Moral Drama in the Digital Platform Era: The Case of “Kathoey Moral Drama” and the Logic of Its Popularity in Contemporary Thai Society

Abstract

This article examines the phenomenon of “Kathoey Moral Drama” as a hybrid narrative type that combines moral drama with LGBTQ+ representation on Thai digital platforms. It asks why this type of content has gained widespread popularity and what such popularity reveals about social values and the boundaries of sexual diversity acceptance in contemporary Thai society. The study employs conceptual analysis and literature synthesis drawing from cultural studies, platform studies, and gender and sexuality studies. The analysis suggests that moral drama in the platform era should be understood as “platformed moral narrative,” in which moral storytelling is compressed, accelerated, and reformatted to fit the attention economy. Within this context, Kathoey Moral Drama functions as a hybrid narrative that inserts kathoei characters into conventional moral frameworks. This incorporation enables visibility while simultaneously reproducing conditional acceptance, whereby sexual diversity is recognized only when aligned with dominant moral expectations rather than grounded in rights-based equality. The article contributes to scholarship by demonstrating how narrative forms and platform logics jointly shape the politics of representation. It further argues that Thai digital media culture is characterized by a paradoxical condition of representational expansion alongside structural continuity.