Soon enough, you could be watching Y/N toss her hair up into a messy bun before being adopted by One Direction on the big screen. On December 8th, Wattpad WEBTOON Studios announced their partnership with ViacomCBS to create original series based on hit Wattpad and WEBTOON stories. The two companies plan to identify popular stories with pre-existing fanbases to co-produce content for ViacomCBS’ networks and platforms, including Paramount+, basically guaranteeing a built-in set of Gen Z and millennial viewers. While this sounds like a genius marketing move, I think I’ve seen this film before – and I’m not sure I liked the ending.
When I think of Wattpad media, I think of a certain Harry Styles fanfic-based film. After, based on the hit Wattpad series of the same name by Anna Todd, garnered strong reactions from the Internet – and I don’t mean that in a positive light. But I admittedly succumbed to the hate-watching trend, and I’ve seen each addition to the series so far. Between protagonist Tessa’s poignant Truth or Dare question (“Is it true that you’re a whore?”) and the scene where Hardin (AKA Harry Styles) chases after an ambulance, Wattpad gave inspiration for some of the most beautiful moments in cinematic history. “This is what you do – you sabotage every good moment we have!” Titanic could never. But in all seriousness, After centers on an extremely toxic relationship (after all, Hardin only dated Tessa in the first place as part of a dare). When you consider how many young people are growing up idealizing these types of relationships thanks to their overwhelming prevalence and romanticization, there’s cause for concern.
Wattpad has over 45 million readers between the ages of 13 and 50, and 50% of them are under 18 years old. These teens are seeing couples like Hardin and Tessa as the peak of romance, and that toxicity is an unfortunate trend in fanfic relationships. Fifty Shades of Grey (based on Master of the Universe, a Twilight fanfic that was published on various platforms under the pen name Snowqueen’s IceDragon) depicts Christian Grey controlling everything in his girlfriend Anastasia’s life, from keeping tabs on her bank account information to wanting to know where she is at all times. Surely this isn’t the only genre that can be used for source material – where are the wholesome, healthy relationships to look up to? As a YouTube user commented on a video about The Kissing Booth, a Netflix adaptation of another Wattpad hit, “How did Netflix take Wattpad’s fetish for toxic relationships and violence and go, ‘Yes, we would like this on our site.’?”
All that aside, so far fanfic movies are just, well, bad. After We Fell has a rating of 0% on Rotten Tomatoes (the series’ highest score is 18% on the first installment – yikes!). The Kissing Booth drew strong reactions after its release. “Who is greenlighting these scripts I just want names,” one TikTok user commented, while a YouTube comment said, “The Kissing Booth is a middle school writing project.” Even the fact that everyone’s celebrity crush Jacob Elordi stars in the film can’t allow viewers to see it through a better lens.
So, sure, the Wattpad WEBTOON Studios and ViacomCBS International Studios may provide us with the opportunity to finally see Dramione on screen or firmly visualize ourselves being taken into the fold of our favorite boy band – but it’s not all it’s cracked up to be if they can’t diversify the tropes they’re trolling through. Perhaps the studios should allow the viewers to submit their favorite stories for consideration – or at the very least, vote on the options. We’ve got enough ill-advised relationship inspiration for now, but I’ll keep the cringe-worthy lines, not going to lie.