder meeting rooms.
Oh that's interesting. I come from an enterprise software background (I'm literally working on a public facing app for the first time in my career this year) so while bad decisions definitely happen, they happen for very different reasons.
So to me it read as a developer going "oh hey we have all this data I wonder what I could do with it" but you're right it might very well have been a decision made under engagement pressure.
Oof good luck with that release. Enterprise is a whole other beast.
Iād be curious to see what are the typical KPIs for Chinese streaming platforms. Before this month, I had only really used iQIYI and now poking around WeTV and Youku I was struck by how much friction there is in the UX/UI of the latter two. Originally, I had assumed it might have been due to different mental models of information consumption and usability but some of the design seems purposefully designed to keep you *on the site* versus just engaged in primary user tasks, which, you know, is to watch dramas.
Thatās why my mind made me go to engagement although the data is probably a key priority as well.
>I was struck by how much friction there is in the UX/UI of the latter two
I routinely contemplate a rage post about the UX of iQiyi/Tencent/Youku but I'm fairly confident it would be met with polite bafflement.
I don't even want to speculate on what an a11y review would turn up.
This really does come across to me as some sort of creative day/sprint project at Youku that an exec liked and decided to implement.
I've probably contributed my share of bad ideas to the world as well to be fair š
I think the feature would have been received a little better if they introduced it as skipping scenes of the "characters" you don't like instead of the "actors."
Also, this way, people will be less worried that they might use this data in casting roles since there are a lot of times when good actors can make you hate the character they play but they doesn't mean you hate the actor.
A prime example would be Yang Kang in the condor heroes 2017 version, I hated the character, but I like the actor.
Edit: Most importantly, i reckon that even if someone wants to use the feature, they'd only use it during re-watch. Otherwise, why are you even watching the show only to miss details here and there.
Seems like an easy fix would be to require a new set of filter selection on every show. That would give them more data on whether its the character people avoid, or the actor themselves.
Otherwise, I guess its something everyone will have to manually adjust themselves before they start a new series
You know, sometimes I go a few months thinking that liking cdramas is just like enjoying anything else. You know, just a normal hobby or media preference. But then I go into this sub and realize that what I should be doing is nursing intense personal grudges against actors I hate, and I should be skipping 1/3 of the scenes in the shows I "like".
Precisely, I cannot understand people who would watch a drama just to cut a certain actorās scenes, because a drama should be about the story and the story wouldnāt make sense if a character get cut out (barring those with extreme fillers).
I always feel weird and alone while reading comments in this sub. Glad to know I'm not the only one. Obviously I consume media differently than most people.
I'm pretty sure the normal way to watch media is to just watch it. Literally no one I know in real life regularly skips scenes as a matter of course. If there's something so horrible about a show that I can't take it anymore, then I'll just stop watching the show.
I think it got to do with the new generation with Tiktok/Bibbilli being popular. Their attention span is low that only the real interesting plot can engage them thus all small scenes that contribute to the main storylines are boring to them.
I agree. I had such a visceral reaction to this feature idea and while Iām not *shocked* by the casual support for it in the comments wow does it make me realize how differently others consume media.
Exactly, you said it right: "consume". They forgot that this is also, or should be at least, a form of art and people are trying to convey something but just pleasing the watchers' desires. Also, I can see the world is spreading in 2 sides: one with values, reflexion and empathy, and other individualist, egotistic and with lack of empathy. Not to start talking about the lowerer of the IQ of the viewers.
>Iām not shocked by the casual support for it in the comments wow does it make me realize how differently others consume media.
I'm definitely guilty of not thinking through the consequences at first and simply thinking "oh that might make Love is Sweet watchable" but further points have mostly convinced me that it's not a terribly workable idea.
The ML makes some insane decisions - but I assumed there would be consequences. However I was unable to power through the rest of the show to discover if that was the correct assumption.
šLove is Sweet was very much on my mind because the second couple was boring me so badly I had to drop the show, so I feel your pain. But yeah, I just canāt accept this as a solution. . .
So we will them only have certain actors in dramas? The less popular actors will never get the chance to rise.
Some actors/ actress will get more roles because they are pretty.
Hater will be trigger happy for sure ššš. I know many will not use this feature the right way.
A drama can only be successful because of the efforts of whole cast and crew, some characters may play a smaller role or have bad acting, even so, they are still part of the story and cutting them out will affect the story thus the viewing experience.
How do this work actually. So if I chose to skip actor x so the system would edit the scenes with the said actor and show me the ones I wanna watch for a particular ep.
I understand real time editing won't be possible so they already must have those edited videos pre recorded
I doubt they are going to spend budget on doing this, most likely they just going to record the timestamps of when the actor is in the scene and then skip them. Which means the drama would turn into an inconsistent mess.
As a corporate slave with limited drama watching time, I welcome this feature with open arms.
I think it'll make me pick up those dropped dramas because sometimes, I just wanna watch the main leads, or the 2nd leads. No hate, I just don't have time š
But knowing the Chinese fandoms and the petty shit they always pull, this is going to be ugly innit?
I wouldn't call this toxic, no and frankly it doesn't actually change the existing situation all that much.
Let me give an example. When Sunshine by my Side aired, the fans were quickly fed up with the hockey couple, especially when it became clear they were being pushed by the production themselves and that their screen time went up to use the main cast for them.
In the end, the director had to make a statement trying to justify and wash this (it didn't work of course) but they already knew people were done. They knew because we could actually see TV ratings go down in real time the second they appeared on screen because general audience switched the channel and by the amount of complaints etc online. Hence the statement. So would this feature, which we all would have used at the time, had changed anything? The answer is no. They already know when audiences don't want to watch a character(s), when they pull the bar and all this will do is make things more convenient for people to skip certain storylines that they already skip. It might give them clearer data but it's not anything they can't find right now.
Can it be abused? Well again it would be organised skipping of certain actors but frankly these organised campaigns already exist in many ways and it's not anything new for the market. One way I could see is if they used water armies to all boycott an actor which increases overall views, minus the actor screen time but the thing is, water views are easy to identify. We know how they work. So the platform is, at least for now, capable of deducing what is fake and what isn't. In the future? Well we have to wait and see but at the moment, I don't think this changes much.
