Meet the fans fueling a billion-dollar boom in escapist 'micro dramas' full of werewolves and mafia bosses

• Fueling the growth of soapy micro dramas are fans who find an escape in the fast-paced series.
• Interaction with the actors and fellow fans online is part of their appeal.
• Fans say they're fed up with excessive violence and ready for fresh themes and genres, however.

Michelle Bickford, a 49-year-old therapist in Denver, stopped subscribing to cable TV a few years ago. Instead, she pays up to $300 a month to watch soaps about werewolves, vampires, and more on her phone.

"It's a good way to escape from the real world for an hour," she told Business Insider.

Micro dramas, also called short dramas or verticals, are made-for-mobile movies — presented in bite-sized episodes — that first became popular in China and now have exploded in the US. Micro drama apps made an estimated $1.4 billion in US revenue in 2025, according to the streaming consulting firm Owl & Co.

With titles like "No Escape from the Mafia King's Embrace" and "My Sister is the Warlord Queen," Hollywood purists have looked on with morbid curiosity, but many out-of-work actors and filmmakers have embraced the paycheck and experience.

Fueling their popularity in the US are the fans who are paying to watch them. Micro dramas mostly make money by charging for tokens that unlock episodes and through subscriptions for unlimited viewing. Advertising makes up the rest, though it's generally a smaller slice of revenue.

Leading app ReelShort has said users typically pay $5 to $10 a week. In a November survey of fans, around 30% said they paid between $25 and $100 a month, and about 27% said they paid nothing. (Many apps offer the option to watch ads to unlock new episodes, and some fans find pirated versions uploaded to free video-sharing platforms like Dailymotion.)

The survey, conducted by Jen Cooper, an independent, UK-based vertical drama consultant, used responses from 1,670 micro drama fans to glean insights into the community. The survey was self-selecting, which could partly explain why respondents tended to be heavy watchers — most said they watched daily, often for 1 to 3 hours. Ninety-four percent of the respondents were women, and 53% were ages 35 to 54.

In interviews with Business Insider, fans regularly described micro dramas as a way for them to relax and escape the stress of current events or difficult personal situations.

Bickford said her vertical fandom kicked off around the time of the 2024 US presidential election, starting with a show called "You Belong with Me" about a woman taking revenge on her cheating fiancé. Bickford said she's not a fan of Trump and "had to get away from listening to all that nonsense." She's watched about 1,500 series since then — recording each one on a spreadsheet to keep track.

Micros are replacing traditional streaming for fans

While 84% of fans surveyed by Cooper said they subscribed to other paid streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, some told Business Insider that micro dramas had replaced much of their traditional viewing.

Melissa Dominguez, 41, a life coach and house manager in the San Francisco Bay Area, said she stopped subscribing to Paramount+ and Hulu after she discovered micro dramas on platforms like ReelShort and Dailymotion last year. She said she still subscribes to Netflix, but only for her family's sake.

Fans said they don't watch micro dramas because they're high art. They love them in spite of — and perhaps because of — the sometimes bad acting and outlandish storylines. Many of the plots come from Chinese web novels that have been adapted to the screen and localized, though producers are also ordering original stories to feed the strong demand. The format — feature-length films cut up into episodes of a minute or two, each bound by a cliffhanger — is a product of the mobile phone era.

Some fans said they find it relatable to see bullies getting their comeuppance or satisfying to see the underdog win. They like the immediacy of the phone and can count on the stories getting tied up with neat, happy endings.

Dominguez knows she'll get eye rolls when she tells people she watches verticals. As silly as they might seem, they provide an escape and a chance to see a resolution to conflict, she said.

"It's the same reason people love reality TV and Marvel," she said. "I enjoy revenge movies. People can relate to being cheated on, someone talking behind their back."

For 29-year-old fan Robert Segura, a social media manager in Los Angeles, the acting can be "kind of up and down," which made it feel more realistic to him. He compared them to fast-paced action movies with wild scenarios of the early aughts, such as "Charlie's Angels," that he enjoyed.

There are also similarities between verticals and escapist entertainment from earlier periods, such as the Great Depression, which gave us "The Wizard of Oz" and "Frankenstein."

"The world is in crisis, and people are looking for dopamine," said Isabel Dréan, a micro drama producer and author of "How to Write a Vertical Series in 10 Days."

A community of fans and stars

A big part of micros' appeal is the interaction they allow with the actors and among fans in a way that prestige TV and film, with their velvet ropes, often don't. It's not unlike the booming creator economy, which is rooted in fan interaction.

Online communities have sprung up around vertical cast members, often early-career actors who will pop into online chats with viewers and meet them at fan festivals like VertiCon.

In Cooper's survey, 93% said the star was the biggest factor in their decision of what to watch, way ahead of genre at 50%. And 61% said they'd watch anything their favorite actor is in, regardless of what it was about.

Sandi Nascimento, a 45-year-old medical worker from Long Island, NY, runs an Instagram fan page for popular actor Eric Guilmette, who occasionally participates. She hopes to meet him in person eventually.

"It's pretty cool — I can't message Sylvester Stallone," she said.

Micro dramas have a dark side

Fans are vocal about aspects of micro dramas they don't like as well.

The plots often rely on violence and misogyny, and on women being rescued to propel the action forward. Such themes are a common complaint among fans, with 57% of respondents in Cooper's survey saying there was too much violence.

"I think the fans are starting to say, 'We don't like these kinds of storylines,'" Bickford said. "A woman getting slapped 20 times is not something that's needed. In chats, we've all pretty much said, 'Don't watch this one because there's too much violence.'"

"I think it's the fantasy," ReelShort watcher Susan Jacobs Corria, 70, a retired sales rep living in Providence, RI, said of the appeal of such rescue storylines. "A lot of people are shut in. They're living vicariously. I think it is regressive."

In interviews, execs at leading apps ReelShort and DramaBox have said they strictly follow the audience data in making content decisions. Five producers tell Business Insider that they and actors are starting to push back on violence and sexism in plots.

Micro dramas also get called out for being habit-forming, even addictive. In Cooper's survey, 56% said they were surprised at how much money they'd spent on micro dramas. The survey also found that fans felt overwhelmed by the number of apps, as well as confusing pricing options, poor app design, and performance glitches. Viewer loyalty to specific apps is low. ReelShort and DramaBox are the best known, but fans often jump among dozens of other apps, rack up coins by watching ads, or seek out free options like YouTube or Dailymotion.

"You really have to learn how to navigate the vertical apps," Jacobs Corria said. She manages to watch by accumulating credits on the apps by watching ads.

"I've been watching three years, and I've never spent a penny," she said.

Fans are ready for new stories

Hollywood stalwarts like Disney and Fox are crowding into the space now, seeing the time and money vertical dramas are garnering. Cooper said that the established apps and newer ones alike are experimenting with original scripts and fresh genres.

Many viewers are ready for change.

Romantic comedies and romantic dramas are still the most in-demand genres, but fans are also crying for more strong female leads (77% in Cooper's survey) and culturally diverse characters (54%). They also want to see more same-sex stories, people with disabilities, and genres like mystery and horror.

"I've watched a lot of werewolves, billionaire CEOs, mistaken identity ones," Nascimento said. "I hope they broaden their horizons. I'd like to see other tropes."

Jacobs Corria said she's cut way back on verticals while awaiting storylines with less violence.

"I'm building up my coins," she said. "I'm definitely not done with the format."