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Once upon a time (read: a few years ago), there was a pair of upstart streaming services called Quibi and Go90 that seemed to attract phone-addicted Millennials. These platforms were to compete with Netflix and Amazon by offering short-form videos designed to be watched on the go. Both services were promoted as the future of entertainment, and had substantial financial backing. But neither Quibi nor Go90 managed to gain any real traction, before their names became shorthand for “bad ideas that exemplify how out of touch studios and telecom executives can be”.
Quibi and Go90 didn’t last long, and much has been written about how they were doomed from the jump. Quibi was ridiculously expensive, the Go90’s landscape mode-focused branding confused people, and neither service made it easy to share your content on other platforms. At the time, people – especially here in the West – laughed at the idea of watching scripted series that had to be watched on smartphones. But the same basic concept began to apply in China as the COVID-19 pandemic halted the entertainment industry and forced movie theaters to close. Some were supernatural period dramas, while others were romantic thrillers based in modern times. And their stories were full of wild twists that continued over the course of dozens of episodes.
In 2025, “micro drama” companies like Dramabox and ReelShort have demonstrated that actually Is An audience is willing to pay for content that can be consumed in small, quick bites. And the recent micro drama boom is a fascinating case study on old, failed ideas finding wild success in the present day as the way people think and interact with media has changed.
When you open any of the dedicated micro drama apps, you can see that the companies behind them took notes from social media platforms like TikTok and streaming services like Netflix to create a new, carefree third kind of thing. You are immediately presented with a grid of posters for the multipart series, each “episode” of which lasts a maximum of two minutes. And title – like gems I kissed a CEO and he liked it, Betrayed alpha queen rises from the ashesAnd The unwanted wife retaliated – These are as self-explanatory as they are funny. Almost all shows include elements of erotic romance and involve women seeking revenge after being scorned for not epitomizing femininity or the “right kind” of femininity.
Many series depict fertility, motherhood, and werewolf/omegaverse culture as things that define their heroines’ sense of self. And while these female characters are often presented as people who Are Able to defend themselves independently, their main goal is usually to find a man who can put them on their feet and take care of all their worldly needs.
The micro drama’s heavy focus on stories of Dalit girls in distress reflects the fact that female audiences form a large part of the customer base of these platforms. On some level, these series are tapping into the same kind of fresh energy that has kept the romance lights humming while the larger publishing industry has seen sales steadily decline. But unlike romance novels from traditional publishing houses with rigorous editorial processes, the production values of microdramas have a cheapness that reflects how incredibly cheap they are to make compared to Netflix or Hulu originals.
This relative cheapness is a major reason why ReelShort and DramaBox – which are backed by Chinese and Singaporean companies respectively – have been making a big push into Western markets over the past few years. This is why American-owned studios like Gametime and Microco are beginning to emerge. It doesn’t bother audiences that basically everything about micro-dramas, from the writing to the acting and lighting, is absolutely terrible. Globally, the micro drama industry is expected to gross around $3 billion by the end of the year thanks to the platforms’ surprisingly aggressive and ingenious pricing strategies. And with Hollywood executives deciding to take micro-drama making more seriously, this business has become an unexpected boon for young actors, writers, and production workers trying to maintain careers in the contracted job market.
While you might be hard-pressed to find microdramas that feel like a strong part of the storytelling, it can’t be denied that people are paying to watch them at a time when traditional streamers are struggling to attract new subscribers. are like a series taking my three children, to be his wifeAnd Got a homeless billionaire husband for Christmas Are they destined to become mainstream pop cultural phenomena? Probably not. But these types of projects are employing people and earning enough profits to justify their existence.
By launching a new type of labor contract designed to address the “unique needs” of actors working on serial microdramas, such as paying them a fair wage and ensuring they earn screen credit for their labor, SAG-AFTRA has sent a signal to the rest of the entertainment industry about the future potential of this kind of content. These shows may not be particularly good right now, but they are can Change if studios put more effort into their production. And even if micro dramas stick to their current genre of lackluster acting/bland direction/weak writing, their success right now suggests that their customers may not actually be interested in something “better.”
As different segments of the tech and entertainment industries vie for people’s attention, microdramas feel like an unusually strong contender. Micro dramas don’t engage streaming series in the way we typically think of them, and they don’t exactly create the same kind of “look at some rando doing stuff” kind of thing that TikTok is built for. Ironically, the success of ReelShort and Dramabox feels like a direct byproduct of the way TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube have gotten people into the habit of scrolling through videos shot vertically. But these micro dramas are their own weird thing that have carved out a unique niche and found an enthusiastic audience in the process. And if these new platforms can continue their upward momentum, it wouldn’t be at all surprising to see their streaming and social media competitors rush to create similar content of their own.
- More and more micro drama production houses are incorporating Generative Artificial Intelligence into their workflow to create content even faster while keeping production costs down. As much as the technique is generally unsuitable for more sophisticated projects, it makes a lot of sense for the style these types of shows are known for. It will be interesting to see whether the use of AI in micro dramas will become a point of contention for the human actors who rely on these projects for work.
- The rise to prominence of micro drama has also coincided with a sharp decline in film and TV production in Los Angeles. This is another reason why more artists are turning to platforms to survive, and this moment could be a prime opportunity for micro-plays to establish themselves as a viable source of entertainment.
- Although micro dramas are currently unfolding, it naughty child This piece does an excellent job of highlighting some of the challenges these platforms will face as their growth approaches market saturation.
- It’s important to understand how basically all big micro drama apps are hostile towards users. Junko Roetgers’ recent article here explains why these apps feel so violent, and how much of them is informed by the freemium model of mobile gaming.
- The Ankler Had a great conversation with Joey Jia, CEO of ReelShort, about how the company’s approach to monetization turned it into a billion-dollar business. The excerpt also includes a conversation with actor Casey Esser about how working on microdramas has had a profound impact on his career.
- SAG-AFTRA’s micro drama contract seems to indicate that the union is being proactive about change in the entertainment industry. but this Diversity The piece explores how the new contract was – at least partially – a response to the fact that some artists were deciding to work non-union.