At 3 A.M., I Was Still Watching AI Short Dramas

At three in the morning, my phone slipped from my hand and hit me in the face.

I woke up. The screen was still lit. The male lead stood on the frontier, his cloak snapping in the wind. Snow clung to the female lead's eyelashes. I tapped the next episode. It was the season two finale of Exiled to the Border: The Convict's Wife Farms the Wasteland and Raises a War God. Four minutes remained on the progress bar. I watched to the end.

The screen went dark. The room was quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator. I turned over. The charging cable was wrapped around my wrist, warm against my skin.

A week earlier, I hadn't watched vertical short dramas. I thought they were for people killing time on the subway. I had even made fun of them. Now my watch history was full of AI-generated animated dramas.

The algorithm had put one in my feed. On the cover was the male lead's face, his jawline sharp as a knife. The female lead stood beside him, light caught in her wet eyes. I tapped the screen. My finger moved faster than my brain.

Episode one. The male lead walked through the snow, the wind pulling at his cloak. The female lead stood at the stove, stir-frying something in a pan. Oil splattered. She flinched. The camera moved in on her eyelashes as snow settled on them.

I took a screenshot.

My phone was getting hot, so I put it on the refrigerator. Beside it sat a box of stomach medicine I'd bought the previous month and never opened. The leaves of a pothos plant hung over the box. I pushed them aside.

Episode two. The female lead believed the male lead was dead. She didn't cry. She sat on the doorstep shelling beans. Halfway through, a bean slipped from her fingers. She picked it up. It fell again.

Then tears landed on the beans.

She made no sound. My throat tightened. I took a drink of water left over from the day before. There was a tea stain inside the cup. I rubbed it with my hand. It wouldn't come off.

I kept watching.

Episode three. The frontier. The wasteland. Farming. A war god.

A family began with a broken house. They planted wheat, raised chickens, and slowly built themselves a home. Things happened one step at a time. There was no sudden inheritance, no overnight revenge, no miracle that fixed everything. The wheat grew inch by inch.

I watched episode four. Dawn arrived. The presentation I had to finish the next day was still unopened on my laptop. I opened it, stared at the first slide, and closed it again.

Then I went back to the drama.

When I was a child, my mother and I watched television together. The remote was wrapped in a plastic bag. She knitted sweaters while I lay on the sofa. We got two episodes a week. While waiting for the next one, I watched the trailer five times.

Now I don't wait.

I tap the next episode. Then the next. Then the next.

An AI-generated male lead doesn't age. I don't have to watch his face change from twenty to forty. I don't have to know anything about his private life or read arguments about him in the comments. I don't have to wait for the actor to take another role and become someone else.

I only have to watch a perfect face in a perfect world, doing exactly what the story requires.

I waited for the next season. I waited until season two ended, and season three still hadn't arrived. I scrolled through the comments. Someone mentioned that the live-action adaptation was already on its ninth season.

I searched for it.

Live-action season one. The male lead looked familiar. So did the female lead. The previous month, they had played a pair of lovers who were also in-laws in another drama. Now they were husband and wife.

I watched for three minutes. I was almost drawn in.

Then a notification appeared on my phone.

The AI drama you've been waiting for has been updated.

I closed the live-action show.

It felt like someone leaning in to kiss you, only for the phone to ring. You answer. The voice tells you that the drama you've been waiting for is finally available. You hang up. By the time you look up, you've forgotten the person who was about to kiss you.

I told myself that live-action dramas had warmth. I opened a long-form series.

Episode one began with a two-minute opening song. I skipped it.

In episode two, the male lead searched for the female lead in the rain. He searched for ten minutes. I fast-forwarded.

In episode three, they finally met. The female lead cried and bit her lip. I glanced at the progress bar. Thirty episodes remained.

I closed it.

The drama wasn't bad. I just couldn't wait.

My patience had been cut into fifteen-second pieces. Each piece demanded a reversal. If nothing happened, I swiped away. I know that's what I'm doing. Admitting it hasn't stopped me from scrolling through AI short dramas.

