That is very cool. I never knew if that before.
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I will speak for myself, but I think some people will agree when I say that 99% of mafia stories are extremely problematic.
Mafia stories, aside from being pretty repetitive, romanticize/sexualize the world of organized crime. Now, I do have to admit that I am pretty privileged and have never experienced gang violence/the effects of organized crime, but I don’t believe it’s sunshine and lollipops. Why are people who stand from a place of privilege writing about something like that and romanticizing in? It doesn’t feel right to me. People often forget that things like this are real and actually affect people.
They often feature abusive love interests, too. This is a really huge issue. I don’t think any teenager on this app (or anyone, really) would benefit from watching a “broody, misunderstood” (who is actually NONE of those things, rather abusive) LI point guns at the MC and talk down to them/be misogynistic.
I also feel like some mafia stories help push negative stereotypes onto not only Italian people, since it’s usually an Italian mafia featured in these stories, but some other groups too.
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I personally like mafia stories. The ones I’ve read aren’t ones you’ve mentioned though so it may be a bit different.
The ones I’ve read are:
Mafia’s Fallen Angel
Mafia’s Lost Angel
Fighting Temptation
The Devil Inside Me
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Everyone has their own opinion
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The ones I could see that are usually penalized in mafia stories are Italians and Mexicans, followed by Spanish and, less frequently but still, Russians.
And you’d think that with Italian characters being so popularized through mafia stories authors showed good reasearch on cultural background etc. I wonder why it isn’t so 
“The Italian Mafia” has become so popular that nobody ever does research on it to even learn the basics. Not to mention they’re extremely inaccurate with terminology––I read stories where the characters were Sicilian, yet their organization was Calabrian. It was hella confusing. Like, you can’t do a half job with this topic. Either you try to mimic reality or you don’t entirely.
People seem to forget about the Japanese Yakuza, the Chinese Triad, the Nigerian mafia, etc. Using the same ethnicities over and over for the same type of stories does damage. It creates association between one ethnicity and a harmful stereotype. Legit I’ve seen people think we experience criminal activities on a regular basis.
Also, I love how people come in these threads just to throw in some recs completely ignoring the whole discussion 
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Agreed!! People often ignore it as well. Another young person said they loved toxic relationships, and I’m like YOU DID NOT JUST GO THERE.
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It would be nice to see a mafia story about those overlooked mafias that exist. And not romanticising it.
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Also what about German mafia?
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I think the negative attitudes towards these stories is because they deal with a serious topic, but write about them in a fun/adventurous way… - so you end up with readers who day dream about going on an adventure with a mafia boss (similar to how people daydream about magic schools after reading hp). people also like to have a cause or something to stand for, and since this is sort of a hot topic, it draws a lot of attention from people who might otherwise be indifferent on the subject.
is this right? wrong? …hard to say, and goes into an entirely different debate on it’s own. but to answer your question, I think the above might contribute to the negative sentiments you’ve seen.
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The mafia exists everywhere and those were but a few examples. People really need to open their eyes.
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Yes!!! And they need to do proper research.
I recently had a notification for one of my liked comments on a closed thread, but anyway some people were saying killers were sexy…like what NO you need to get help!!
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Well, once I was reading a story where the character speaks a statement in Spanish and author didn’t provide the translation. I do not know Spanish, thus I tried to Google the sentence and when I say I received 3 different translations for it… I’m telling the truth.
You cannot rely thoroughly on Google for translation because no matter what, somtimes the context of the statement, gender and what not can change the translation (I’m not talking about Italian or Spanish translations but any language- my native translator for one does that)
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And also slangs and dialect too.
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Well, at this point I don’t expect any of you to understand because let’s be honest. You just don’t care. And I mean, who am I to make someone change their mind right hahah
Let’s just say. If you went to a school with a serious bullying issue, you wouldn’t dream of making a romance story out of it, about lust and forbidden desires, would you. But hey, who wants to talk about real life 
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Uh-alright.
This might be a little triggering so please don't read if you're uncomfortable💗
Whether it’s real life or not, romanticizing people who torture, do dr-gs, k-ll innocent people is ABSOLUTELY WRONG.
You can’t just say "it’s only a story" as an excuse. This applies to many other topics. You can’t be racist and say it’s “just a story”. That makes you toxic.
If you support that kinda toxicity, 
And in many mafia stories, Italians etc are portrayed as all mafia-gangsters and that’s really wrong. You need to research before you show different ethnicities.
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Absolutely agree, we don’t hear your excuses and you defending mafia stories that do these things! I’m fed up seeing saying “it’s just a story” or “if you don’t like, don’t read it”, just shut up and stop defending stories with these types of things in the story!
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A little bit extra on this:
I think a lot of authors also forget that they have a responsibility to show that something is wrong narratively. You don’t have to spell it out in flashing letters, but recognize that stories on Episode are basically young adult fiction. Consider your age group, their grasp on nuanced topics, and their understanding of the world. Saying “These characters may have views and opinions different from yours; I don’t agree with everything they do!” and then painting an abusive misogynist as a misconstrued saint with little narrative consequence is not enough. Whether you as an author align with your characters morally or not, your lenient portrayal of horrible (see: often bigoted and dangerous) people shows you have a soft stance on serious issues at best and are condoning said behavior at worst. This is how we got people thinking Lolita is a genuine love story.
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They’re not hated because mafia stories are the most popular in the app. Most Episode readers love mafia stories.
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just because something is popular doesn’t mean people don’t hate it
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Well why would so many people read mafia stories if they hate them lol?
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