Once a week, Joshua Colón, a photographer based in New York, goes to his friend’s house to watch TV. Like clockwork, the two friends prepare popcorn, candy, and settle in for their ritual. Except it’s not HBO or Hulu they’re firing up, but YouTube Shorts. Instead of traditional TV, they’re watching microdramas, AKA very short, very cheesy episodic series created specifically for smartphone viewing. Colón first discovered microdramas through trailer-like Instagram ads, which were effective enough to get him hooked. “When I was scrolling, it was like a dopamine hit for my ADHD brain”, says the 36-year-old. “[Now], my friend and I just sit and watch microdramas for two hours, and it counts as four movies, basically.”

If you have social media, there’s a good chance you’ve been served one of these ads on your feed; interspersed between regular content, ads for microdramas often feature dramatic or steamy video clips that end at the most exciting moment, baiting viewers into tuning in further. Today, Colón is just one of the millions of viewers fuelling the global microdrama industry, which, according to Variety, is projected to earn $26 billion in annual revenue by 2030. Content-wise, microdramas essentially look like fanfictions brought to life; love stories featuring werewolves, billionaires and mafia bosses are all commonplace in the microdrama universe. 

The verticals first originated around 2018 in China, where they’re known as “duanju” and were adopted from already-popular web novels. After taking off on Chinese platforms like Douyin, the format has since gone global, with apps like ReelShort and DramaBox driving the explosion into international markets. Though the absurd plotlines and increasingly obvious use of AI actors make verticals tempting to write off as corny or low-brow, their rapid rise is nothing to scoff at – in 2025, DramaBox was downloaded 374.1 million times globally, making it the second-most downloaded entertainment app of that year. So with millions getting sucked in, what is it about our current moment that makes it ripe for a microdrama boom?

Ask any actor, viewer, or industry personnel within the microdrama space, and they’ll give you more or less the same answer: a universal craving for escapism. “It’s like the modern-day soap opera,” says Bella Mraz, a 22-year-old microdrama actress based in Los Angeles. In 2024, Mraz dropped out of college, where she was studying musical theatre, after starring in a vertical microdrama that fast-tracked her acting career. “People like the familiarity and the comfort,” she adds. “They know how it’s going to end for the most part.” It’s true that microdramas, while increasingly diverse in their offerings, often follow a tried-and-true list of tropes, themes and structural beats. For example, there are plenty of contract relationships, in which two characters are, for any number of reasons, forced to marry, and then, of course, fall in love. There’s also a lot of mistaken identity plotlines, where someone who at first appears humble or impoverished turns out to be the heir to a large fortune. 

One theory explaining why microdramas are so successful could also explain why #BookTok, romance-only bookstores and shows like Heated Rivalry and Off Campus have also taken off – audiences want love and a happy ending, two things that feel increasingly difficult to obtain in real life. This is especially true as singles, fatigued by dating apps and hookup culture, are having more trouble finding love than ever. “Dating right now is particularly hard because of the internet, but then it’s also the internet allowing us to escape,” says Colón. “It’s like this double-edged sword.”

“Dating right now is particularly hard because of the internet, but then it’s also the internet allowing us to escape. It’s like this double-edged sword”

According to microdrama critic Jen Cooper, the escapism microdramas provide has been especially beneficial for people going through difficult times. Like Colón, Cooper discovered microdramas through social media ads – her first was You Belong With Me, a ReelShort series where the protagonist seeks revenge on her abusive family and cheating fiancé by seducing the fiancé’s uncle and heir to the family fortune. Today, Cooper runs Vertical Drama Love, a site dedicated to reviewing and exploring microdramas. Through her platform, she has been able to connect with other viewers, many of whom she says have been through trauma, whether that’s experiencing serious health issues, caring for someone with health issues or losing a loved one. “Most are carrying very heavy loads,” says Cooper. “A lot of them have said, ‘Verticals are the thing that saved me. They got me through a really dark time.’”

That was the case for Vicky, a mother of five in Germany. When Vicky first discovered microdramas in 2023, she’d watch them at night, after her work and household chores were done for the day. After experiencing burnout at the end of last year, however, Vicky, a former office clerk, found herself watching five to ten vertical dramas per day. The 40-year-old says that, as someone who escaped an emotionally abusive marriage and whose “trust issues have trust issues”, microdramas have given her a chance to experience love. “I’m living through those verticals to experience romance because I can’t have it in my own life,” she says. Through the microdrama community, she’s also been able to connect with others who’ve experienced hardships. “Without verticals, we wouldn’t have found each other.”

The sense of justice found in microdramas has also been a big draw for Vicky, and for many others. Revenge or “comeuppance” is a major theme in verticals, and it often manifests through a betrayed character suffering in a public way before eventually getting back at their abuser or whoever has wronged them. “There were days [at work] where I had a nasty customer and felt, ‘Ugh, I so would have liked to have slapped that guy’” says Vicky. “But you can’t do that. On those days, I went back to verticals where I knew, ‘Oh, she gets a real good slapping because she damn deserves that.’ I’d watch the evil person get slapped and it was satisfying, because I couldn’t do that [in real life].” 

“I’m living through those verticals to experience romance because I can’t have it in my own life”

It’s more than just the racy scenes and shirtless actors attracting viewers to microdramas. Beyond romance, microdramas present a universe in which the bad guy always loses, and the good guy is always saved. “Verticals don’t tell you you need to change to make the world a better place,” says Justin Saucedo, a microdrama screenwriter. “Verticals are telling you that you’re a good person already, that other people are the problem and that you deserve better.” The screenwriter also points out that, in many verticals, the wish fulfilment is not just romance, but economic security, something that, without a sexy billionaire to swoop in and save them, currently feels like a fantasy to many. 

It feels safe to say that, even with the boom, microdramas will likely never reach the level of prestige afforded to full-length media, especially as the adoption of AI actors continues to transform the space. But for viewers, what’s being craved is something different from traditional media entirely. As Cooper puts it: “Logic doesn’t matter – we don’t need logic. It’s escapism, fun and fantasy.”