You’re an Asian Drama fan, regardless if you’re newly baptized into the epic holiness of Asian drama-land during the pandemic, or you’ve been almost born with it. Meaning you’ve been watching since forever, even forgetting the exact time you’ve started.
You want to support your biases, but you’ve got no money to start with. Or maybe you do, but you’d rather splurge in small amounts of money to keep yourself happy.
So, now what to do?
Honestly, it’s almost effortless to support your bias in a covert way. I came up with a shortlist on how you can do it with or without any money on hand. You can do it even if you’re in front of your computer or TV!
Check out below for tips on how to lowkey support your bias.
Watch dramas on legal sites.
Some of you might burn me for this, but really… doing this supports your biases.
Not that I’m advocating for these corporate beings. However, it’s just a matter of looking into the bigger picture. Watching legal means the drama producers have hit their target audience. It doesn’t matter if you’re paying them or not; as long as they know someone is watching, then that means it’s sellable.
That said, where do these profits go?
Of course! It goes to the company that provides the shows on their platform. But think about it, these companies PAY our biases to be in their platforms. Either way, our beloved actors are gaining profits through them. They get more opportunities for ads and other projects as long as these investors know that our beloved actors are worth to be a part of their company.
Now you get me here?
Watching legal means we get to support our favorite actors as they work their butts off to give us quality dramas they have specially prepared for viewers like us. That's why even though we don’t feel like we’re contributing to our bias means, we already are, just by simply watching.
Online platforms like LineTv, Netflix, Viu, IQiYi, WeTv, Viki, Crunchyroll, etc. These are only to name a few. Some of them you can watch for free while others you’ll have to register and pay.
Search the internet.
Have you seen the drama Search: WWW?
If yes, you’ll get the whole idea as to why this is very helpful. If not, here’s a run-through about the entire searching your bias in the internet shindig.
According to that drama, when you search for something on the internet, the ranking of that specific topic or website goes up on the SEO search.
Oops! Technical stuff. I’m no information technologist, but this usually comes up if you’re in the social media line of work.
According to searchengineland.com, SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” In simple terms, it means the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business in Google, Bing, and other search engines.
Ever wonder how BTS always comes on top of the search engine? Their fans are networking and almost all of them are keyboard warriors. They type BTS and... surprise!!! Bangtan Sonyeondan articles show up like twinkling stars in the sky!
This is how SEO works. There are also algorithms working in the background that throw similar topics as suggestions for you to check out every time you go to a search engine or social media. These are techy stuff that I'm not really much familiar with, so I won’t talk about that anymore. I’m sure you’re getting the gist of this computer-internet stuff I’m blabbing about.
Basically, if you want to increase your bias’s visibility on the internet, searching for them is the key.
Post on the internet.
So you’ve done your search, but there’s no landing page!
Apparently searching for your bias would be useless. What to do as a lowkey fan?
You make your own articles. Post them online. Make comments. Increase the possible search words for your biases to keep their rankings up and to make sure they are searchable, visible, and available online.
In this way, you’re helping out increasing their popularity and status. Even if by simply posting stuff about them online.
Use MyDramaList and share on other platforms.
This may sound like a pitch for selling, but no. I’m not selling anything! Heh.
I highly recommend using MDL because it’s one of the most legit sites internationally where there are tons of informations about your favorite actors and their dramas. It’s a go-to hub for Asian drama enthusiasts like me, who want easy access to information.
There are also some of my favorites like Soompi, Dramabeans, that had earned their names in the drama land by sharing their love for Asian culture for FREE.
Overall, these tips are relatively easy to do, but also consistency is the main thought behind them. MDL and the ones I’ve mentioned are consistently delivering Asian drama goodness to your plates. Do take note that contributing monetarily does make a huge difference for a site. However, it's also a big help if you share what they have and add to what’s already there. Through this, you’re networking your bias and making sure they stay in the industry for a very long time.
Edited by Sumi (1st editor)