Short videos have become a major carrier for the public’s daily entertainment and information acquisition, profoundly transforming online communication and mass entertainment patterns. However, alongside the rapid development of the industry, vulgar and bizarre short video content aiming to grab attention has proliferated wildly, featuring endless frivolous, grotesque and deliberately ugly works. The prevailing ugly-aesthetics culture keeps eroding mainstream aesthetics and distorting public perception, especially misleading teenagers’ values. The value disorder in short video content ecology has become a key challenge for internet civilization governance.

Proliferation of Vulgar and Bizarre Content Eroding the Online Ecology

Current vulgar and bizarre short video content has long crossed the boundary of popular entertainment and turned vulgar and distorted. To gain traffic and popularity, many creators deliberately create bizarre images, perform absurd plots, and seek communication hype through vulgar words, ridiculous farces and inappropriate pranks. Crude and devoid of cultural connotation, such content attracts massive views by virtue of its sensational novelty and occupies platform recommendation pages constantly, forming a detrimental communication trend.

The spread of ugly-aesthetics culture exerts severe negative impacts on social aesthetics and values. Immersing in such vulgar content for a long time makes the public, especially teenagers, confused about beauty and ugliness, mistaking vulgarity for fun and absurdity for fashion. Numerous users follow suit to seek fame through deliberate ugliness, fostering a distorted communication ecosystem where "the uglier, the more popular". It not only downgrades the overall quality of online culture and weakens mainstream positive culture, but also cultivates an impetuous and utilitarian social mentality, undermining positive values of virtue, kindness and down-to-earth efforts, and severely hindering the construction of a healthy online atmosphere.

Multiple Driving Forces Fueling Distorted Traffic Chaos

The prevalence of ugly-aesthetics chaos in short videos is no accident. It results from the superposition of platform algorithms, capital profit-seeking, audience psychology and regulatory loopholes, forming a mature distorted communication chain.

The traffic-oriented algorithm mechanism of platforms serves as the core inducement. Faced with fierce industrial competition, platforms regard traffic monetization as the core development goal. Their algorithms prioritize user stay duration and interaction data while ignoring content quality and value orientation. Vulgar and bizarre content, with low creation thresholds and strong sensory stimulation, easily triggers user interactions. Algorithms consequently continuously boost its recommendation, creating a vicious cycle of "high exposure for vulgar content and further spread via high exposure", which implicitly fuels the ugly-aesthetics chaos.

The utilitarian mentality of capital and creators adds fuel to the fire. High-quality original content requires a long creation cycle and high polishing costs, while vulgar ugly-themed content is easy to produce and generates profits efficiently. Many MCN institutions and grassroots creators seize traffic dividends to mass-produce vulgar content in assembly-line mode, regarding bizarre and ugly performances as a shortcut to gaining followers and profits, falling into the creation misconception of "prioritizing traffic over value" and fueling the continuous proliferation of vulgar content.

Audiences’ superficial curiosity and regulatory deficiencies are important contributing factors. In the fragmented era, some users pursue low-cost, high-stimulation entertainment experiences, providing fertile soil for the spread of vulgar and bizarre content. Meanwhile, short videos feature rapid updates and fast dissemination. Platform technical and manual reviews lag behind real-time content updates, allowing some vulgar content to spread by skirting rules, making it difficult to eradicate the chaos completely.

Rectifying Chaos Rigorously for a Brighter and Cleaner Online Future

Rectifying the ugly-aesthetics chaos of short videos and purifying the online ecology requires coordinated efforts and comprehensive solutions from regulators, platforms, industries and audiences, so as to gather governance synergy, end the barbaric growth of the short video industry and promote high-quality development.

Regulatory authorities shall strengthen regular management and consolidate institutional bottom lines. It is essential to refine judgment criteria for vulgar, bizarre and deliberately ugly content, carry out special rectification campaigns, and impose severe penalties and account bans on accounts and MCN institutions that mass-produce and disseminate vulgar content. Meanwhile, a long-term regulatory mechanism shall be improved to form a closed loop of inspection, traceability and accountability, preventing the resurgence of chaos via institutional constraints.

Platforms shall fulfill primary responsibilities and optimize algorithm and review systems. They must abandon the traffic-first operation mindset, upgrade intelligent review systems to accurately eliminate vulgar and ugly-aesthetics content, and restructure algorithm recommendation logic to reduce traffic weight for vulgar content and prioritize high-quality positive, original and popular science content. In addition, platforms need to standardize content creation and monetization rules to curb speculative behaviors of gaining traffic through vulgarity.

The industry and audiences shall make joint efforts to empower positive value communication. Creators should uphold the awareness of fine works, abandon utilitarian mindsets, and produce warm, meaningful and valuable short videos based on real life. Platforms should continue to support positive-energy accounts, promote mainstream values and replace vulgar content with high-quality works. Netizens ought to enhance media literacy and aesthetic ability, consciously resist vulgar content, actively spread fine works, and foster an online atmosphere advocating virtue and beauty.

At present, online ecological governance achievements continue to emerge, and the standardized development of the short video industry has become an irreversible trend. With the continuous improvement of regulatory systems, strengthened platform responsibilities and upgraded public aesthetics, the distorted trend of pursuing vulgarity and ugliness will gradually fade away. In the future, the short video industry will completely get rid of the dilemma of vulgarization, return to the core track of quality-oriented and value-driven development, continuously output positive cultural energy, and build a clean, healthy and uplifting online cultural ecology.