When I first put down this topic, I rubbed my hands together and laughed a maniacal laugh. I figured this would be a lot of fun.

Now I see that the word itself is packed with a lot of meanings, and I’m going to need to disambiguate a little bit if I want to say something actually true.

So, let’s start with the dictionary definition, according to Dr. Google:

noun: drama; plural noun: dramas

1.

• a play for theater, radio, or television.
  “a gritty urban drama about growing up in Harlem”
  Similar: play, show, piece, theatrical work, spectacle, dramatization, screenplay
• drama as a genre or style of literature.
  “Renaissance drama”

2.

• an exciting, emotional, or unexpected series of events or set of circumstances.
  “a hostage drama”

I don’t think that helps much. The second definition is definitely in the ballpark, but I’m not sure it does enough to get at drama. When you think about the fallout that surrounds a particularly active Drama King or Queen, you aren’t usually considering the Renaissance.

Let me give an example of some drama that has captivated me recently. There is a very popular YouTuber that goes by the handle of SssniperWolf. Controversy has swirled around her for a very long time. I won’t go into her long and fraught history, but she currently produces content by creating reaction videos. She freeboots the product of smaller content creators, replays them for her 30+ million subscribers, and provides no real substance. It’s lazy, non-transformative, exploitive, and disgusting. If this were a play, show, theatrical work, etc., SssniperWolf would be our clearly defined villain.

Now enter on original YouTuber, Jacksfilms. He doesn’t have the same following as SssniperWolf, but he’s well known enough, and his content actually is original or transformative. For the last several months, he’s been shining a light on SssniperWolf’s content thievery by creating his own reaction videos to hers. He’s actually done a commendable job not resorting to personal attacks. He doesn’t talk about her looks. He calls out his viewers that bring up SssniperWolf’s controversial past. His message is, stop stealing, giving proper credit to the creators, and put in more effort so that your reaction videos are truly transformative and actually fair use. Again, if this were a work of fiction, we have our clearly defined hero.

Not all drama has to have heroes versus villains. If you watch shows like Survivor, sometimes all of the people involved are villains. The excitement and tension stems from watching events unfold, and seeing whether or not justice is served or not. Will the person that is lying and manipulating the people around them get called out, or will they slither their way into the the finale, lauded for their ability to “play the game.” Sometimes they get called out. Sometimes they walk home with a million dollars. While the drama is unfolding, we’re safe at home, saying things like, “I can’t believe they just did that.”

Going back to the SssniperWolf/Jacksfilms drama, I have watched for weeks as Jacksfilms, the underdog, has refined his criticism into a Bingo game, where the spaces are all the predictable things that occur in SssniperWolf’s videos. In the last few weeks, some of the people SssniperWolf has stolen from have come forward and put claims against the videos. SssniperWolf has reacted by editing some of the called-out videos, sloppily removing some of the stolen content.

Friday night, the drama went from a 6 or a 7 to an 11 when SssniperWolf posted to her 5 million Instagram followers a poll, asking whether she should go to Jacksfilms’ home. She showed up in the evening, filmed Jacksfilms’ house, posting his address to all of her followers.

This is called doxxing and is against the law. She crossed the line, weaponizing her large following to intimidate and threaten one of the people criticizing her content.

This is drama. And it’s almost impossible to look away.

I had no intention of writing about this when I put Drama in my topic list. I figured I would talk about the shows Melissa watches. She gets invested in unscripted programs like Married at First Site. It’s harmless fun, it keeps her entertained, and she shouldn’t be ashamed of drawing entertainment value from these shows. I may not like them, but she shouldn’t feel bad for indulging in the entertainment equivalent of fast food.

I was going to gently poke fun at these shows while dissecting them to determine what it is that makes audiences love them. All the while, I’m indulging in my own variety of unscripted drama, invested in it, wondering how it’s all going to end.

It’s the thrill of watching a train wreck, or a collapsing building, or some other disaster. We crane our necks as we drive by, safe in our little bubbles, curious how things are going to turn out.

I think we get invested because of our empathy, which is a good thing. We imagine ourselves in the situation. How would we react? Would we be able to climb out of the wreckage? Would we be able to make the marriage work if we just met at the altar? How would I react if someone with a huge following showed up outside my house and tried to endanger me and my family by weaponizing their followers?

That is the attractiveness of drama. It’s not enough that there is strife. We have to be able to relate to it. We have to be able to imagine ourselves in it. If it can generate an emotion inside our hearts, we will be hooked, and we will continue to show up for more.

There is probably a lesson there for how to make our stories more attractive to readers.