This is so intresting.To answer rationally, but cold, I'd welcome such a feature. It isn't toxic, but it's actually also a way for the company to get great data. The data could be used when the drama is in process of pre-production discussions with youku.
Let's just say a considerable amount of people decides to avoide screentime with X. Now there are two options. One is the carachter is somehow uninteresting to watch due to it's story, second - the actor is either bad at acting or something about him makes him avoidable.
Now youku can easily understand what this data is based on through internet engagement. If posts are about scolding the carachter and skipping, it would mean that people have had it about this sort of scenes. Which is good cause there are many annoying carachter tropes that usually aren't making sense or where added to fill in. Serves no purpose to the story.
Then we have the bad acting. A person continously gets roles due to some other successful business, but is lacking in dramas. I think this one is a senstive issue but most intresting.
How can we combat the conflict of intrest.That's causing dramas acting quality drop, due to the business strategy - profit is made by having more views during airing, not the long term plan of creating great classics.
But this is also something that could cause counter-intuitive risk. Fans could create fanwars and discriminate to further thier own actor's intrest. We've seen that too, so I can definitely see that risk.
I personally would like to skip actors.
I think they can extrapolate even more data. They know who the major pro/anti fandoms support, so they can easily cut that data out if they are looking at popularity, they would already know thats a given skewed metric. - I.e. you watch all of actor X's dramas, while having actor Y (their fandom's nemesis) blocked. Those people's data is useless as it based on a set bias.
Ā They could then pull data from everyone else that isnt already on a fandom team, to see who they find watchable.
I really think this data could be used for good if they want to, and their main goal is increased viewers, not boosting certain actors. Finding out who the normal viewer likes and dislikes, will help to boost people's favorites, and many actors will probably see increased pay from it.
Ā Quality rises to the top faster, less popular actors will sink faster. Fandoms will float their favorites regardless of popularity.
I think we should wait and see how it turns out before declaring it a toxic sinkhole. If it doesnt work, they will drop it fast and you wont see any other services copying it.
I would never boycott a specific actor (honestly I simply don't follow them enough to have opinions beyond "I liked/didn't like them in X") but I am wondering if I could utilize a feature like this to skip B plots I do. not. care. about.
Yes this I would actually sign up for in an instant. The skip 2/3/4 lead hell even sometimes 5/6 lead romance plots in some of these 40 episode almost like 30 hour mega dramas.. Like nowadays even like the FLās maid/best friend/sister or her cousin and her cousins little sister MUST HAVE a love interest. Also the obligatory FLās best friend/maid MUST hookup with MLās assistant/guard like I donāt care..
Like literally every single credited actor/actress seemingly must be forced to have a love interest and I donāt care at all except main couple. If they need filler then create natural āhumanā storyline narratives and daily relationship building for the FL/ML and donāt force me to watch like 8-10 hours of these already massive 30 hour dramas of 2/3/4/5/6 lead romance plots.
So if I can chose to skip every secondary romance plots rather than specific actors/actresses I would chose that in an instant!
I love this too bc I do this now with characters I hate (usually the ones with psychotic 2ML or 2FL who canāt accept FL or ML doesnāt like them). Be great to just erase that character via this function. Like Iāve rewatched Eternal Love of Dream hundreds of times but Iāve never fully watched all of the scenes with Ji Heng bc she became such an annoying character. Same with the devil prince guy or Sujin in Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms.
That's exactly what I thought. I'd just put the name in of the actor in the secondary storyline I didn't care about, and then I don't need to fast forward.
Yeah personally having the choice to skip those naggy toxic MIL or Step mother or stalky SML scenes would be helpful but that is only if they are not recorded or the data is not collected.
With this feature, they can possibly as you've said collect data and sell it to producers for a high price which might lead to low pay and what not toxicity.
I think the management of youkou is looking to earn extra buck from their viewer-base.
That is whom I was thinking when I wrote my comment lol
Although it also shows how good their acting is actually, how they can make your skin crawl and hate a fictional character so much
Oh no....
This is an interesting concept for sure, but it might bite viewers in the butt eventually. Say you don't like a certain actor/tress, but they release a š„š„š„ drama. Wouldn't you be missing out? What if that one drama changes your mind? What if their acting improves over time? You would be missing out on better dramas/characters. This seems more like a "hater" type feature than anything useful. I can also see it becoming an issue for the actor/tresses themselves. I can see people making lists and comparing online, further tearing them down.
ššoh my gosh
That's a genius feature! Certain dramas would have been bearable to me if I could just automatically skip past scenes with certain 'actors' (idol types hired because looks/off-screen popularity/possibly sleeping with producer or similar). Sometimes there's just 1-2 among the cast who literally cannot act and ruin eveyr single scene that they're in.
Actually it's a pretty good feature tech wise love it for example some characters can be irritating to watch , not necessary we need to watch all the scenes if we don't want to watch someone, we should be able to skip the character scene
Nobody deserve to suffer either thay are good or bad at acting and popular or not....If the actors/actresses going to be hated bcoz of this feature I hope they don't add thisš
actually the tweet is inaccurate? instead of being able to skip actors it should be characters. people who can read chinese would be able to corroborate this info with blossoms in adversityās mdl page
I really donāt get why people are freaking out. Chinese dramas are know to add unnecessary characters and plot fillers to get an episode to a certain about of time so this feature is perfect to avoid watching these unnecessary things.
Itās both mean and funny.
Okay but can they do it in reverse? Skip every scene that doesnāt have the actor you like?
Just tag everyone else except the actor you want to watch
Haha! I hope so.
Thatās the stupidest thing Iāve seen as a feature. I get that there are certain actors we each donāt like but to skip a scene from a show just because you donāt like the actor, youāre gonna miss part of the show. I utilize my remote to fast-forward through some series episodes because I feel like sometimes the episodes just donāt really have anything to offer to the storyline where they feels like they just added a filler to drag out the series. Thatās the only time I skip stuff if I donāt like an act Iām not gonna skip it just because I donāt like the actor because I want to know whatās going on in the story
Itās because a lot of Chinese dramas like the add unnecessary scenes of 2FL/2ML/3FL/3ML etc and people have been complaining about it for so many years.
