“Bound by Honor,” billed as a “top series” on ReelShort, opens with a young woman being drugged and coerced into marriage. In “Divorced at the Wedding Day,” a “popular” pick on DramaBox, a pregnant widow is whipped and pushed onto broken glass at an engagement party before being locked up in a crate.
ReelShort and Disney-backed DramaBox are the market leaders in the rising category of micro dramas, made-for-mobile soaps that feature fast-paced action and wild plots. As the format has ballooned into a $1.4 billion business in the US, producers and fans tell Business Insider they have grown increasingly uncomfortable with the prevalence of plots full of graphic violence, abuse, and misogyny. The problem: boundary-pushing scenes keep people glued to the action.
“The data scientists making these decisions, they’ll say, ‘I know we’re not supposed to stab pregnant women, but that’s what the data says we need to do,'” said Thom Woodley, a longtime micro drama filmmaker.
ReelShort and DramaBox didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story.
The tension springs from the business model of the micro drama format, which originated in Asia and has expanded globally. These low-budget, heavily formulaic films — presented in bite-sized episodes — are designed to get people to pay after a certain number of free episodes. To do that, they need a steady stream of outlandish plot twists and cliffhangers, often involving humiliation and pleasure points. Many of the stories come from Chinese web novels that have been adapted to the screen and localized.
Cate Fogarty, a micro drama director-writer, said one project she worked on called for 27 slaps.
“The actors actually got a little tired of it,” she said. Still, the client said it had to be performed as written.
“It went on to be pretty successful,” she added.
DramaBox via YouTube
In a November survey of 1,670 micro drama fans, excessive violence was the dominant criticism, with 57% saying there was too much of it. The survey was conducted by Jen Cooper, an independent, UK-based micro drama consultant.
As long as people keep watching, however, producers say it can be hard to convince the platforms to shake up their strategies.
“Platforms tend to repeat what’s successful,” said Candace Mizga, a micro drama actor and writer-producer. “No one wants to take a risk in a new market. They’re optimizing for immediate returns.”
Beyond cutting the slaps, micro drama fans have also called for more diversity in casting and storylines. In Cooper’s survey, respondents said they wanted more strong female leads (cited by 77%), culturally diverse casting (54%), and older characters (42%).
ReelShort and DramaBox previously told Business Insider that they were moving to increase diversity in casts and story types. Producers said they had noticed that micro drama apps have been producing more gay-themed series lately.
Creators are pushing for change
Filmmakers and actors say they’re limited in their ability to influence content decisions because the series are often made under a work-for-hire arrangement, and the apps, not the filmmakers, have full control over the creative.
Mizga, who started working in the space during COVID, said she’s been told “many times” in shoots that she “looks too strong” and that she needs to “look weaker.” She recalled a drama in which her character was portrayed positively for staying with her male abuser after a sexual assault. She said it “didn’t feel good,” but she needed the work.
There are signs that the industry could change as the apps seek to do business with Hollywood. Filmmakers said sets have become more professional, with better acting and scripts, and that intimacy and stunt coordinators have become more common. Along with that, some actors and filmmakers say they’ve been able to push back on insensitive storylines. Fans are also speaking up in online chats.
Isabel Dréan, who makes micro dramas and teaches others to do so, said it’s hard for writers to speak out until they get established. Until then, they can try to write fewer slap scenes in scripts.
“I tell writers, do what you have to do to get produced,” said Dréan, author of “How to Write a Vertical Series in 10 Days.” “Then it’s your choice.”
Despite the negatives, many filmmakers stress the positives of micro dramas, also called “verticals.” They provide work in a tightened market for Hollywood talent and offer a creative challenge to keep people’s attention, since viewers can be lost with a flick of the thumb.
“Creatively, it’s puzzle solving,” Dréan said. “It’s hard coming up with 50 cliffhangers.”
Some women also say verticals have given them a chance to direct and lead, opportunities they didn’t see for themselves in the traditional film and TV world.
“Our last show, all our crew were women,” Fogarty said.
New platforms are trying a different approach
Newer platforms are also emerging and pitching themselves as more reliant on character-driven stories and less on shock value, using tags like “contemporary” and “female empowerment” — even if the stories still use tropes like revenge and passion to drive the action.
Mizga is cofounding a new platform called Chera TV that bills itself as a female-founded verticals company for diverse and underrepresented creators. She said she’s trying to build dramatic tension through “character development instead of relying on a slap.”
FlareFlow, a year-old app launched by COL Group International, a Chinese company that is also a part owner of ReelShort, is emphasizing stories driven by character and plot over “sensational but hollow tags used merely for clicks,” said Timothy Oh, general manager of COL Group.
Then there’s GammaTime, a new micro drama platform from Bill Block, the former CEO of Miramax, which is calling itself the “Netflix of premium short-form storytelling.”
“We just want to be thoughtful about it. We’re definitely not interested in shock value or sexual exploitation,” said Sandra Yee Ling, GammaTime’s head of production.
GammaTime via YouTube
The forthcoming “The Royal Wedding Planner,” for example, centers on the love triangle trope, but GammaTime says that the main female rival isn’t a stereotypical villain. In another one that’s in the works, a woman sets out to get revenge on her cheating husband, then decides to take a different, more empowering path.
Yee Ling believes many of the apps fall back on extremes because the format depends on driving maximal emotions, and you don’t have a lot of time to grab the audience.
“I think that we can get emotions from a wider range of audiences, with different stories,” Yee Ling said. “But you still have to work within the restraints of the medium, which is short attention span.”
