{"id":21329,"date":"2025-12-18T09:45:56","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T09:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/?post_type=news&p=21329"},"modified":"2025-12-18T13:08:55","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T13:08:55","slug":"beyond-algorithmic-romance-challenging-the-digital-media-narratives-on-love-and-violence","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/index.php\/news\/beyond-algorithmic-romance-challenging-the-digital-media-narratives-on-love-and-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond Algorithmic Romance: Challenging the digital media narratives on love and violence."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Beyond Algorithmic Romance: Challenging the Digital Media Narratives on Love and Violence<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

by Sherifa Awudu <\/strong>
Guest Op-ed.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There has been a burst of short drama reels within our social media spaces in recent times.  Apps like Drama Shorts<\/a>, Kalos TV<\/a>, Drama box<\/a>, Reel Shorts are all over Instagram, facebook and tiktok and there is no escaping them due to the heavy promotion. Sometimes the stories have such an interesting hook, you follow them and then voila, you are asked to pay to continue. But that is not the focus of this post. Instead, it\u2019s the inherent narratives many of these reels promote that are problematic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reels start the same way every time: a man storms into a room, a woman flinches, and before a word is said, he grabs her wrist. The camera zooms in on his face, jaw tense, eyes burning  and the caption flashes cliche titles like: \u201cProfessor\u2019s Pet\u201d \u201cHired for Pleasure\u201d etc. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scroll again, and it\u2019s another couple. She\u2019s crying, he slaps her, the music swells, and somehow the comment section reads: \u201cThis is what real love looks like,  messy but deep.\u201d <\/em>And in some instances it\u2019s the payback for another abuse \u201cshe was my sister and my whole world, how dare you hit her\u201d. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t think much of it at first. These were just short videos on apps like Reel Shorts<\/strong><\/a>, Kalos Tv,<\/strong> Drama Box<\/strong>, and others  bite-sized \u201cstories\u201d designed to fill the gaps between meetings, meals, or metro rides. But the more I watched, the clearer the pattern became. These weren\u2019t isolated stories. They were scripts<\/em> and narratives  \u2013 <\/em>repeating, evolving, spreading. Dehumanizing stories where violence was not the climax of abuse, but the expression of affection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s when it hit me: we are being taught, through algorithms, carefully crafted narratives and aesthetics, that pain is passion and domination is desire. We can also draw examples from simple things like filters or sounds and how content creators use them across Tiktok and Instagram. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember when Tiktok had a filter of a battered face which was used for funny content? Seeing captions like <\/p>\n\n\n\n