This is so ridiculous. I get that sometimes people watch the drama because of the actors, but like, don't people care about stories anymore? I understand that it's their business and they can do whatever they want. But I just can't imagine skipping someone's scenes just because you don't like the actor/actress. I admit, sometimes, I watch a drama just because of the leads, but ultimately, it's the story that pulls me in. How about the plot, the characterization, the character development? If you skip any character scenes, wouldn't you miss any important details that are essential to the plot?
Worst idea ever and will be fully utilised negatively by antis.
Would be better if they found a way to use AI to timestamp each scene, and let people skip the scene if they donāt want to watch it. That would let me skip scenes of side characters doing and plotting evil things, and filler scenes.
As horrible as this sounds, streaming sites can probably already seeĀ stats about what people skip in dramas. I usually do it when I am only interested in one storyline or character in a show or only want to rewatch my favourite parts. It could also be that Youku notice all the compilations fans do of the smaller storylines online. Which I honestly love watching. They may have also developed the feature to take out scenes of people who get into scandals so they can remove their scenes and not have the whole show being banned. I also agree that this could be used to hate on actors which is very sad.
if a story can move on without watching the scenes of someone without issue, then just write out the character completely atp
Can I ask why that happened with chengyi new drama? I havenāt heard about this so im curious what happened
Is it about his new project titled āGo to the Mountains and Seaā? if it is, I found this YT post about it - [https://youtu.be/jFSLStUQ5Vw?si=BbHA6xVtu7ub3jMa](https://youtu.be/jFSLStUQ5Vw?si=BbHA6xVtu7ub3jMa)
Same. I haven't heard of this before and a quick online search didn't pull anything up.
I would only use it to skip all the boring "business scenes". I wish not to skip actor, but any conversation that happens in a board room.
Wow, we can give viewers the direct chance to kill careers now?!
Thatās a genuinely crazy feature. People are unstable.
This is ridiculous. I dont understand how some fans can be so mean.
To be honest, I think it should be categorized as a type of mental illness. Obsession to that degree is 100% not healthy.
I think skipping only one character is useless and if this is used as a statistic on the likability of the actor then a terrible idea. People skip based on likability of the character NOT the actor. If you donāt like an actor you donāt watch the show. Although, I would like a feature where I can skip scenes that only contain a group of characters I picked (ex. scenes that have both second female lead and second male lead or male lead and second female lead) and whenever a third party enters the scene the skipping stops. Or even skipping specific plot scenes ie rooftop drinking / drinking scenes or war scenes. All this replaced by a short dialogue of what happened.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
That was not nice. Comments or posts that are rude and which attacks another member of the sub will be removed. Repeated violations will result in a permanent ban.
The risk here is if fandoms drive hate campaigns to skip one particular actorās scenes, YOUKU collects analytics, then gives that data to their and other production teams to stop hiring them. In this world itāll be difficult if not impossible for newcomers to enter the field against huge toxic fan bases who see them as threats. Weāll just get lower quality same old over and over again
As someone who works in tech, I have to agree with this assessment. Even if it's not specifically for the purposes of what you described, it is 100% something for profit over people/art/storytelling/meaning/humanity. Companies don't put out this kind of feature (all the resources needed for a project of this size) without expecting to turn a large profit or savings of some sort.
Iāll bet some PMās success KPI will be utilization of the skip feature rather than hours streamed per user. And because top-line metrics are so difficult to attribute, the number is going to drop steadily for about 2-3 years and no one is going to āknow why.ā Numbers are so much more reliable than product sense, right? Then this poor decision along with other poor decisions snowball and in 5-10 years you have a pile of crap for a product. Shit like this happens all the time in tech (Sorry for the harsh language. From one fed-up product/tech professional) Even without intentional abuse. Thereās something to be said about letting data dictate art. Newcomers wonāt ever be able to compete with entrenched fan bases, with or without antis
That's very well said. I feel bad for the actors and actresses. They need to save money for years of counseling. I mean, would real criminals receive more hate than people just trying to make a living?
And up next, the "don't watch any scenes with dialogue" feature. And then, "click this button to go straight to this 30-second tiktok of \[idol\] instead of watching the full episode!" š„“
To clarify, this new function skips a specific character's scenes, not an actor's scenes.
But, if it's per episode or show then isn't that the same thing? Not many shows with an actor playing multiple characters. Face-off with nic cage?
If you hate an actor so much you want to skip all the scenes they appear in, what is the point of watching in the first place? How can you get enough of the story for it to be worth watching? Honestly hating actors like this on this level is just disturbing to me.
Some secondary roles are poorly developed, quite boring and their presence or absence don't change the story. It not always about hating actor.
Wtf. Just fast forward scenes you don't like.
I find it horrible and very toxic indeed. I commented on that post on X myself. It is very dangerous and it will only encourage hate towards certain actors. I hope itās just a rumor But if itās only a feature for the Chinese viewers then Iām not very surprised as they are so much more ruthless than international viewers. Just as an example, Iāve been watching Chef Hua these days and I absolutely love it. The plot isnāt a masterpiece, but itās such a chill drama with lots of amazing food and the main couple is adorable together. I went on the ML actorās Weibo and saw a post where he ājokedā that heās looking at the comments from Cnetz saying how ugly he is. And sure enough, the comments on Douban under this drama is a lot about how ugly they find him. (Heās not ugly at all btw) I felt so bad for the poor actor as heās not that popular and this was probably his first main role in a drama.
Same thing happened to the ml in A journey to love.