After finishing both seasons, I couldn't find anything else I wanted to watch. The recommendation list was full of domineering CEOs, rebirth stories, and revenge plots. The male leads had nearly identical faces. The female leads wore nearly identical eyeliner.

I scrolled through three pages and closed the app.

The pothos leaves were hanging down again. I watered the plant. Water leaked from the bottom of the pot and dripped onto the floor. I wiped it up with a tissue. The tissue became wet, so I threw it away.

There were three takeout boxes in the trash.

I hadn't cooked that day.

A friend messaged me and asked what I'd been watching lately.

“AI short dramas,” I said.

“That's watchable?”

I sent him a screenshot.

“What's the male lead's name?”

“I don't know. He's AI-generated.”

“Then what are you watching for?”

“The face.”

He replied, “You weren't like this before.”

“I didn't have much patience before either,” I wrote.

He didn't answer. I continued scrolling.

When the female lead in an AI drama cries, the tears gather in her eyes for three seconds before falling. Real actors sometimes can't cry. Sometimes they cry too hard. Sometimes they get it exactly right, but in the next drama, they're in love with someone else.

AI doesn't.

AI loves this particular person, at least for the length of the season.

AI doesn't have a grandmother, either. Real actors talk in interviews about how a scene reminded them of their grandmothers. They explain what they were thinking about when they cried. AI doesn't need to remember anyone. Its tears fall on schedule.

I don't have to wait a week. I don't have to wait for the next episode, or watch someone grow old, or wonder whether a character will ever come home.

I only have to tap the screen.

I tapped it again.

The male lead walked through the snow. The female lead stir-fried something at the stove. Oil splattered. She flinched. I took another screenshot.

The phone was hot. I put it on the refrigerator beside the unopened stomach medicine. The pothos was still there, its leaves hanging over the box.

I checked the time. Four in the morning.

I turned off the phone and placed it face down. I closed my eyes. The male lead's profile stayed in my head, his jawline sharp as a knife.

I turned over. The charging cable was wrapped around my wrist.

I untangled it.

It wrapped around me again.

The next day, I reopened the live-action drama. I didn't want to judge it without giving it another chance.

I watched one uninterrupted shot. An actor stood in a kitchen boiling noodles. The water came to a boil. He turned off the heat and lifted the noodles out of the pot. Steam burned his hand. He shook it once.

No dialogue. No music.

I watched for five minutes without fast-forwarding.

Then I closed the app. I could watch more tomorrow.

My phone battery was at three percent. I plugged in the charger. The pothos was still dripping.

Later, I moved between apps.

I opened an AI short drama and watched ten seconds. Closed it.

Opened a live-action drama, watched five minutes, and closed it.

Then I opened a documentary. An old man was repairing clocks. He opened a watch case and picked up a tiny gear with a pair of tweezers.

I watched for ten minutes.

There was no plot. No one was about to die, no secret was about to be revealed, and no one was going to turn out to be the long-lost heir to an empire.

I didn't fast-forward.

Was something changing? I didn't think about it.

The water was cold. The dishes were still dirty. I went to wash them.

Water ran from the faucet and struck a bowl. Grease spread across the surface. I rubbed it with my hand, but it wouldn't come off. I squeezed dish soap onto a sponge. Foam rose. The bowl slipped, and I caught it before it fell.

I rinsed it clean and placed it on the rack.

Then I dried my hands.

My phone was on the table, screen down. I picked it up, unlocked it, and opened an AI short drama. Ten seconds. I closed it and opened a live-action show. Five minutes. I closed that, too, and put the phone back on the table, this time screen up.

A notification lit up.

It was my friend.

“Are you still watching AI short dramas?”

I didn't reply.

I turned the phone face down.

The pothos leaves were touching the box of stomach medicine. I pushed them aside. Water leaked from the bottom of the pot and dripped onto the floor. I wiped it up with a tissue. The tissue became wet. I threw it in the trash.

There were three takeout boxes in the trash.

I hadn't cooked that day. Tomorrow, I might not cook either.

But the dishes were washed.

The water was cold.