Love in 60 Seconds

Wanda Brewer was grieving. After losing her brother, she found comfort in an unexpected place: a soap-opera-esque story on Instagram told in 60-second increments. The story? A mafia boss torn between power, family and love. Wanda’s not alone. Millions are bingeing these bite-sized, ultra-dramatic vertical shorts, where sexy werewolves, ruthless billionaires, and love triangles unfold one minute at a time — hooking viewers with cliffhangers and high-stakes drama. From China’s multi-billion-dollar booming industry to your TikTok feed, these soapy, over-the-top dramas are changing the way we watch — and pay for — entertainment. This Valentine’s Day, Endless Thread explores the rise and Americanization of vertical short dramas. Show notes: “Werewolf Billionaire CEO Husbands Are Taking Over Hollywood” (Rolling Stone https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/vertical-short-industry-hollywood-reelshort-dramabox-1235009933/) “Minute-Long Soap Operas Are Here. Is America Ready?” (The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/30/technology/reelshort-video-app.html) “2024 Short Drama Overseas Marketing White Paper” (TikTok https://www.tiktokforbusinessoutbound.com/insights/vtl/15172) Credits: This episode was produced by Cici Yu. It was co-hosted by Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson. Mix and sound design by Emily Jankowski and Paul Vaitkus.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questram School of Business. A recent episode explores how AI is reshaping our schools. Stick around until the end of this podcast to preview the episode.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change, your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time. Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.

• 0:32Speaker 02

  They're running a Cover 2 defense, but you're running to get game day deals on Uber Eats. Keep everyone at tonight's watch party fed with deals from your go-to restaurants, or stock up with deals on your favorite snacks and groceries. Whatever the occasion, get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long. It's not football without food. Uber Eats. Order now. Terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.

• 1:03Speaker 03

  WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

• 1:14Ben Brock Johnson?

  Schmamery.

• 1:16Amory Sivertson?

  Schmam.

• 1:20Ben Brock Johnson?

  Happy Valentine's Day.

• 1:22Amory Sivertson?

  Happy Valentine's Day. I feel like we have always marked the occasion in some way on this show, right?

• 1:28Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 1:29Amory Sivertson?

  Last year, we spoke to the guy who went viral for delivering a PowerPoint presentation about the movie Tenet on a first date. You know, I just printed the slides. It's only like 29 slides.

• 1:39Ben Brock Johnson?

  And then before that was the Canadian girlfriend story.

• 1:42Speaker 06

  I really did have a girlfriend who lived in Canada.

• 1:45Amory Sivertson?

  There was also the Sleeping Beauty proposal story. Remember that?

• 1:49Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, I think someone's going to get engaged today. I wonder who it is.

• 1:54Ben Brock Johnson?

  And who could forget?

• 1:55Amory Sivertson?

  Describe a relationship in one wrestling move. The first thing that came to mind was Gator roll.

• 2:01Speaker 02

  Gator roll.

• 2:07Amory Sivertson?

  This year, CCU, Endless Threads' production fellow emeritus.

• 2:11Speaker 03

  Yes, nice to see you guys again.

• 2:13Amory Sivertson?

  She has a very fitting story for us, involving some wild,

• 2:21Amory Sivertson?

  high drama love stories. Help! Somebody help me!

• 2:26Speaker 03

  Get your hands off my wife. Yeah, so recently I have been chatting with my close friends from college about their post grad life.

• 2:35Amory Sivertson?

  Cece is Chinese, and so are these friends she was catching up with. But unlike Cece, her friends are working as crew members in the film industry.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  But this is not the film industry that you are thinking of, like not the traditional film industry. They are working in vertical shorts.

• 2:56Ben Brock Johnson?

  When you say vertical shorts to me, I think of a piece of clothing.

• 3:03Ben Brock Johnson?

  But this is not that.

• 3:04Speaker 03

  None.

• 3:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  This is... What is this? What's vertical shorts? What does that mean?

• 3:08Speaker 03

  Vertical short dramas, or verticals, or micro dramas, they have so many names. They're like usually under two minutes, sometimes like one minutes.

• 3:16Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 3:17Speaker 03

  And they are usually about love story, romance story.

• 3:21Ben Brock Johnson?

  Hmm.

• 3:22Speaker 03

  Or story about vampire revenge.

• 3:25Ben Brock Johnson?

  Hmm.

• 3:26Speaker 03

  Or conflicts in wealthy family.

• 3:29Ben Brock Johnson?

  Or all three combined, potentially?

• 3:31Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, sometimes.

• 3:33Amory Sivertson?

  In 60 seconds?