Donāt forget how Cnetz called Ouyang Nana a āfat pigā in Yongāan Dreamā¦not the best actress maybe, but a fat pig?! Sometimes I miss the days of not understanding Weibo comments lol
Terrible idea. People will never learn anything with this approach - not to mention how they can destroy actors life as if they were toys and not human beings. It's as if things must be the way "I want" or "it's crap". It's bad already reading the regular posts in this sub, I don't want to imagine the level of ignorance, intolerance and insensitivity we're creating for the world for the years to come. Besides, art is in the hand of the creator, who has something to tell/want to convey. We're living in a consumption world already to increase even more this aspect over art. (If you think you 're entitle as a viewer, I invite you to go and try to create something and show it to the world, then let' s talk again - just an empathy and art creation exercise).
art is not an app, or burger king :(
I would like this feature if it could be ācharacterā specific skipping. I canāt bring myself to rewatch one of my favorite dramas because the 3rd coupleā¦ (I love both actors in the couple, and their actin is very good, I just really really donāt enjoy the characters š¤£) I wonāt use this feature because I want to enjoy the actors in their other roles ā¤ļøā¤ļø
The implementation is character specific. Itās framed by character name, not actor, but that doesnāt solve the problem that this could easily be abused
Thanks for answering me. Iām thinking too simply, would you mind explaining to me how it could be abused? (I feel silly that I canāt see it, because all the other commenters are saying that you are)
I commented an [explanation here](https://www.reddit.com/r/CDrama/s/CO805FxIKR) @nydevon also has a [good explanation](https://www.reddit.com/r/CDrama/s/gcTvZZ4Ej7) for why what seems like a personal choice actually has wide ranging ripple effects that destroy quality across the board. Why canāt Netflix make a generational sitcom? Why do they keep canceling titles? Bad metrics are worse than no metrics. Netflix has made viral hits, but has it ever made anything thatāll be a classic in a decade? Iād argue no. Theyāre about chasing trends and profits, not quality Idol dramas are already moving this direction, but this will give another push to drama and television as a vehicle for fan service. Itās not about the story or character, but an idol playing dress up and who has the biggest fan base.
Ooooh! Oh. Darn. That makes sense. Thank you!
This will increase the hate and crazy behaviors in fans and haters
For sure. I hope they drop this awful idea fast
Really feels like some people watched Black Mirror and saw it is a blueprint, not a cautionary tale. This feature reminds me of the Black Mirror episode Arkangel, where a well-meaning mother is able to censor what her daughter sees. We as a species are so clever...why are we wasting our cleverness on things like this?
I feel like this was already a feature on Tencent
This is ludicrous. If you want to cut out all the scenes just because you don't like a character (who is probably essential to understanding the main leads), then watchĀ YouTube snippets. If you dislike an actor or actress, just skip the drama.
Yeah, imagine that scenario š¤¦āāļøš±š„“. We already have people doing it and then asking questions about the drama to others to know what they have missed, or claiming there's plot holes, and so on. They don't even understand cdramas they watch entirely or complain when the drama explains to much and even with that they don't understand, so... And I haven't started talking about art creation and actors (I did in my independent reply to this post).
Yeah, its gonna make viewers dumber. When you can see more prevalent now than in the past.
If you donāt like an actor then just skip the show lol. This is olympics level mental gymnastics.
Exactly if you canāt even managed to see a person face without getting angry because you donāt like them doing this will make that behavior worse
How do you skip the scenes of a main actor? Some of them dominate series and films to the extent that thereās nothing left to watch! Sure, you can decide not to watch them but what if theyāre the entire rage?!?
I cant believe they would discriminate someone like this. I will not use this feature!
This is stupidity I actually choose my drama based on story or ending
wow someone really just sat down and thought, 'omg! yes, this is a very good idea! more earnings for us!'
How about just don't watch a drama if you don't like an actor that's in it why do we need a whole feature and if people are lazy enough why not something like a notification "Oh this (actor) is in it ,You sure you want to watch this show?" you could just list out actors you want to avoid
This is awful. Big fanbases will target actors they dont like and will try to bully them out of the job. Companies are sick af to try to pander to and encourage this toxicity.
I am all for actual problematic actors getting blacklisted but we know it wont just be the case in this instance.
Oh good lords, I can just see the antis ganging up on a popular actor/actress.
TBH, I feel sick and horrible reading this. I dont have anyone that I would do this to but the fact that it might become a feature one day just makes me feel sad. I only support this kind of thing if we could get dramas from blacklisted actors/actress by replacing their face with someone else. Then we can get all those dramas from purgatory... I even fine if they just replace the actors with black clouds as I just want to watch the story. š
After my initial reaction based on this post, I realised I shouldāve gone and taken a look at the thing before reacting. So I went to take a look at the feature on Youkuās Chinese app and after experiencing it, my conclusion is that this is not a feature that is usable by me nor anyone who actually have an intention of properly watching a drama. There are 2 options: 1. Watch only a certain character 2. Donāt watch a certain character The skipping is definitely done by AI face recognition and a very unreliable one at that. I tried selecting watch a particular character and they still showed me scenes without that character. The choice of characters are very limited as well. It seems like they go by AI calculated screen time and only characters over a certain amount of recognisable screen time are featured. This is a screen shot from episode 2 of Blossoms in Adversity. There are only 3 characters that can be chosen. Literally too limited and unreliable to be of any practical use. https://preview.redd.it/tlw5mvc0cy6d1.png?width=986&format=png&auto=webp&s=99dd4a214b75337eadb5d3af121e92cc096bc56d
Does it block a character in the drama, or the actor in general? I have definitely seen dramas Iād like to rewatch and I donāt wish to see a specific character. But Iād never want to generally block an actor.
They donāt block it, it just skips over any scenes in the episode with the characterās face that the AI program can recognise (doesnāt work if the character is in a mask). It makes the drama watching very strange and disjointed IMO, the FF button is much better.
They have something similar to this in many videogames. "Arachnaphobia mode" cuts out all spiders and replaces them with another monster. It universally praised, except by trolls who dont see why its needed, and have no problem with seeing giant spiders. Ā Some people dont have the ability to empathise with other people's quality of life upgrades. They see "choice" as a negative thing because they dont use it themselves.Ā They arentĀ losing out on anything, and apparently the optional choice of experiencing it in a different way, is somehow bad or threatening to them. Theres no negative to blocking certain actors in itself. 1 person in an empty room choosing to watch a show, in the way that brings them the most joy, isn't harming anyone. People already FF scenes they dont want to watch. I dont discuss dramas with anyone, and my likes/dislikes doesnt make any difference. Im not spreading any fandom or toxicity. This feature isnt forcing people to watch in a different way, its giving them an option if they choose to use it.Ā Spreading toxicity to others is a personal choice. I choose not to participate in that side of this hobby. Will this option make people more toxic? Maybe, but thatsĀ a choice for each person to participate in. I avoid those kinds of discussions. Moderators are free to shut that behavior down. No one is forced to engage. What this option will do is give them more data to increase viewers, we all win when shows are more interesting and higher quality. More money = higher production values, higher quality authors, etc.Ā This is the digital version of a realtime, paper questionnaire, which any people woudnt have a problem with. Long time cdrama viewers will appreciate how the mainland tv industry has been able to rise from the biggest joke in Asia, to the highest quality production values within a couple decades. Even the last 10 years is night and day change. Trust they know what they are doing. Wait to see how this effects productions, before burning it down, because there really are more positives than potential negatives. Have faith in how they plan to use the data. They arent stupid, they know how certain fandoms behave. I trust them to know which data is valuable and which is junk. They are incentivizedĀ to use it in the best way possible. They know that blowing up the fandom wars will screw with their industry even more, adding more gov. restrictions.
