Is "Vulgarization" Inevitable?

An Aesthetic-Cultural Inquiry into the short drama phenomenon

Abstract

Short dramas, as a cultural vehicle for fragmented emotional expression, have expanded rapidly in both market scale and audience reach, yet they exhibit a conspicuous tendency toward vulgarization driven by the primacy of instant gratification. This study, situated within the modern genealogy of popular culture, distinguishes vulgarization from popularization, arguing that the former is not the necessary correlate of the latter but rather a symptom of aesthetic culture's transformation under consumerism's efficiency logic. Drawing on the Frankfurt School's culture industry thesis, it examines the manipulative apparatus of algorithmic recommendation, template replication, and traffic orientation in short-drama production, revealing the systemic threat to artistic autonomy. It then explores the conditions under which creative art might still emerge within this field-namely, the preservation of creator independence, the formation of evaluation criteria beyond traffic metrics, and constructive critical intervention. The current vulgarity, the paper contends, is a transitional phase of early industrialization; whether short dramas can evolve from "vulgar" to "popular yet not mediocre" depends on whether these conditions can mature within the interstices of algorithmic and capital logics.