• 3:34Speaker 03

  Well, each episode is 60 seconds, like 120 seconds. But the whole series has maybe around 60 to 100 episodes.

• 3:44Ben Brock Johnson?

  Whoa, so this is like a massive serialized, bite-sized story?

• 3:50Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 3:51Amory Sivertson?

  You're really gonna regret breaking up with me when you find out who I really am. You want me to tell your trust fund girl that you're single when you were actually cheating on me with her? Marla, when are you gonna reveal your identity? When I find out what's really happening here.

• 4:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  Wow.

• 4:07Speaker 03

  It's kind of crazy when you're thinking about, you know, just binge watching these kind of short reels on your phone all day.

• 4:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  Uh huh.

• 4:15Speaker 03

  And you know what? And they're not free. You may first see it on Instagram and TikTok or other like social media because, you know, all these producing company pay the advertisement money for exposure.

• 4:28Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 4:28Speaker 03

  But then after a few episodes, they will redirect you to their streaming platforms, where you will need to pay a subscription fee for a whole production, like a whole series.

• 4:41Ben Brock Johnson?

  So, just so I'm understanding this... There's something called vertical shorts that are like dramatized, serialized, miniature soap operas, or soap operas that are cut into miniature pieces. You see that stuff on TikTok or Instagram. It gets its hooks into you and you have to find out if the vampire lover.

• 5:03Speaker 03

  Leave you or not.

• 5:04Ben Brock Johnson?

  Leaves you or not. Leaves the extremely rich character or not. But you can't actually finish the series unless you go to this other platform and pay a subscription fee.

• 5:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:16Amory Sivertson?

  Okay, Cece, we're talking about vampire lovers.

• 5:21Speaker 03

  Are vertical shorts porn? Some people call vertical shorts soft porn because they do show some intimate moments.

• 5:30Amory Sivertson?

  Okay.

• 5:30Speaker 03

  However, it is not porn in a traditional sense because there's no nudity.

• 5:36Amory Sivertson?

  Okay. I have so many questions still, but I feel like maybe we should just watch an example of this. Now that I know that vertical shorts are relatively safe for work.

• 5:46Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, yes. Okay, so this is an Instagram promo for our vertical shorts that one of my friends worked on during the summer. It's called Three Brothers Spoil Me.

• 5:57Amory Sivertson?

  Three Brothers Spoil Me.

• 5:59Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, wow. Interesting. I have a pop up immediately that says, see more from Real Short App. So it's like, kind of, it's advertised. We're engaged. We're even trying for a baby. I'm not going to marry you. Oh, my God, they're immediately in a fight. Handsome people are immediately in a fight. People of lower status should know their place. Ooh, people of lower status should know their place.

• 6:21Amory Sivertson?

  Kicked in the stomach.

• 6:23Ben Brock Johnson?

  There is a lot of drama in a very short. Ooh, a crystal necklace.

• 6:28Amory Sivertson?

  From their birth family? This necklace was given to you when you were born. I guess it's mine now. Mom and dad left a.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  Safe for our sister and only her fingerprints can unlock it.

• 6:40Amory Sivertson?

  We've seen like 12 different characters.

• 6:42Ben Brock Johnson?

  There's a guy holding a crystal necklace again. There's blood now?

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Only a landcaster can summon the swan within.

• 6:51Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay, she's summoning a swan.

• 6:54Amory Sivertson?

  The production value is high, I have to say, like the, the, all of the shots look very professional. And it seems to have a very big cast and.

• 7:04Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yes, I'm not sure how good of actors they are, but.

• 7:08Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, I mean, that's kind of, it seems like, you described it as a soap opera. Yeah. And that feels that, that.

• 7:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  That's right.

• 7:16Amory Sivertson?

  Yes.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 7:17Ben Brock Johnson?

  This is as soapy as it gets.

• 7:20Amory Sivertson?

  Everything about it is over the top. Yeah.

• 7:22Speaker 03

  And people love them because there are so many conflicts that make you continue to watch them and figure out what happened next.

• 7:30Amory Sivertson?

  So you have a personal connection to this of some sort, obviously, Cece, with these friends who work in the industry. But why is this interesting to you?

• 7:38Speaker 03

  So these cheesy, soapy, 60 seconds, vertical shorts are actually a multi-billion dollar industry, believe it or not. And we are not watching them, but many people are. So I just wondering like, why are they watching them? Who are these people? Why they are so popular? What does the popularity of vertical short tell us about the future of social media content and the future of Hollywood?

• 8:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  All great questions.

• 8:17Ben Brock Johnson?

  Amory, you ready to go long on vertical shorts?