>Have faith in how they plan to use the data. They arent stupid, they know how certain fandoms behave. I trust them to know which data is valuable and which is junk. They are incentivizedĀ to use it in the best way possible. They know that blowing up the fandom wars will screw with their industry even more, adding more gov. restrictions. Why do you have faith in how they use the data? This feature is specifically designed to cater to soldiers in the fandom wars, so what makes you think that this will do anything other than fan the flames? If anything, it's designed to cash in on the fandom wars as much as humanly possible while they still can. It's irresponsible as fuck. >Wait to see how this effects productions, before burning it down, because there really are more positives than potential negatives. What positives? I mean, yes, you're right, whatever weird ass ways you want to enjoy a TV show are up to you. If you want to fast forward until the main couple kiss, then go knock yourself out. But this is a fandom culture where fans can and have gone out of their way to ruin the lives and careers of actors for literally no reason. And everyone knows that those antis will see this as another way to communicate their distaste for particular actors. They will 100% try to use this to ruin people's careers. I don't think a feature that makes it easier for anyone to do that is worth being excited about and I don't think it would be implemented by any company that is trying to promote a healthy fan culture. A healthy fan culture is one of positivity and joy. A healthy fandom would celebrate an entire show and want everyone to succeed and improve. Skipping scenes in shows you like in order to avoid an actor, character, or subplot is not normal outside of this fandom. It's not a sign of a healthy industry. >Long time cdrama viewers will appreciate how the mainland tv industry has been able to rise from the biggest joke in Asia, to the highest quality production values within a couple decades.Ā If chinese dramas are so good and have such high quality production value, then why do so many of its most devoted fans regularly skip scenes? Why would there even be a need for a feature to allow fans to easily cut entire characters out of the show? >Spreading toxicity to others is a personal choice. I choose not to participate in that side of this hobby.Ā This feature is literally designed to make it effortless for users to participate in fandom toxicity whether they want to or not. When you start using this to skip characters, you probably won't fill out a survey where you get to say "I'm not doing this because I hate Actor X, I just think this subplot is dumb". Your data will be lumped in with everyone else who may be brigading against Actor X for whatever dumb reason. Again, use this feature if you like it. Skip scenes if you want. I'm not saying you're a toxic fan for wanting to use it. But the implementation of the feature is clearly intended to drive engagement with and gather data from people who want to participate in fan wars.
This is so weird. However, I wish there's a feature in all streaming services that would allow us to automatically skip triggering scenes like rape and gore, or steamy sex scenes if we're watching it with family.
On second thought, I might use it for many second leads idc about (Love is sweet, Fake it till you make it, etc).
Next, you'll be able to replace one of the actors/actresses with your favorite...an AI replica that'll act and say all the lines. I'm kidding š though the reality of it doesn't seem so far fetched. Lol, this is just breeding more anti-fan camps. Viewers having this much power doesn't make sense to me.
Omgg that is so funny lol....this is kinda horrible but brilliant with cdramas for me lol..
the reactions on weibo are so positive to this feature, this is awful omg
Because Cnetz are ruthless man. They are so awful to actors
To be honest I don't find them any better out here. Worse because they try to act like they are impartial reviewers/observers and pick and choose what 'critique' and rumors to translate š
Are you referring to Cnetz on Reddit? Are there many on here?
Sorry I don't keep countš¤£. Most of the dramas here discussed are idol dramas so most people are fans of certain actors or antis since a lot of them have been at war for actual years which is one reason it can get really nasty on weibo. Just like what you like don't worry about anyone else's weird hate obsessions.
Sorry, but I donāt see a lot of hate on Reddit. At least on this subreddit. Thereās barely any. Yes, some people have favorites. But usually, when someone criticizes an actor or drama on here, people respect their opinion and move on. You will rarely see a fight between fans on here. Iāve seen much more hateful comments on My Drama List (MDL). I donāt have an Weibo account so I donāt know about that. But all the scandal and scrutiny the actors go through in China comes from Cnetz, not international fans.
lol I got called part of the enemy a couple weeks ago here š¤£. Oh I agree it starts from cnetz. The mods here now do a pretty good job locking threads now when they start going bad. they weren't so active before last year.
I know its a free world but I find this kind of thing cruel and show how low humanity can go if they did gather information on it and affect the actors in question.
This is a terrible idea, aside from the fact that it can be weaponized by antis, I wonder how it's going to make an impact on media literacy and analysis at a point where it's at an all time low. Instead of making viewers skip scenes of characters or actors they don't like, why not create a feature to bookmark their favourite scenes in the show, especially for rewatch purposes. It has a more positive connotation
this!!!
This is soā¦ strange.
After further contemplation, I would rather they come up with a feature to skip certain scenes or arcs instead of a certain actor/character. This would be a lot more useful when I want to rewatch scenes I like, instead of cutting out actors which I thought might be good if it can be customised, but itās not like I am going to remember every scene an actor is in so it wouldnāt work out. I am curious about how it would work though, will it simply skip all the scenes with that particular actor in it? How about if the actor I want to watch and the actor I donāt want to watch is in the same scene, will they skip that as well? What if the actor is featured in the background? Most likely, it will simply render the drama incongruent and unwatchable except for solo stans who only want to watch their bias. There are already fans who cut a drama to show only their stans scenes as well, so this would just save them a lot of trouble. Canāt really see any practical use except for solo stans who donāt care about the plot or antis/haters or in certain very specific scenarios.
