In the palm of a hand, millions of people around the world devour soap operas at the speed of a text message.
They are not long, complex episodes, or recorded with Hollywood budgets, but they achieve what many traditional audiovisual products no longer can: attention.
The vertical format, imported from the digital underbelly of China, is not only redefining the way stories are told, but also the global entertainment market.
“It’s not art, but it’s addiction”: the birth of a phenomenon
By: Gabriel E. Levy B.
When in 2016 TikTok began to expand outside of China, where it was born under the name of Douyin, the world barely sensed the power of a format that prioritized the brief, the visual and the immediate.
By 2020, during the days of confinement, TikTok was already omnipresent. But what came next was not a simple continuation of the viral videos: it was a mutation.
Inspired by that dizzying and emotional style, micro-soap operas made especially to be seen on a vertical screen began to appear.
Its structure is simple: chapters of one to three minutes, scripts full of plot twists, unambiguous dialogues and raw sentimental conflicts.
The style is reminiscent of the radio soap operas of the mid-twentieth century, but compressed, digital and mobile.
And it is not the cultural elite that validates it, but the global masses that do not let go of their cell phones.
“Stories for small screens”: a new expanding ecosystem
The change is not only technical, but cultural. Vertical content was not designed to adapt to the mobile screen: it was born with it.
Stories, like the digital artifacts that house them, became portable, immediate, and fast-consuming. And that transformed not only how they are seen, but what is told.
A recent BBC article states that until March 2025 the applications designed to consume these micro-soap operas were downloaded almost 950 million times worldwide.
A number that forces us to rethink what we understand today by success in the audiovisual sector. Alicia García Herrero, an analyst at the European think tank Bruegel, sums it up precisely: “They are accessible, mobile, fast and addictive”.
This digital narrative, which some call “fast content”, has achieved something that few creative industries achieve with such speed: adapt to user behaviour.
Vertical stories do not appeal to the viewer’s free time, but to their dead time. It is content designed for the subway, for the bed, for the bathroom.
A full series can be consumed between breakfast and lunch break.
The center of this new ecosystem is no longer Hollywood, but an unexpected triangulation between China, the United States, and Singapore.
Many of the leading applications, such as ReelShort or GoodShort, are based in Silicon Valley or Asia, but they drink directly from the mass production model implemented by Chinese platforms such as WeSee or Kwai.
According to the China Internet Services Association, around 30,000 micro-soap operas were produced in that country in 2024 alone, generating revenues of more than 7,000 million dollars.
It is a figure that even exceeds what Chinese cinema grossed in the same period. An economy of emotion that occurs in a chain
Between melodrama and algorithm
The titles seem to be written by an automatic generator of clichés: The double life of my millionaire husband, Destined for my forbidden alpha, My secret royal lover. But behind these sensationalist names there is a very clear logic: to attract the click. And it works.
In London, producer Liu Shanshan has created a real micro-drama workshop. In just one year it has produced 15 series.
Its model is accelerated and efficient: each series of 40 or 50 episodes is recorded in no more than ten days.
The cast is British, the art direction is mixed and the camera never stops rolling. In one of his most recent projects, My Secret Royal Lover, the protagonist is Digby Edgley, former star of the reality show Made in Chelsea, who claims that this type of role gave him back professional validity.
“The pace is very, very fast,” Edgley confesses.
And it is not only in the United Kingdom.
In China, where the genre explodes with real power, there are studios that record up to 100 episodes in a week.
These are shoots that do not require elaborate sets or long post-production days. Priority is given to the agile script, fast editing, addictive editing.
The result is a kind of compressed soap opera, which is consumed in hours and forgotten in minutes. But it always leaves you wanting more.
In Latin America, this type of content is beginning to make its way into the market.
Apps that were once used only by teenagers now also capture housewives, college students and office workers caught between repetitive tasks.
No need to sit in front of the TV at 8 p.m. anymore – drama is available anytime, anywhere.
In conclusion, the vertical format is changing the way the world consumes stories.
Its success does not lie in the technical quality or depth of the scripts, but in their ability to engage. They are products of the present: fast, portable, massive.
In an era where time seems to be at a premium, micro-soap operas offer the one thing everyone still wants: immediate excitement.
References:
- Tower Sensor. Mobile App Consumption Report, 2025.
- García Herrero, Alicia. BBC interview on the cultural impact of vertical content.
- China Internet Services Association. Audiovisual Production and Consumption Report 2024.
- https://www.bbc.com/mundo/articles/c1ldy4yy2myo