• 8:20Amory Sivertson?

  I am ready to summon a swan, yes. I'm Amory Sivertson.

• 8:25Ben Brock Johnson?

  I'm Ben Brock, Werewolf CEO Johnson, which doesn't make sense right now, but it will. And you're listening to Endless Thread.

• 8:33Amory Sivertson?

  Coming to you from WBUR, Boston's NPR. Today's episode?

• 8:37Ben Brock Johnson?

  Love in 60 seconds.

• 8:48Speaker 06

  I love you, Carolyn Mills.

• 8:50Speaker 03

  Love you too, Mr. Love.

• 8:52Speaker 06

  Why can't you just let me move on, huh?

• 8:54Speaker 03

  I gave up everything to be with you instead of someone my father wanted me to marry.

• 8:58Speaker 06

  Do you regret it?

• 9:00Speaker 03

  No.

• 9:01Ben Brock Johnson?

  OK, so here's what we know about this industry. It started in China. The first vertical short dramas appeared on Chinese social media platforms during the pandemic.

• 9:11Amory Sivertson?

  Between 2021 and 2022, more than 3,000 series were produced. By 2024, the vertical short market in China was valued at nearly $7 billion, with tens of thousands of production companies in the game. There has been 83,000 related companies that are registered in this area in China. So that's a really huge amount of practitioners. That's Xiaoting Yu. She's an investigator with the Digital Media Research Center at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. Xiaoting's been researching vertical shorts in both the Chinese and overseas markets.

• 9:54Ben Brock Johnson?

  And according to the data she's been studying, there are currently more than 80 different streaming apps for vertical shorts. Things like Real Short, Drama Box, Good Short, Short Shorts. OK, I made that one up. By the end of last year, they'd gotten 287 million downloads in overseas markets collectively, bringing in another $500 million to the vertical shorts industry.

• 10:18Amory Sivertson?

  So that brings us to the business model of the industry. Because the apps themselves are generally free, but their content is not. Well, maybe the first five to 10 episodes of a vertical short series are, but after that, you have to pay to unlock more by buying coins.

• 10:37Ben Brock Johnson?

  Don't you love it when the digital world uses the quaint concept of the olden times, like Coins of the Realm, Emery?

• 10:45Amory Sivertson?

  I wouldn't want to pay to watch minute-long soap operas on my handheld supercomputer any other way, Ben.

• 10:54Ben Brock Johnson?

  All right, so let's talk numbers for one more minute. Take the most popular of these apps, Real Short, as an example. In this app, 500 coins costs $4.99. You get a free coin. Each episode costs anywhere from 30 to 110 coins to watch. So if you want to watch a 70-episode series-

• 11:15Amory Sivertson?

  Yes, there are 70-episode vertical shorts series.

• 11:19Ben Brock Johnson?

  You'd spend about $25 on the low end just for that one series. It's like going to the movies.

• 11:27Amory Sivertson?

  Or you could subscribe to the app's premium plan to get unlimited streaming access for the, say what, price of $19.99 per week. Compare that to an ad-free Netflix subscription of $17.99 per month.

• 11:44Ben Brock Johnson?

  Man. But Shouting You told us that the big money in the vertical shorts industry doesn't come from the weekly subscribers. It comes from those in-app coin buyers, the ones who are spending money one series or one episode at a time.

• 12:00Speaker 03

  That doesn't matter whether you are going to watch every episode, watch it in full lens. As long as you are so attracted to the first few minutes and you're willing to pay for just micro payment for the first few minutes, the money's back.

• 12:24Amory Sivertson?

  Now, some American listeners out there might be thinking, wait a minute. Didn't we have something like these vertical shorts streaming apps at some point? Well, you're probably thinking of Quibi.

• 12:35Ben Brock Johnson?

  Quibi? Now, that's a name I have not heard in what feels like centuries.

• 12:41Amory Sivertson?

  Long time. Quibi launched back in 2020. It was founded by Hollywood executives who wanted to offer high-budget, short-form dramas that you could watch on mobile devices.

• 12:52Ben Brock Johnson?

  Quibi, interestingly, was based around a subscription model. That is another Ben, Ben Woods. He is a video and creator economy analyst working at Media Research, a research firm in London focused on the digital content economy. But actually, we believe at Media that actually the short-form platforms are really geared much more towards a younger consumer.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  And these younger consumers don't really have the same kind of cash flow as an older consumer does.

• 13:23Ben Brock Johnson?