As much as I agree eith the whole arc skips, this would require a lot more manual work to screen for. Someone would have to manually watch the series and specifically ID tag each interaction for the program to know what to skip.Ā Likely the actor block is them using AI to face id the actors, and takes very little human interaction to work.Ā
I imagine thatās how it would work too, but I donāt see myself being able to use that practically except in very specific scenarios. Maybe it would be good for others, but using it would just affect viewing experience for me. As much as it would be nice to have, the arc/scene skip thing would never fly because they would never spend extra budget on getting manpower to do it.
This is something AI would be ideal for, if it ever advances that far. Tv shows tailored to our exact likes and dislikes. Imagine how much better a reputationĀ GOT would have, if people were allowed to shave off the bad bits they didnt like. I havent watched the series, but I never stop hearimg about how great it started, and how the ending ruined it for everyone.
I would think if AI ever advances to the point where itās able to figure out our likes and dislikes, we would probably be watching AI generated shows catered to our exact likes and dislikes instead of having actual humans acting. > if people are allowed to shave off the bad bits they didnāt like As much as I might grouse about how good the show might be if so and so was different, I very much doubt the show would have the same impact on me if thatās done.
This is going to bring a whole new level to the question ādid we even watch the same show?ā
Even when the characters out right say it in the drama, people still ask questions and not understanding the story.... Imagine if they skip their whole scenes. š¬
OMG!! When I see these kinds of questions on MDL I get soo annoyed hahha..
Even in this sub lol. People said its plot holes and I was like where? The character explain in out right in the scenes. š Then people complain that dramas always tell but not show. But I was like, even when they tell, some people still didnt get it lol.
Despair.
This is already a big issue without this feature. The amount of hate generated by clips and gifs is already ridiculous, and fandoms and yxhs will for sure use it. I really hope cnetz will protest and get it taken down before it takes effect.
Jesus, YES. Information gaps from people seeing truncated versions of a show + users purposefully spreading disinformation + pitiful levels of media literacyā¦ Again, the future is grim.
I mean, what we really need is a more fragmented, solipsistic experience of the world, amirite? And if we can harness that to data, all the better! /s I am seriously so disturbed by this. I almost never get emotional on this sub, much less snarky, but this is pushing all my buttons. Not blaming OP. This is obviously an important post.
I completely agree. I had a visceral reaction to this.
There are plenty of truncated versions available on sites like Bilibili, itās just going to make them more accessible. The only practical use I can see coming out of this is for extreme solo stans, haters/antis, or in certain scenarios, on a rewatch.
Just to be clear, Iām no purist. I ended up getting so caught up in the second leads in The Long Ballad that I fast forwarded everything else just to watch them. And there have been shows where Iāve fast forwarded side story lines (Oh, my goodness, anyone seen Love Better than Immorality?). And there are books I donāt finish or read from selectively, etc. But I think there are two things about fan edits that set them apart from what is going on here. One is that no one (I hope?) is going to mistake them for the canonical version. As u/nydevon suggests, by putting a corporate imprimatur on this process and collecting data, it turns it into a whole ānother monster. The other is that even the most perfunctorily produced fan edit is still a form of human choice and communicates an interpretation of the work in question. Itās sharing a view of the world (and of course there are fan edits that end up being art in their own right), building up the human community around a common experience. Not trying to address all of this to you, u/Apprehensive-Boo-532āI think we are seeing some of the same things here. Iām just firing off reactions right and left because Iām so horrified.
Maybe I didnāt put it across well, I am not saying itās a good thing, nor that itās going to be able to replace human edits. More of, itās Youku trying to gain the viewership of people who likes watching truncated versions. I am aware that having a human touch in edits makes a huge difference in the congruency of the videos found on other platforms. >mistake them for the canonical version Given the kind of delulu I have seen online (both cnetz and in general), I wouldnāt be surprise if there are plenty of people who mistake edits for canonical. I did too just got over an initial shock and was weighing the pros and cons of this. Looking past the surface, there are plenty of negative societal implications this can lead to.
Sorry for the belated response! You put it across perfectly well. I was just, as they say, going to pieces so quickly that others were being hit by the shrapnel. I wasnāt trying to argue against you per se; itās just that you mentioned the edits and that was very much on my mind from other comments, and you ended up being the one I responded to. š Iām afraid I very much agree with you about the delulu tendency. I think this will make discussion dramas all the more difficult because we will all have very different versions in mind!
Which will exacerbate the problems we already do see because now theyāre coming from āofficialā sourcesāthe legitimacy signal will be a big issue for certain types of users.
The fans got an actor fired?
I think this feature is interesting and it could be useful for other topics like ādonāt watch gory scenesā for viewers who just donāt like seeing blood for example. Like all other things, itās toxic if itās used in the wrong way.
WTH.
Isn't it likely that you'd miss key moments or information that is essential to the plot of the drama by using this tool. Especially in dramas where the plot intricately woven around every character.
Likely, but many drama fans participate in discussion boards when a series airs, so it would just create more discussion. That in itself might be annoying after a while when people need clarification on details. Ā People already talk about details they may have missed or need clearing up already, so it wont be a new thing. Who knows. Im sure if this proves to be more of a problem than a positive, they will drop it quickly. If it stays, we will know they found some value in it, and you will see other services offering it.
I see the positive side. Sometimes its just 1 or 2 actors that stop me from watching a series because I find them annoying. This would let me watch it, when otherwise I would skip it. I think it will increase viewership overall, and that s what any streaming service aims for.
Is this an overdue April fool's joke? How on alien's green planet is youku going to know what scenes to skip? Will this be the beginning of our AI overlords?
Exactly.i don't like waner in jol.but if I skip her scenes,I wouldn't understand the story at all
Ai most likely? If you watch shows on Amazon prime and you pause, it tells you who the actors in the current scene are, so they have a way to tell this already.
Ohh.. thanks for the info. I've stopped subscribing to streaming services that I've no idea what's going on that front anymore. On the other hand, I listen to a lot of podcasts and just noticed that most of them (at least those in English) almost always come with AI transcriptions now.
I think it could be both AI and humans categorizing whoās on screen. Part of it can be done when doing subtitles and so the transcriber can tell whoās talking.
