While watching the vertical drama “Tides of Temptation,” you may notice that some of the episodes seem overly dramatized. In Chapter 7, the two main characters and love interests stand chest-to-chest at a nighttime party.
“You put our lives in danger chasing me,” Constance says.
“I am,” Jamal responds. “And you better be worth the trouble.”
Not even five seconds later, Constance’s boyfriend Wes fires a gun into the air. The gunshot is just the first warning for Jamal to leave Constance alone. In Chapter 25, her brother tells Jamal, “If I catch you near my sister, I won’t just kill you. I’ll kill your brother too.”
Most of the 51 episodes of “Tides of Temptation” — which add up to just over an hour of content — have cheesy dialogue and craziness just like this. Dramatic? Of course. But that’s kind of the point.
And while it might not seem appealing to some, microdramas have amassed massive fanbases online. The subreddit for ReelShorts, an app where you can watch microdramas, has more than 300,000 visitors a week. Subreddit users shared why they love these stories and what keeps them coming back.
“I love how absolutely freaking ridiculous they are. It’s such a break from reality. The more nonsense the better,” fullstar2020 wrote.
“For me it’s escapism that (usually) has a neat happy ending,” Human-Middle2864 said.
Actor and former-NFL player Troy Brookins stars in “Tides of Temptation” and is also a co-founder of the studio that created the series, Microhouse Films. The series was Lifetime TV’s first vertical, and some of the characters and plotlines will appear in the Lifetime original movie “Terry McMillan Presents: Paradise with You,” which premieres this Saturday, November 7. Despite the connection to the full-length feature, the microdrama’s plot points and dialogue fall in line with current trends for the format.
Microdramas are short one to two-minute videos that are produced vertically and meant to be viewed via smartphones. The videos are usually a part of a series that come together with a runtime similar to a TV episode or short movie.
Brookins said that the rise in popularity, both in general and for his company, is because they all follow a specific process to create success.
There are two main parts. The first is their similarity to soapy dramas. Think of shows such as “Days of Our Lives,” “General Hospital” and “The Young and the Restless” — all of them released between the 1960s and 1970s and still premiere today. The second, according to Brookins, is that especially at his company, all the verticals tell stories focused on love.
“This generation, we’re lacking love,” Brookins said. “If we go into production with it, it’ll definitely be a love element in there some way somehow, even if it’s a horror film. Because I think spreading that is the best thing that we can do right now.”
And it’s not just the case of Microhouse Films. Vertical Sunsets, run by Cate Fogarty and Chrissie De Guzman, also produces love-centric stories and productions such as “My Sexy Mentor Seduced Me” (2026), “My Eternal Love” (2025) and “Cryo Seduction” (2025). While they have worked on other productions, De Guzman said that their company’s stories, which feature “slight erotica,” are their favorite to make.
Craig Williams, the owner of Hollywoodland Film Studios, also said that love and drama stories are consistently filmed at his studio.
“It was always the millionaire, ‘I got pregnant’, the boyfriend and the ‘what does my baby look like?,’” Williams said.
Why these love-focused stories?
Brookins said verticals are closely related to soap dramas, and their popularity is nothing new. There are plenty of reasons that these types of stories keep the attention of viewers. And just as users have noted, one of the main reasons is the ability to escape from reality.
Soap dramas allow viewers to escape daily struggles, and while some of the plots are exaggerated, they still can make people feel less alone.
According to a Medium article written by psychologist Donna L. Roberts, PhD, several factors contribute to the popularity of soapy stories. Each episode ends with a cliffhanger, keeping viewers coming back for more. Audiences can also create strong emotional connections to characters through dialogue, intense storylines and a sense of community between fans. Additionally, pattern recognition can make these types of stories more digestible.
“They come to recognize familiar elements in each episode, such as character types and tropes, recurrent themes and plot devices,” Roberts writes. “This familiarity drives people’s desire to keep watching as they can typically predict what will happen next and become more deeply embedded in the world of the show.”
These factors, along with shortening attention spans, might have created a perfect environment for microdramas to thrive.
