“I’m sorry I ruined your first kiss,” a handsome young actor says to his love interest, eyes soulfully searching her face while Gen-Z pop star Sombr’s hit single “Back to Friends” croons in the background. “But that fucking prick didn’t deserve it.” Skeptical, the girl next to him shoots back a quick retort, eyes equally heavy with emotion: “So who does deserve it then? You?”
This drama-heavy scene plays in dozens of ads for the microdrama app CandyJar, promoting the vertical show Loving My Brother’s Best Friend. Like the medium’s name suggests, microdramas are short-form vertical series filmed and edited to be consumed entirely on your phone. The narrative draw of LMBBF is immediately apparent — a cast of attractive young adults and all the necessary romantic beats for a forbidden love affair. But what’s more important than the series is the multibillion-dollar ecosystem behind it — one that has taken less than three years to transform from a niche genre into Hollywood’s fastest growing segment of the entertainment machine, drawing in largely female audiences. And though microdramas have long been the Wild West when it comes to production standards SAG-AFTRA, the union that represents actors, voiceover artists, and stunt performers, is now drawing up terms to bring these shows into the fold.
Apps like CandyJar, ReelShort, DramaBox, and ShortTV are some of the most popular microdrama platforms in the industry today, offering viewers the chance to stream hundreds of titles that can be finished faster than the average blockbuster. This isn’t like Netflix, though — one payment to access the entire catalogue. Instead, verticals rely on promotional advertisements and free episodes to get people hooked on storylines and then charge them anywhere from $15 to $50 to finish a series. The genre first took off in China in 2020 in the form of promotional material for written-fiction apps, before companies began focusing on the short dramas entirely.
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Behind the scenes, verticals operate with one key mindset: speed. Which means productions film, edit, and release shows as quickly as possible. But a new agreement in development from SAG-AFTRA is set to target how microdrama sets can operate — holding companies to standardized terms of payment, shoot schedules, budgets, and timelines. Several vertical actors who have come to rely on microdramas for their livelihoods and career growth tell Rolling Stone they’re excited to see their genre continue to grow — they just hope it doesn’t leave them behind in the process.
Loving My Brother’s Best Friend stars actor Nick Skonberg, who recently had his own viral moment after fans heralded his performance as proof that verticals were a new lane for up-and-coming stars. “Saw this ad while i was scrolling,” reads one tweet, which has now been viewed more than 11 million times “Netflix if u dont come and steal this plot bc why was I seated for the whole 2 mins.” Another reads, “the state of Hollywood so bad that the real talented actors are stuck doing poorly written vertical shorts and STILL out acting the nepo babies the studios be hiring.” Such tweets turned Skonberg, 23, from an unknown CandyJar actor into a social media presence with his own small but budding fan base. (Cosmopolitan dubbed him the vertical industry’s first superstar.) But five months ago, Skonberg didn’t even know verticals existed.
“I have friends now who do verticals, who may not have a ton of larger credits, but are fully financially stable from acting. It’s a crash course,” he tells Rolling Stone. “It teaches you to learn your lines, hit your marks, and make sure you’re as prepared as possible, because they move really fast. But I haven’t had to get a second job since graduating and that’s such a privilege.”
The success of microdramas like Skonberg’s seems to be confirmed by growing interest from Hollywood’s biggest union. Early in October, SAG-AFTRA announced it would be releasing an agreement for vertical productions costing $300,000 or less — a framework made to encompass the fast-paced and frugal world of microdramas. On average, according to Backstage, lead microdrama stars are paid around $500 per day for shooting. This is a higher wage than most gigs for non-union actors, who aren’t eligible to join SAG-AFTRA until they’ve been in a certain number of union-covered productions.
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“I haven’t had to get a second job since graduating. That’s such a privilege”
Once finalized, the SAG-AFTRA agreement will mean that microdrama companies will be allowed to hire SAG actors on their projects — giving actors on that set access to SAG-AFTRA rules around compensation, safety, and work hours. In a press release announcing the news, SAG-AFTRA president Sean Astin called the new agreement an example of the union “meeting the moment.” “Over the last few months, it became clear that vertical companies were interested in employing SAG-AFTRA members, but were looking for terms more specific to their type of production than the previously existing new media agreements,” a spokesperson for SAG-AFTRA tells Rolling Stone. “The union was able to learn a great deal about the needs of this type of production from producers in the space both directly and through our members, and created this new agreement which we believe is a great fit for the vertical shorts space.“
Part of what SAG’s forthcoming agreement focuses on is just how unregulated the current vertical marketplace is. The variety of vertical companies means that the experience of filming also changes for the actors involved depending what company they’re working with. In 2024, Rolling Stone found that actors in the vertical space reported that the genre’s growth also allegedly came with grueling hours, poor pay, racial disparity in leading roles, and a lack of regulation.
