I think you would die of alcohol poisoning
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Oh yeah I’ve seen the ads a million times before
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This might be somewhat of a promo, but seeing this story made me angry on how sex is shown.
If anyone wants to know how to actually have a HEALTHY sexual relationship or sex life, check out Thrill of the Hunt by azariasin.
It doesn’t involve breaking in, sexual harassment, or crazed horny “bad boiz” taking their shirt off at school. 
But seriously, I’m glad this isn’t showing up in the actual Featured Section. Idk about anyone else, but whenever I open the app, I’m still seeing stories like “ISWaB”, Fake Love True Love (only good story tbh). Any but In My Bed (should be glad, but it only showed in the loading description, which made me curious.)
Honestly though? I can’t say it’s nearly as bad as ISWaB. Don’t get me wrong, it’s bad. But the former goes way too far in sexual harassment and glorifying it. At least In My Bed is so badly written and shows a rather questionable lens of an actual teenage girl. It’s funny because it’s just so terribly written, but ISWaB is just more infuriating because of the blatant stereotypes of LGBT and POC, sexual harassment, humiliation, abuse, etc.
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I wish they could make an icon that isn’t just romance.
Also, can we get some diversity with these icons, please? This is really kind of sad. 
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Yeah it’s not really appropriate and didn’t Episode promise diversity back in 2016 that never was delivered?
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I just hope my mom doesn’t get too irritated with Episode she’s already iffy on it.
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OMG! This story is like so sexually active and forward. I mean who has sex with the first boy they see in their right mind, in reality! This episode made me mad and sad at the same time. It’s dissapointing what Episode is putting out there now!
PREACH Herman! PREACH!
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LMAO!! Same tho.
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Hahahahaha right I like to keep my brain somewhat innocent.
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On the note of the new icon, it’s so weird how it objectifies the woman. If the focus of the icon was the ‘romance’ or connection between the two, the center of the icon would with their faces. But clearly the focal point (just apply the rule of threes) is the woman’s chest, and the woman herself (since the guy is partially cut off and offset on the side). The majority of Episode readers are women, so why are they so blatantly objectifying a woman on the gosh darn app preview?!
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It’s probably one of those things where they really want the audience to project onto the woman. I think it’s less overtly “look at how sexy she is” and more “look at how sexy you could be in these stories”
That’s also probably why they featured her looking so happy and why there’s even a guy on the cover. Look at this thing you could experience, don’t you wanna experience it?
The entire app is basically “look at all these things you can do and lives you can live.” Because their most popular genres are romance and drama, it makes sense that they’d want to showcase a world of romance you could be thrown into where the hot guy notices you and where you can be hot and alluring yourself. This seems like a pretty common thing people enjoy this app for which is evident in all the “she is nerd, but now hot?!?!” stories you can find.
It’s a similar thing to why dating sims are popular enough to be their own thing and thrive.
They want you the viewer, (most commonly a girl), to want to enjoy what most people use their app for, romance, via self inserts.
While it could always be some other reason, this is still a thing they may have considered.
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Like look, I cobbled this quick and crappy edit of the icon together:
Just by moving the two down, we’re now directed to their face and it’s wayyy less sexualized. We still get the self-insert ‘oooh I can play a wish fufillment story where I’m conventionally hot and a conventionally hot white boy is interested in me’ but it’s not so blatantly objectifying the girl.
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Oh I totally agree. Episode operates in the narrative space where young girls are insecure so they find escapist stories that are wish fulfillment scenarios. It’s not a knock on Episode, because fanfiction, YA fiction, YA tv, and a ton of other industries seize on these principle.
But I think it goes back to the whole ‘is sex/romance’ the purpose or main focus of Episode (which is the same question we’re asking about In My Bed and other sexualized stories). This new icon seems to be the Episode team answering that with a ‘yes’.
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Comparison
I personally like your version quite a lot but the other one makes more sense from a marketing perspective as it’s very quickly eye catching and not to mention that having things look slightly sexual often helps them sell more, unfortunately.
I’m not saying I agree with it, just explaining why they probably did this marketing wise.
Self insert-y + slightly sexual = higher likelihood of downloads.
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Yeah I just heard about all the drama about it recently and it was in “hot this week section” so I decided to check it out but like half way through first episode it kind of glitches out which sometimes happens on my device but when I went back on it was gone and I couldn’t find it in the search, so I am thinking they have removed it
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I logged back in yesterday and saw it again.
Weird.
Maybe they took it down and out it back up?
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Yeah maybe I will see it again, strange stuff
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legit episode is worse than my mom talking about"how babies are made’
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