Who Is Actually Watching Microdramas?
When Camilla wakes up in a remote wilderness cabin after being rescued, she meets Jack, a reclusive widower who nurses her back to health with his brash but well-meaning sensibility. Isolated and cautious of her mysterious saviour, will Camilla trust Jack and overcome their dark pasts together? The answer is just a scroll away in Holywater Tech’s vertical microdrama series, Wild Silence.
Such is how the plots of digital microdramas go. Attractive men and women lead romance stories in which plot twists are sharp turns that keep you swiping, fueling the appetite for short-form content that gave rise to TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. In the case of Wild Silence, former Dancing With The Stars pro Maksim Chmerkovskiy leads, marking an early celebrity endorsement in a space that recognizable actors have yet to cash in on.
Built for an audience prone to scrolling, microdramas are vertical video series with episodes that are typically between 1 and 3 minutes long. They’re viewed on phones and often follow a formula associated with television soap operas. They’re also a multibillion-dollar business estimated to reach $26 billion in annual revenue by 2030, per Variety.
Microdramas first gained popularity in Asian markets, primarily China and India, where they have held on to engaged audiences since COVID-19 lockdowns. However, North American audiences are flocking to platforms like Holywater Tech, ReelShort, and DramaBox. Per HubIntel, the burgeoning market is even attracting high-profile investors such as Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenner, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, who have bought into Miramax CEO Bill Block’s newly launched app, GammaTime.
The buzzy drama format is certainly making legacy Hollywood look twice, but who are the people watching these twisty microdramas?
Holywater Tech tells SheKnows that over its 85 million users, its core audience is women aged 25–45, though the platform says it has successfully expanded to a male audience. Just as we see in mainstream media amid the popularity of Heated Rivalry and fantasy novels, top-performing subgenres on Holywater Tech include sports romance, thrillers, romantasy, and LGBTQ+ series.
According to a 2024 Hubs Research study, 22% of consumers said they watch microdramas online. Their numbers skew younger than Holywater Tech’s engaged audience, with Gen Z showing more interest than older audiences. 35% of consumers ages 13 to 24 said they watch microdramas, compared with the general population. Hispanic consumers also show more interest at 41%. Spanish-language networks TelevisaUnivision and Telemundo launched their own mobile microdrama apps in 2025 amid this growing demand, per Forbes.
Given the nascent nature of the medium, microdramas are still finding their audience in a market laced with skepticism about whether these shows are here to stay or just a fad passing through.