For vertical actor Sarah Pribis, part of her platform on TikTok — where she shares auditions, set vlogs, BTS clips, and transparent salary breakdowns to her 250,000 followers — is to give people insight into what it means to be a working actor today. After she took a role in the GoodShort drama Bullies Beware of the Billionaire Belle, and vlogged the entire thing, she took on another offer for an additional vertical, and has since said she has plans to work on her own microdrama.
“I think it’s great the union is recognizing these projects,” she says. “The big question for me is whether the vertical companies are going to want to go through all these requirements.”
Molly Anderson, a 24-year-old vertical actor, tells Rolling Stone that the financial freedom that the genre has offered for working actors isn’t something to ignore. “Nothing else out there that’s in this kind of non-union or super independent sphere will pay anywhere near what verticals will make,” Anderson says. “So the fact that verticals have come in and provided developing actors a way to stay and actually have a little bit of a life is a freedom that I don’t take for granted.”
But while she acknowledges just how helpful the typical vertical salary is, she notes that she and other microdrama actresses continue to make less than their male co-stars — a pay disparity that feels frustrating considering how much more many vertical actresses have to do. Many of the most popular storylines revolve around women overcoming terrible circumstances. (Think abusive boyfriends, bullying classmates, relentless bosses.) On a good set, these are accompanied by stunt captains, intimacy coordinators, and directors focused on safety. But since the market is so unregulated, a bad set can feel not only dangerous but a slap in the face, given female actors’ lower pay.
“Actresses, scream, cry, throw up on command, and then run off to go get waterboarded. That’s the typical day”
“The [male actor] is going to be dressed up in a very nice suit,” she says. “And maybe he’s got to shed a single tear once or twice; but for the most part, he’s going to stand in the back, brood, and then sweep you off your feet. For actresses, you scream, cry, throw up on command, and then you run off to go get waterboarded. That’s the typical day.”
Even as many vertical actors are excited about the changes that union reconignition could bring to sets, several vertical studios are hoping to make money in the crowded field by addressing specific gaps in the market. Microdrama company Holywater, run by tech startup founders Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov and responsible for the app My Drama, recently announced an $8 million equity investment from Fox Entertainment. Nesvit tells Rolling Stone the format does so well because it plays into people’s short attention spans. “Microdramas are perfectly tailored for today’s viewing habits shaped by TikTok and Instagram,” he says. “With episodes around a minute long, people can watch anywhere, anytime, without committing to a full-length show.”
When actress Kylie Karson first interacted with the vertical world, she loved the innovation and accessibility microdramas gave up-and-coming creators. But she was also concerned with how an industry with a 75-percent female audience could thrive on stark gender inequities. She co-founded CheraTV, a vertical-based company whose calling card is female ownership, fair pay, and credits for everyone involved.
“The deeper I got [in verticals], the more I realized that some of the same inequities that exist in Hollywood were appearing here too: pay gaps, lack of diversity behind the camera and in front, and an overall undervaluing of women’s contributions,” she tells Rolling Stone. “CheraTV came out of that frustration but also from a deep love for storytelling and the people who make it happen. The vertical format gives us the freedom to experiment and create structures that truly support the people doing the work.”
It’s hard to imagine a world where microdramas successfully replace the film and television that the average consumer watches on streaming services or in theaters. But what expanding microdrama companies are hoping to target is viewers’ in-between time, the passive scrolls that can be taken over by a choice ad placement or intriguing three-minute clip about a cheerleader and a hunky alpha werewolf. Capturing those audiences — and turning a profit at the same time — requires a constant influx of new talent, cheap productions, and fast turnaround time, all of which the SAG-AFTRA agreements could potentially target. All of the actors who spoke to Rolling Stone say they’re excited about the legitimization that union acknowledgement brings; they’re just not sure what will happen in the meantime.
“The balance with verticals is a constant negotiation of how to not get replaced by asking for too much, even if that too much is below typical union standards for any kind of safety, accommodations, or compensation,” Anderson tells Rolling Stone. “I think that unionizing and legitimizing the space is 100 percent the way to go. It’s just going to have a pretty sharp developmental and adjustment period. And I don’t know how smooth that transition is actually going to go.”
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