My Least Favorite Part of being a My Drama List member

Thursday, March 25, 2021


My Drama List is like IMDB, only it's a fairly complete listing of Asian dramas down through the years encompassing multiple cultures and countries.

In theory, My Drama List has useful knowledge for the following reasons:

  1. It provides user reviews, some of them quite cohesive and helpful.
  2. It provides links for where the dramas can be viewed with English subtitles.
  3. It lists the actors, genres, and tags so if the viewer loves a drama, they can easily find others with the same theme or even the same actor.

In practice, My Drama List could use a few changes:

  1. There's distinct favoritism for South Korean entertainment over any other entertainment as represented by the sheer influx of articles, reviews, videos, and fans to that effect. It's unfortunately very one-sided, even their YouTube channel that only lists K-drama entertainment.
  2. Continuing on with the South Korean favoritism, a South Korean drama that's pretty and well-filmed and well-cast will receive at least an 8.5 or 8.9 rating overall on MDL. A Japanese drama that meets the same criteria will rarely get over a 7.5 or a 7.9 rating. In my experience from checking people's watchlists, people who primarily watch K-dramas are going to rate dramas from other countries lower than necessary, particularly Japan.
  3. There is also a Comments section on each of the dramas/movies pages. Instead of using this portion of the website to uplift and inspire one another, it is usually used for minor complaints such as hating the actor's hair, voice, clothes, relationships, etc., or complaining about the overall storyline. Cringey is a very popular term used for anything that a viewer dislikes in a drama and many people in the Comments section use it frequently.
Is there a solution to the problem?

First, get rid of the Comments section. It is being used as a means of bullying and belittling and should not be tolerated. If people want to have conversations, they can IM one another based on actual reviews that are being left, not a two-sentence whine-fest. At least give users the option to opt-out of seeing Comments. I can't be the only one who wishes for that.

I have nothing against the K-drama fanbase. But it's time that MDL took a more active approach to market entertainment from the other countries. K-drama related articles, polls, videos, conversations, reviews, etc. shouldn't be the only thing I see when I open the main page. And the YouTube channel is super disheartening if you love anything other than K-dramas.

In other words, guys, let's be nicer to each other and try to balance out the fanbase a little bit and give fans of other countries a voice. And also cut down on the nasty that crops up in the Comments section. It gets really, really old, to the point where I wish there was an alternative source. But there isn't, so for now, MDL is what I'm stuck with.

4 comments

  1. I don't understand why people can't enjoy all of them. I've been watching K-dramas, C-dramas, and J- dramas and like all of them. I did notice that K-dramas get more attention for some reason. It's terrible that the comment section is being used that way.

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    1. That's how I approach entertainment from different countries too! The thing I love about watching stuff from the different countries is that each country has such a unique style in how they present themselves. I love C-dramas too, and they're so different from J-dramas! It's fun to celebrate the differences!

      It would probably help if MDL had different mods to host different content on their platforms, including YouTube. Mods specifically for each of the countries and separate sections on the homepage that highlight popular or trending content from each of the countries. K-dramas are always going to be the most popular, and that's fine, but this would definitely allow the main page to highlight all of the countries more easily.

      To be fair, I'm not sure if the Comments section is such an issue on dramas from other countries, but I definitely see it crop up in the J-drama section. Not always, it depends on the drama and the actors, but when don't like something, it's made very clear and gets rather disheartening. I guess I just like making up my own mind about whether I'll like a drama or not and I try so hard to nitpick over little things. Of course, a drama is just a bad story or performance, there's not much you can do, but I'm always stunned when people complain about the length of a girl's hair. So weird!

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    2. I think it's the best way. Yeah, it's really neat to see the differences. They are.
      I started Red Eyes, and I really like it so far!

      That's a good idea!

      Yeah, I don't like when people nitpick either. Most people don't give constructive criticism, they just like to complain. Who cares about hair length. That's such a dumb thing to complain about.

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    3. Wonderful! I hope you enjoy it! There's only one episode left. Episode 9 was crazy hard to watch. At this point, I have no idea how Red Eyes will end. But it's such been an amazing ride. When I finish the series, I'll definitely review it.

      Constructive criticism is so important. There's a couple of J-movies that I don't like because there's a problem with the filming style. Important scenes are filmed from a distance so you can't experience the nuances of emotion from the actors. It's very strange. I didn't even realize one of the actors on my radar was even in the movie until after I watched it and checked the MDL page for the credits. I could never see him clearly because he was never filmed up-close. It was so bizarre.

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Thank you for your kind comments, which I adore!