SHORT AND SWEET

In a time of falling attention spans, no wonder micro dramas—truncated soap operas whose episodes last a maximum of three minutes—are all the rage

- By SUHANI SINGH

ONE DAY, ACTOR CHETAN HANSRAJ DITCHED HIS CAR AND TOOK A MUMBAILOCAL instead to head to a shoot in Vasai. What he saw in one of the compartments was an unexpected but welcome sight, especially given his destination: a bunch of passengers glued to their phones, watching short videos with visibly corny scenarios, melodramatic dialogue and action intensifying in just over two minutes before ending with a shocking cliffhanger, making the next episode almost impossible to skip. He was, of course, no stranger to the format. His Vasai shoot was for one of these very videos, which are closer to soap operas than anything else. The industry has taken to calling them micro dramas, and he has been involved in four already, playing hypermasculine and authoritative men, often opposite tiny-waisted women. As he watched his prospective audience, he became convinced that this format's unabashed pulpiness won't detract from it from becoming the future of online storytelling.

He may not be wrong. India is one of the most recent to jump on the micro drama bandwagon, but countries like China, the United States and South Korea have been at it for years now. For instance, the most popular categories on Chinese micro drama streaming app DramaBox include 'mistaken identity' (I Kissed a CEO and He Liked It), 'age-gap love' (Daddy Dominant's Good Girl) and 'flash marriage' (A Stormy Marriage). The industry spawned 5,000 of these productions in China last year and amassed 50.44 billion yuan ($6.9 billion), surpassing even theatrical revenues. Globally, the format is projected to be valued at more than $10 billion by 2030.