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the bizarre industry behind CRINGE vertical shows on tiktok

The Book Leo

555,059 views

today we dive headfirst into the crazy world of those badly written vertical shows that are advertised all over tiktok!!

00:00 cringy vertical shows
8:53 who writes these stories?
22:59 the slop machine

edited by belle advincula

sources
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2025/07/22...
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-ra...
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-ra...
https://time.com/7173765/reelshort-cr...
https://hackernoon.com/our-short-form...
https://www.inkitt.com/MeghannCrane
https://hackernoon.com/our-short-form...
https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/04/ink...
https://deadline.com/2023/10/entertai...
LinkedIn: inkitt_authoranalytics-datadrivenpublishing-inkitt-activity-7369850830163947520-yl9X
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why...
https://www.screenwritingstaffing.com...
https://johnaugust.com/2025/writing-f...

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Hi! My name is Leonie and I am a 28 year old girl from the Netherlands who loves talking about books! From YA to non-fiction to classics, I read it all (although fantasy will always be my fave).

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20 Comments

@aubreylyons4082 8 months ago (edited)

These vertical shows feel like cocomelon for adults

@jessputapixelonit 7 months ago

Honestly these shows are my guilty pleasure. They're so bad, the acting is almost always bad (except for a few people) and the story lines are absurd and often repeated. They're so bad I can't stop watching.

@altairdelirio 8 months ago

these shows are terrible, but one of these shows does have the greatest line of all time "you're divorcing me at my brother's funeral?" absolute cinema

@elenadesentis3528 7 months ago

As someone who was contacted to do costumes for these.... you've no idea just how low LOW budget they are lmao

@TalentedTeensOf1998 8 months ago

Makes me feel slightly hopeful that even when someone has had only three hours of sleep, their writing is still better than AI's.

@TheWingedHussar 7 months ago

Sounds like titles of lame isekai animes: "I slipped on a banana peel and died to be reincaranted as a mafia queen claimed by alpha ceo step-billionaire".

@IreneIguanas 8 months ago

I love those 300 year-old mafia families with crests that look like early-2000s shoe brand logos.

@alessand_ro 7 months ago

As an Italian, I’m yet to understand why foreigners love to romanticise the mafia

@wuraolaolagunju 8 months ago

Oh my God! I genuinely thought no one was ever going to acknowledge those weird apps!!!!!

@pinkperfectpeach7544 6 months ago

for anyone who doesn't already know, you can find all the episodes of these movies compiled together on dailymotion for free, do NOT spend money on this 😭

@maddummel 8 months ago (edited)

my question is who the fuck is paying to read these "novels" in the first place??? do ppl not know libraries are free??? also ao3??? we're truly losing the ancient texts 😭

@Massi110497 4 months ago

They act very weird, but they are weirdly addictive

@cp.thuot.author 8 months ago

Girl I write about dragons. I look up dragon anatomy ONCE and the algorithm is convinced I want werewolf breeding. HOW.

@SpectralTease7734 6 months ago

>"I'm a secret Mafia heiress working undercover for the FBI"
>*immediately breaks cover and exposes her true identity literally just to stop people being mean*

@dr.sleaseball441 8 months ago

Use a randomizer to give you 5 tropes. Example: Billionaire, stepmom, thief, farmgirl, vampire. Now you just need to connect the tropes. The billionaire who married a woman, then he died but left his fortune to his daughter, yet her evil step mother took her to a farm, and put her to do the farm work. One day a thief came to the farm to steal. She fell in love with the thief but he was actually a vampire. Now she and the vampire will work together to expose the evil step mother, who turns out that she is actually a werewolf that killed the girl's father. The father was actually a werewolf hunter. See how easy it is?

@MiniMeags 7 months ago

I thought we were all watching these on dailymotion…. You’re telling me PEOPLE ARE PAYING TO WATCH?

@lucille_2010 8 months ago

so theyre like the mobile game microtransactions version of tv entertainment lol

@serenaw5107 2 months ago

22:56 well this age badly. Now my real shorts that come up as ads are only AI generated. I don’t know if the stories are, but they completely fired the actors on there and use AI characters for all of these videos now.

@AshChiCupcak 8 months ago

Oh what timing. I recently learned my 59 yr old mother was watching these like crazy and was into all the alpha wolf stories. Needless to say, I was shocked but had a good cackle about it 😂

@TheMacabeak 7 months ago

"Where are these web novels coming from?" Oh man, you have no idea... it's like wattpad but from Korea and China, usually with a smidge more respect for them too