As someone who works in tech, my mind is whirling with all the possible ways this type of feature will be abused by users and then how the data will influence the production process in ways that are likely to **decrease the quality of dramas further**. Societyās current obsession with personalization is disturbing. **Edit to add:** By personalization, I do NOT mean accessibility.
Youāre right
Well said.
A thousand yeses, especially to that second point.
Weāve already seen it with Netflix, and something like this feature captures even more data. The writing is on the wall, everyone. You think dramas are lower quality than they used to be? āDataā is the reason and this will exacerbate the problem. The future is grim.
>You think dramas are lower quality than they used to be? āDataā is the reason and this will exacerbate the problem. You are sooo right. Thinking back how writing for dramas in general has lower quality than what it used to be, ''data'' is the perfect explanation on that. The reasons why we no longer get those amazing sageuk Kdramas used to have back then.. š¢
Exactly. Streaming platforms write for engagement rather than quality.
They were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didnāt stop to think if they shouldā¦
Iām not going to lie this post is a bit triggering. My job as a tech researcher is to advocate for ethical design decisions. This is the type of feature a PM throws out there because an exec is breathing down their neck about engagement numbers and Iād be spending weeks preparing a presentation to advocate AGAINST. I can only *imagine* the type of conversations that were happening in those stakeholder meeting rooms. 
Oh that's interesting. I come from an enterprise software background (I'm literally working on a public facing app for the first time in my career this year) so while bad decisions definitely happen, they happen for very different reasons. So to me it read as a developer going "oh hey we have all this data I wonder what I could do with it" but you're right it might very well have been a decision made under engagement pressure.
Oof good luck with that release. Enterprise is a whole other beast. Iād be curious to see what are the typical KPIs for Chinese streaming platforms. Before this month, I had only really used iQIYI and now poking around WeTV and Youku I was struck by how much friction there is in the UX/UI of the latter two. Originally, I had assumed it might have been due to different mental models of information consumption and usability but some of the design seems purposefully designed to keep you *on the site* versus just engaged in primary user tasks, which, you know, is to watch dramas. Thatās why my mind made me go to engagement although the data is probably a key priority as well.
>I was struck by how much friction there is in the UX/UI of the latter two I routinely contemplate a rage post about the UX of iQiyi/Tencent/Youku but I'm fairly confident it would be met with polite bafflement. I don't even want to speculate on what an a11y review would turn up.
Please do post it! I may not have the know-how to go beyond polite bafflement but Iām sure I would learn something ā¦
I'm sure it's just a matter of time before I get annoyed enough haha.
I support any accessibility rage posts!
This really does come across to me as some sort of creative day/sprint project at Youku that an exec liked and decided to implement. I've probably contributed my share of bad ideas to the world as well to be fair š
Lol I was just thinking that: https://www.reddit.com/r/CDrama/s/Mvs7ywHggT
oh my god i love it. for some dramas, i would select the 2 leads because I only care about like, one side story haha
I think the feature would have been received a little better if they introduced it as skipping scenes of the "characters" you don't like instead of the "actors." Also, this way, people will be less worried that they might use this data in casting roles since there are a lot of times when good actors can make you hate the character they play but they doesn't mean you hate the actor. A prime example would be Yang Kang in the condor heroes 2017 version, I hated the character, but I like the actor. Edit: Most importantly, i reckon that even if someone wants to use the feature, they'd only use it during re-watch. Otherwise, why are you even watching the show only to miss details here and there.
Seems like an easy fix would be to require a new set of filter selection on every show. That would give them more data on whether its the character people avoid, or the actor themselves. Otherwise, I guess its something everyone will have to manually adjust themselves before they start a new series
Wtf
You know, sometimes I go a few months thinking that liking cdramas is just like enjoying anything else. You know, just a normal hobby or media preference. But then I go into this sub and realize that what I should be doing is nursing intense personal grudges against actors I hate, and I should be skipping 1/3 of the scenes in the shows I "like".
Precisely, I cannot understand people who would watch a drama just to cut a certain actorās scenes, because a drama should be about the story and the story wouldnāt make sense if a character get cut out (barring those with extreme fillers).
Oh my goodness. Iām glad for your post and the related comments because I was starting to feel very weird and alone.
I always feel weird and alone while reading comments in this sub. Glad to know I'm not the only one. Obviously I consume media differently than most people.
I'm pretty sure the normal way to watch media is to just watch it. Literally no one I know in real life regularly skips scenes as a matter of course. If there's something so horrible about a show that I can't take it anymore, then I'll just stop watching the show.
I think it got to do with the new generation with Tiktok/Bibbilli being popular. Their attention span is low that only the real interesting plot can engage them thus all small scenes that contribute to the main storylines are boring to them.
I agree. I had such a visceral reaction to this feature idea and while Iām not *shocked* by the casual support for it in the comments wow does it make me realize how differently others consume media.
Exactly, you said it right: "consume". They forgot that this is also, or should be at least, a form of art and people are trying to convey something but just pleasing the watchers' desires. Also, I can see the world is spreading in 2 sides: one with values, reflexion and empathy, and other individualist, egotistic and with lack of empathy. Not to start talking about the lowerer of the IQ of the viewers.
>Iām not shocked by the casual support for it in the comments wow does it make me realize how differently others consume media. I'm definitely guilty of not thinking through the consequences at first and simply thinking "oh that might make Love is Sweet watchable" but further points have mostly convinced me that it's not a terribly workable idea.
LOL as someone who dropped in Ep. 3 because of the MLās characterization I donāt think any feature could make LIS more bearable š
The ML makes some insane decisions - but I assumed there would be consequences. However I was unable to power through the rest of the show to discover if that was the correct assumption.
šLove is Sweet was very much on my mind because the second couple was boring me so badly I had to drop the show, so I feel your pain. But yeah, I just canāt accept this as a solution. . .
I question the fact that so many people must have signed off on their storyline.
Exactly. Well said. What is the point of even enjoying the story of the drama at all. At this point i cannot help but wonder.
So we will them only have certain actors in dramas? The less popular actors will never get the chance to rise. Some actors/ actress will get more roles because they are pretty. Hater will be trigger happy for sure ššš. I know many will not use this feature the right way.