The industry
So, how did microdramas become such a successful industry? It all started in China. The format started gaining traction there when Chinese consumer focus shifted from livestreamed videos to short-form content on apps like Douyin, also known as the Chinese version of TikTok. The shorts really took off in 2020 during the pandemic, and by 2021, the Chinese revenue had reached half a billion dollars. By 2024, this amount rose to $7 billion.
Microdramas did try to make their way over to the U.S. in 2020 through a company called Quibi, led by former CEO of DreamWorks Animation Jeffrey Katzenberg and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. The app presented short-form programming, around 10 minutes or less, that could be watched both vertically and horizontally for a monthly subscription fee. Quibi had more than $1 billion invested from various companies including Disney, NBCUniversal, WarnerMedia and Lionsgate among others. Despite this, it shut down less than seven months after launching.
According to Variety, the project didn’t succeed due to consumers’ lack of interest in paying to watch the content. Sometimes, that content was unknown, meaning that users didn’t even know what they were paying for. Subscriptions started at $7.99 per month to watch without ads. Additionally, in the midst of competition with other streaming services, short-form video apps like TikTok and the pandemic, Quibi wasn’t able to grab much attention. Even with big names like Kevin Hart and Jennifer Lopez, it still failed to have a breakout hit, an NBC article says.
Maybe Quibi was taking itself too seriously or was just too early to the game.
Launched in 2022, ReelShort has become one of the current leading vertical streaming apps. Similar to Quibi, Reelshort users can watch verticals if they pay a subscription fee or purchase ‘coins,’ which can be used to purchase an episode. The standard weekly plan costs $9.99 for the first week and $19.99 per week to watch ad free afterwards. There is also a $40 monthly plan. This year, ReelShort’s revenue is expected to be over $1 billion.
According to Owl & Co’s “Vertical Economy Report,” the broader vertical video economy is expected to reach $150 billion, excluding China — a 42% increase from last year. And per the same report, microdrama’s revenue comes from two main sources: in-app purchases and advertising.
Today, microdramas can come in a wide variety of formats, such as live action, animated or fully created by artificial intelligence. The way audiences watch them also varies. Some stories are free on apps such as TikTok or Facebook, while others prompt consumers to purchase an app subscription right after a cliffhanger. Even television networks and big stars are starting to produce and create them, like “Tides of Temptation,” which was executive produced by Taye Diggs.
Moving forward
This is a lucrative business with big rewards. For Fogarty and De Guzman, microdramas have allowed a place for them to grow, create content and, of course, make money. While they described the form as the “filmmaker’s dream” for giving them a chance to see a project beginning to end, they also said it’s not the be-all and end-all of where they see themselves.
“What Chrissie and I were able to do was quickly understand that this is not our passion project,” Fogarty said. “It’s not our baby, but we can still have a great time trying to shape it and working with the client[s].”
Brookins’ company is more of a long-term plan, but he recognizes that verticals can be a great place for people interested in the film industry to get their start.
“I think it’s just creating a lane for people to get some practice [and] to create their own paths,” Brookins said.
Instead of having to worry about booking a big network role, he said verticals can provide an alternative space for newcomers. He also says that through a diverse cast and crew, they provide more opportunities. The same goes for Vertical Studios, which focuses on women, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ storytelling, both in front and behind the camera.
“Our diversity just makes everything better,” Fogarty said.
Brookins hopes that, in the future, Microhouse Films can produce up to 60 products a year and create entertainment for a wide variety of ages around the world. And they are already on the way. Microhouse Films is heading to the ALZA Festival, a microdrama festival run by the former COO of Tribeca Film Festival, to screen their project “Reunion Island.” They are also heading to London and India to screen some of their work.
For Brookins and his team, it is all about spreading love, which is exactly what they are doing through their bite-sized microdrama episodes with insane dialogue and drama. And the entire microdrama industry is following suit. Still, only time will tell if they are here to stay or just another passing moment.
Edited by Nia Crichelle Robertson and Adilene Gomez Santiago.