I hate it so much. This whole idea that stories are only interesting if they’re angst-ridden. Characters can only be “deep” if their life stories are full of tragedy and pain. That things have to be “edgy” in order to be cool.
First of all, at least half of these angst-ridden stories and concepts are crap. It’s angst for the sake of angst, and I don’t care how tragic or “deep” someone thinks their character is. Angst does not inherently make a character or story compelling. More often than not, whether in the RP world or even the professional world, angst is poorly executed and instead of compelling, it’s just plain boring.
Second of all, just as angst doesn’t inherently make something compelling, neither does happiness inherently make something boring. Neither one is a magic ticket to success (or failure), but so many people think that because they made something angsty (or “edgy”) that it’s automatically really good stuff
I see it a lot in RP, both on Tumblr and elsewhere, and quite frankly, I think it’s a sign of immaturity as a writer and possibly as a person. A lot of the people that seem to do it in RP are younger RPers, though that doesn’t explain why it happens so often in media.
This is not to say I hate angst or angsty plots or anything like that. I enjoy a good helping of angst when it’s done well. The problem is it’s rarely done well and too many people think angst equals quality. It doesn’t.