Heartburn refers to a burning sensation in the chest or upper abdomen, mostly caused by stomach acid reflux irritating the esophagus. In my impression, this term frequently appeared in the daily conversations of grandparents' generation during leisure time, making it a colloquialism with a certain sense of age.
But recently, I've noticed that people of all ages and genders areInsane repeating this word.
Of course, this isn't because everyone has suddenly started prioritizing health. In fact, the reason is somewhat dramatic—this seemingly old-fashioned term was actually popularized by the latest trend in AI.
More accurately, it was popularized by AI short dramas.
Recently, a batch of AI short dramas with highly similar themes and models started gaining traction on short drama APP platforms like Hongguo, gradually breaking out and going viral across the entire internet.
At the beginning of such AI short dramas, there is always a shop owner who sticks to their "rules." While other merchants lower prices for promotions, this owner goes against the grain and chooses to raise prices.
When customers questioned, "Aren't you afraid of losing business by doing this?" these shop owners would always explain, "Rules must be followed," or "I'd rather earn less than break the rules."
And at the end of the story, competitors who attracted customers with low prices would always suffer various mishaps, ranging from customers getting food poisoning to entire construction sites shutting down due to workers falling ill.
After the controversy subsided, customers who had previously left due to price issues would voluntarily return to these shops, saying, "Your products are better; they don't cause heartburn." The shop owners, emboldened by the praise, would often push their luck further by introducing new rules like "daily limited quantities"...
The End.
If you haven't watched these AI short dramas before, or have only seen the "no heartburn"定性 articles in the comment sections without understanding the specific content of these dramas, I believe after reading the brief introduction above, you will share my sentiment:
Is that it? How did this thing become popular?
When discussing internet meme culture in recent years, explaining this phenomenon has been quite a headache. Especially now, in the era of big AI, the process of finding the truth has become even more difficult than before.
If you directly search AI for content related to "no heartburn" AI short dramas, the results will typically include numerous AI-generated blog posts telling you that this is because the AI bosses in these dramas have good morals and principles, tapping into the public's emotional desire for "reliability and no nonsense." Some even go so far as to ask if you'd like them to compile a set of "no heartburn" fan-created dialogue templates ready to post in the comments section.
But I am a real person, and the rule our 3DM Original Editorial Department has always adhered to is "Real people write articles, no AI, establish the rules, so readers don't get heartburn." Therefore, after spending much of my National Day holiday watching a complete 75-episode "no heartburn" short drama, I summarized two likely reasons:
First, AI short dramas are genuinely becoming popular. As people scroll through feeds, they inevitably encounter short dramas mass-produced using this theme. Moreover, food is essential to life, and food safety issues are closely related to people's daily lives. Therefore, when encountering similar situations, using lines just seen in short dramas becomes a natural choice.
Secondly, due to mass AI generation, while the food sold by bosses in some AI short dramas changes, the original plot structures and dialogue formulas remain unchanged, leading to contradictory storylines. It reaches a point where even viewers not paying close attention can't help but complain.
Particularly, some eye-catching behaviors in these AI short dramas, such as indiscriminately dumping all unsold ingredients regardless of type once the stall closes... If this happened in reality, it would definitely qualify as top-tier material for "Godly People TV," alongside annual earners like the "Yellow River Carp" and "Street Steak" who make billions.
As everyone knows, sharing various low-intelligence "godly person" anecdotes by those who like to "move stones" (share cringe content) has basically become an indispensable part of daily life on the internet. Therefore, once定性 articles like "establishing rules" and "no heartburn" form, they immediately脱离 the original application scope of AI short dramas.
Nowadays, when encountering anything with absurdity levels comparable to "no heartburn" AI short dramas, you can apply lines from them to concisely express your current mood.
Furthermore, after going viral, this meme, like all previous internet memes with similar experiences, spawned various variants and became a creative template applied to diverse themes.
For instance, since both involve selling consumables ingested by humans, why couldn't Uncle Heisenberg from Albuquerque, New Mexico, also establish his rules and sell only the purest product?
Another example is Huang Piyi's notorious GPU binning practices, which used to draw much criticism but now have a seemingly legitimate excuse—it's to ensure consumers don't experience core overheating (heartburn) after buying graphics cards.
Regarding our core business as game media, here are a few familiar examples—if you're a Valorant newbie, next time you encounter a smokes player who fails to deploy smoke in time, before you start pressuring them over mic, they might preemptively declare that they can only throw one smoke per round because "rules must be followed."
And if you're Instructor O, when becoming Aunt Mo who can only offer purple rice tangyuan because "today's yellow rice tangyuan is sold out," you can also use the excuse "We don't sell overnight tangyuan, afraid you'll get heartburn" to justify yourself.
Moreover, as this meme trend continues to develop, the concept of "heartburn" has gradually detached from its original context of selling goods in AI short dramas, and even from its initial meaning describing digestive discomfort. Now, it can completely refer to any unpleasant feeling, such as annoyance or frustration.
Meanwhile, similar to the previously popular "From Strong to Trash" ranking, "no heartburn" and "heartburn" can now serve as synonyms for "good" and "bad." In the past, when carried by friends in games, people would casually say things like "Awesome 666" or "I acknowledge you as my father figure." Now, you can express your feelings in a more subtle way: "Playing duo queue with you doesn't give me heartburn."
Of course, those benefiting most from this wave are small餐饮 practitioners like street vendors and fast-food restaurants whose situations resemble those depicted in AI short dramas. After the "no heartburn" copy went viral, bosses with strong internet savvy have printed and posted them verbatim in their stores to endorse their food.
Even major food brands that enjoy playing with memes, such as Joyoung Soy Milk, which recently jumped on the trend by launching "Hajimi North-South Green Bean Milk," have treated it as the latest key to traffic...
Ultimately, the formation of this unprecedented "Great Heartburn Era" is not only due to advantages like rapid AI-generated fan content, similar to previous meme templates like Laughing Nailong or Seaside Three-Grid, but also because AI short dramas are gradually becoming more accepted and integrated into ordinary people's online lives. After all, only when everyone has watched them can playing with memes achieve that knowing smile effect.
Therefore, rather than simply categorizing the recently popular "no heartburn" series of memes as a fleeting new phenomenon of the AI era, I tend to believe it is actually a preview of the rise of AI short dramas as a trendy form of entertainment.
Of course, at this point, we inevitably face the various controversies surrounding AI short dramas themselves... But I think these issues aren't worth deep discussion. Think about it: isn't the abrupt appearance of "Did you get a new phone recently?" in lifestyle videos just a form of inserted advertising? Isn't live-streaming e-commerce on short video platforms just a form of TV shopping? Aren't mindless short dramas similar to the "melodramas" and "godly dramas" on TV in the past?
Even classic plot points appearing in this current "Great Heartburn Era," such as "high pricing" and "limited sales," have identical counterparts in older TV dramas.
Drama Title: "Shichahai"
But if you say you don't care about these grand narratives, and only learned after this meme went viral that this uncomfortable condition is called "heartburn," and realized you often experience "heartburn"...
Then you should hurry to the hospital and let the doctor prescribe some medication.