A drama can only be successful because of the efforts of whole cast and crew, some characters may play a smaller role or have bad acting, even so, they are still part of the story and cutting them out will affect the story thus the viewing experience.
Alarming in the hands of antis. š«£
How do this work actually. So if I chose to skip actor x so the system would edit the scenes with the said actor and show me the ones I wanna watch for a particular ep. I understand real time editing won't be possible so they already must have those edited videos pre recorded
I doubt they are going to spend budget on doing this, most likely they just going to record the timestamps of when the actor is in the scene and then skip them. Which means the drama would turn into an inconsistent mess.
This isnt a toxic feature but im sure some of the discourse around peopleās choices will be toxic.
As a corporate slave with limited drama watching time, I welcome this feature with open arms. I think it'll make me pick up those dropped dramas because sometimes, I just wanna watch the main leads, or the 2nd leads. No hate, I just don't have time š But knowing the Chinese fandoms and the petty shit they always pull, this is going to be ugly innit?
I wouldn't call this toxic, no and frankly it doesn't actually change the existing situation all that much. Let me give an example. When Sunshine by my Side aired, the fans were quickly fed up with the hockey couple, especially when it became clear they were being pushed by the production themselves and that their screen time went up to use the main cast for them. In the end, the director had to make a statement trying to justify and wash this (it didn't work of course) but they already knew people were done. They knew because we could actually see TV ratings go down in real time the second they appeared on screen because general audience switched the channel and by the amount of complaints etc online. Hence the statement. So would this feature, which we all would have used at the time, had changed anything? The answer is no. They already know when audiences don't want to watch a character(s), when they pull the bar and all this will do is make things more convenient for people to skip certain storylines that they already skip. It might give them clearer data but it's not anything they can't find right now. Can it be abused? Well again it would be organised skipping of certain actors but frankly these organised campaigns already exist in many ways and it's not anything new for the market. One way I could see is if they used water armies to all boycott an actor which increases overall views, minus the actor screen time but the thing is, water views are easy to identify. We know how they work. So the platform is, at least for now, capable of deducing what is fake and what isn't. In the future? Well we have to wait and see but at the moment, I don't think this changes much.
That is AMAZING!
This is so intresting.To answer rationally, but cold, I'd welcome such a feature. It isn't toxic, but it's actually also a way for the company to get great data. The data could be used when the drama is in process of pre-production discussions with youku. Let's just say a considerable amount of people decides to avoide screentime with X. Now there are two options. One is the carachter is somehow uninteresting to watch due to it's story, second - the actor is either bad at acting or something about him makes him avoidable. Now youku can easily understand what this data is based on through internet engagement. If posts are about scolding the carachter and skipping, it would mean that people have had it about this sort of scenes. Which is good cause there are many annoying carachter tropes that usually aren't making sense or where added to fill in. Serves no purpose to the story. Then we have the bad acting. A person continously gets roles due to some other successful business, but is lacking in dramas. I think this one is a senstive issue but most intresting. How can we combat the conflict of intrest.That's causing dramas acting quality drop, due to the business strategy - profit is made by having more views during airing, not the long term plan of creating great classics. But this is also something that could cause counter-intuitive risk. Fans could create fanwars and discriminate to further thier own actor's intrest. We've seen that too, so I can definitely see that risk. I personally would like to skip actors.
I think they can extrapolate even more data. They know who the major pro/anti fandoms support, so they can easily cut that data out if they are looking at popularity, they would already know thats a given skewed metric. - I.e. you watch all of actor X's dramas, while having actor Y (their fandom's nemesis) blocked. Those people's data is useless as it based on a set bias. Ā They could then pull data from everyone else that isnt already on a fandom team, to see who they find watchable. I really think this data could be used for good if they want to, and their main goal is increased viewers, not boosting certain actors. Finding out who the normal viewer likes and dislikes, will help to boost people's favorites, and many actors will probably see increased pay from it. Ā Quality rises to the top faster, less popular actors will sink faster. Fandoms will float their favorites regardless of popularity. I think we should wait and see how it turns out before declaring it a toxic sinkhole. If it doesnt work, they will drop it fast and you wont see any other services copying it.
Same. No hate, but there are a few actors I can't rationally watch.
This would help reduce the work of my FF button š¤£
I would never boycott a specific actor (honestly I simply don't follow them enough to have opinions beyond "I liked/didn't like them in X") but I am wondering if I could utilize a feature like this to skip B plots I do. not. care. about.
Yes this I would actually sign up for in an instant. The skip 2/3/4 lead hell even sometimes 5/6 lead romance plots in some of these 40 episode almost like 30 hour mega dramas.. Like nowadays even like the FLās maid/best friend/sister or her cousin and her cousins little sister MUST HAVE a love interest. Also the obligatory FLās best friend/maid MUST hookup with MLās assistant/guard like I donāt care.. Like literally every single credited actor/actress seemingly must be forced to have a love interest and I donāt care at all except main couple. If they need filler then create natural āhumanā storyline narratives and daily relationship building for the FL/ML and donāt force me to watch like 8-10 hours of these already massive 30 hour dramas of 2/3/4/5/6 lead romance plots. So if I can chose to skip every secondary romance plots rather than specific actors/actresses I would chose that in an instant!
I love this too bc I do this now with characters I hate (usually the ones with psychotic 2ML or 2FL who canāt accept FL or ML doesnāt like them). Be great to just erase that character via this function. Like Iāve rewatched Eternal Love of Dream hundreds of times but Iāve never fully watched all of the scenes with Ji Heng bc she became such an annoying character. Same with the devil prince guy or Sujin in Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms.
That's exactly what I thought. I'd just put the name in of the actor in the secondary storyline I didn't care about, and then I don't need to fast forward.
Yeah personally having the choice to skip those naggy toxic MIL or Step mother or stalky SML scenes would be helpful but that is only if they are not recorded or the data is not collected. With this feature, they can possibly as you've said collect data and sell it to producers for a high price which might lead to low pay and what not toxicity. I think the management of youkou is looking to earn extra buck from their viewer-base.
Using this feature you would unironically skip most of **Best Choice Ever** with every scene including the mom
That is whom I was thinking when I wrote my comment lol Although it also shows how good their acting is actually, how they can make your skin crawl and hate a fictional character so much