“The revenge show, God, it’s amazing!” The California retail boss, Jacques Murphy, had a hard time getting excited when he was interviewed by NBC. As a faithful fan of China’s micro-short show, Murphy is deeply attracted to such highly concentrated love, revenge and fantasy stories.
With the general decline in the number and length of the single series of American dramas, a micro-short show from China captured thousands of viewers like Murphy in a very different form, and rapidly emerged in the US market.
The dramas are in the form of vertical screens, each of which consists of dozens of episodes of one to two minutes each, condensing in them the drama of soap operas, the blood of dogs and intensive suspense.“People want this rapid dopamine shock, which they can enjoy in the time of fragmentation,” Anina Net explained. She’s been in L.A. for the last four years, and she knows her charms.
According to a report published by the Chinese Association for Networked Audio-Visual Programs Services in March this year, half of China ‘ s approximately 1.4 billion people have seen a series of this kind of drama. In 2024, the micro-short drama industry generated $6.9 billion in income in China, surpassing the China Film Office.
The ReelShort, DramaBox and GoodShort platforms attract a large audience in the United States through free dramas, in-service purchases and subscriptions. Ironically, in 2020, Quibi, America ‘ s fine short play platform, failed to go online in just six months, owing to a conflict with consumer habits and the impact of the epidemic. Five years later, however, the short play was unexpectedly popular in the United States.
The cost of making a microtrip is much lower than that of traditional television. A play can be filmed for as short as 10 days, with a budget of less than $70,000, but can generate millions of dollars through user fees and advertising.
A head of the Chinese micro-sync production company in New York stated that micro-syncs going to sea need to be adapted to the taste of the American audience. To that end, he hired senior United States-owned scriptwriters to create stories more relevant to the local market. “I believe that this decision represents a 65-70 per cent success rate. In addition to the werewolves, the president’s love story, we should explore more new elements, he said.
The most popular short play on the United States market is ReelShort’s “The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband” launched in 2023. This 60th episode, which lasted less than 70 minutes, tells the story of an ordinary woman who found her husband as a hidden billionaire.
The comment on the IMDb is a summary of most of the current hot spots. As of Friday, the play had exceeded 485 million hits on ReelShort. ReelShort, a Chinese-born short play platform based in California, is currently competing with TikTok for the most popular use of Apple American Applied Shop entertainment.
The founder of the short play Scripts, Amin, noted that TikTok’s short video culture had laid the foundation for the popularization of the short play. “The young generation is used to short, attractive content on TikTok”, he said. Some platforms, such as ReelShort, have attracted a large number of new users by putting ads on YouTube and TikTok to suit this consumption habit.
The United States entertainment giants have also begun to pay attention to this trend. Netflix announced in May that it would test a vertical flow of information consisting of its programmes and film clips, while Disney would invest in DramaBox through its accelerator project.
Despite the increasing use of American-backed actors in microfacing to American audiences, the location of the film is often chosen in China’s beautiful city, such as Qingdao, where western villas and buildings enhance the story’s sense of truth. “We look for actors and writers who grow up in the United States, who are naturally American-style, and we integrate some Chinese elements.” Ann An, a liberal producer based in Beijing, said.
At the heart of the success of the microshort show lies its precision suspense. “The writers know very well where to set the hook, and it’s very well implemented,” Apple Yang, a London-based micro-sync director, says. These hooks continue to attract viewers to pay to unlock the next episode, contributing to the commercial success of the micro-short play.
In a fast-paced modern life, this short, dramatic content is redefinition of the entertainment experience of the global audience in an unstoppable manner.