There’s nothing left to watch on Netflix. I’ve watched the few good K-dramas and C-dramas, but the rest are like watching ice cream melt in the sun—it looks good at first, but it quickly dissolves into trash.
So when TikTok suddenly showed me a one minute drama of a Gorgeous Blonde with dog ears sizzle with an animalistic Henry Cavill, I was hooked. As the bloodthirsty Kirsten Dunst said in “Interview with a Vampire”, “I want some more!”
I am not alone. In China alone, 800 million watch microdramas. Globally, it’s 63 billion, and half watch on Tiktok’s short drama app PineDrama.
As the biggest video platform, YouTube is still the star. It has the most microdrama views at over 6.5 billion just for the first half of 2026.
While in the US, some 30 million watch microdramas mainly on YouTube and TikTok. Like me, viewers no longer go to Netflix, nor any of other Not Even Trying streaming services.
Microdrama formula
Microdramas are made for phones, so they’re vertical super short scenes of one to two minutes each. To keep you hooked, you’d have to watch 60-100 episodes, as they all end in cliffhangers. You always get the meaty love story of the Leads without the boring filler side stories.
They’re called dramas, but they’re all romantic fantasies—the fantasy is that there are too many Gorgeous People who are ALL single, and No One is ogling each other.
As with all romances, microdramas are geared for young females ages 18-34. But really, that’s the age of the heroines. As the bestseller turned blockbuster “Fifty Shades of Grey” has shown, steamy romances are consumed by your aging Auntie and your mom.
These Romantasies use the same no-fail tropes:
a. Hot single Billionaire under 30 marries a Hot Babe for various flimsy reasons (testosterone; they just met; they hooked up; she got pregnant; mistaken identity; and the popular Buy-A-Bride);
b. Hot Babe marries secret billionaire Hot Guy, but she thinks he’s poor;
c. Magical realm power plays where everyone: is buff and bare, has horns or tails, snarls, and is surrounded by fire and rocks.
d. Revenge that develops into a sizzling Stockholm Syndrome.
Compared to a typical production, microdramas can be produced quickly and cheaply—one week for a total of $30,000 with 12 cast members. But with AI using the same two Lead faces and backdrops, you can post a microdrama in a day at $500 per episode. That’s why China can release 470 new microdramas daily.
The Micro in the Drama also refers to the Mind. Not much thought goes into the production, so viewers can’t be discerning nor demanding. So no matter how obvious or silly a misunderstanding is which could have been easily cleared up in the first 30 seconds of the first episode, we must keep watching 36 episodes before the Leads figure out the truth.
Why be bothered if every blind date has the girl sitting at the wrong guy’s table but they still immediately get married? Why is no one asking for each others’ names nor checking each others’ profile pics? They have phones but they’re not Googling each other?
In my case, I shouldn’t point out that no young Asian billionaire would go around without a bodyguard so that any Random Hot Girl can hook up with him. Nor should I wonder why ANYONE would marry a Bland Babe when she’s got no job, no skills, no personality, and no ambition. She’s obviously a You Know What that rhymes with Bold Finger. And let’s not even ask, Why are there no other (middle-aged) men swarming this I Only Got My Looks Gorgeous Girl?!?!
Can Netflix beat microdramas?
Only if we all lose our phones.
TikTok gives you some 10 episodes free, but then you have to pay to see how it ends. We know how it ends, but we don’t know HOW. I didn’t buy into it because I don’t like to spend money, and Reddit said it was hard to unsubscribe, and the drama he signed up for wasn’t even on the app!
YouTube is so smart that it lets you watch microdramas for free, but with ads. That’s why they have longer microdrama watch times than TikTok.
Netflix doesn’t know what to do. It’ moneymaker used to be original content, like the old HBO, but that cost millions to produce. Now Netflix offers a few gripping Asian romantic dramas a month and releases episodes every few days so you don’t cancel your subscription after binge-watching a show. To fill its offerings, it now copies Amazon (?!) and just puts in any random show, podcast, game, and ancient whatever. What are you doing Netflix?!?
The global video streaming industry is worth $200 to $970 billion, and is projected to double. Right now, global Microdramas are only worth over $12 billion, with US as the biggest market outside of China.
To stay in the game, Netflix can learn from Chinese microdramas. Nail your niche, find a surefire trope, and mass duplicate that formula Happily Ever After.
Ivy is a lawyer turned columnist. Follow @IvyDigest on FB, IG, YT, and Linkedin.
