TV is getting dumber

Americans have fallen back in love with going to the movies. The Odyssey is nearing a billion dollars in ticket sales. Spider-Man: Brand New Day already hit a billion. A tiny indie horror called Obsession did almost half a billion at the box office. Yet for a while, the smart money said movies were dead. Hollywood pivoted instead to make big bets on something much smaller: microdramas. Disney, Fox, Alexis O'Hanlon, Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenner—all these bold-faced names poured millions into a format that lives entirely on your phone.

What microdramas actually are

CT Jones, a staff writer at Rolling Stone who covers entertainment and culture, explains that microdramas are short episodic films shot in portrait mode, designed to be watched and shared on your cell phone as you scroll through apps. Each "microdrama" runs between 60 and 90 episodes, with individual episodes ranging from one to ten minutes. The "micro" refers to both the length and the speed of production: tiny budgets, tiny shooting schedules, tiny total runtime.