  British Ben says when Quibi launched, people were using social media on their phones, of course, but they weren't heavily using their phones for entertainment purposes yet.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  But that's completely changed. Social video platforms like TikTok are increasingly more about entertainment than they are about socializing. What we've also found is that there's a growing trend. It began as almost like a form of piracy of consumers uploading TV shows and movies onto the platform and then capturing the cultural imagination.

• 13:59Amory Sivertson?

  And now you see people creating entertainment to be consumed specifically on phones.

• 14:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  But the people consuming these mini melodramas are not who you might think.

• 14:10Amory Sivertson?

  Who are they? That intel is going to cost you 10,000 coins.

• 14:16Ben Brock Johnson?

  Which costs you $99.99. Or you can just wait until after the break.

• 14:44Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questrom School of Business. How should employers measure real skills in the age of AI? Instead of observing the final artifact, instead of observing the final essay or the final program, observe the entire process of creation. Follow Is Business Broken? wherever you get your podcasts and stick around until the end of this podcast for a preview of a recent episode on rethinking academic and job assessment when AI can do the work.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time.

• 15:35Speaker 02

  Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing. They're running a cover two defense. But you're running to get game day deals on Uber Eats. Keep everyone at tonight's watch party fed with deals from your go to restaurants. Or stock up with deals on your favorite snacks and groceries. Whatever the occasion, get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long. It's not football without food. Uber Eats. Order now. Terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.

• 16:10Amory Sivertson?

  I have to say, like in the beginning, I thought they were incredibly cheesy and horrific. I was horrified by the themes like vampires, alpha wolves, packs, my alpha male is my lover.

• 16:27Ben Brock Johnson?

  Catherine Liu is a professor of film and media studies at the University of California, Irvine. And when she first learned about vertical shorts, she had a particular image in her head of who was watching them.

• 16:39Amory Sivertson?

  I thought maybe like older women would be the target audience. You know, it's kind of like the target audience of talk shows, like Tom Selleck or soap operas. I could lose everything. Just all of it. I just don't want to lose you, Rachel. But Professor Liu has been studying the industry over the last few years along with her students. And she's learned just how wrong she was. But in fact, the audience is much younger, 17 to 34. It's much more educated than you would think. It's like 40, 60, male, female, split.

• 17:16Ben Brock Johnson?

  40% men?

• 17:18Amory Sivertson?

  You can admit you like sexy werewolves, Ben. This is a safe space. I do wonder though, as Professor Liu did, what these young, educated people get out of watching vertical shorts, you know? Like what part of their brains or souls are these mini sods feeding? What we saw was that the fragmentation of time, the use of the cell phone, the shortening of attention spans, the toughness of the work.

• 17:47Speaker 03

  Workday allows for a one-minute escape moment for people who have really complicated, fragmented time and work schedules.

• 18:00Ben Brock Johnson?

  This is terrifying to me, but that also makes sense to me. It's like, why so many of us check social media in the bathroom, right? I'm not saying I do that. I'm just saying people.

• 18:11Amory Sivertson?

  I would never do that, never.

• 18:14Ben Brock Johnson?

  Vertical shorts are just another way to spend those little mental breaks in our day.

• 18:19Speaker 03

  They're quick. They are meant to make money. I mean, there's, it's just unabashed about that, and they're escapist.

• 18:27Amory Sivertson?

  For those 60 or so seconds, we're not just escaping our workloads, Professor Liu says. We might be escaping our whole lives. She points to a genre of Chinese television known as the nanny genre.

• 18:41Ben Brock Johnson?

  Shows within this genre always depict a babysitter, an oppressed figure in this case, living with a wealthy family. The babysitter has a hard life until, of course, you know where this is going. She marries one of the wealthy family members and lives happily ever after, maybe.

• 18:58Speaker 03

  You don't have your personal life, but then you have this fantasy that you're going to find that someone's going to fall in love with you, that they're very wealthy, that they see you for who you are. It's very deep, like wish fulfillment.

• 19:11Amory Sivertson?

  In vertical shorts' storylines, though, this sense of wish fulfillment is often combined with more overt fantasy. Enter those vampire lovers we were talking about.

• 19:21Speaker 03

  You have to suck my blood every day, or we'll both die.

• 19:26Ben Brock Johnson?

  TikTok, the company, wanted to know more about this, specifically more about what kinds of storylines and characters American audiences were drawn to, since that platform is how a lot of people find out about vertical shorts.

• 19:40Amory Sivertson?

  According to a report TikTok released last year, "We like what we like here in America, and what we like are werewolves." Woof! Check. CEOs.

• 19:51Ben Brock Johnson?

  Hmm, do we?

• 19:54Amory Sivertson?

  And reincarnated characters.

• 19:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  Ooh.

• 19:59Amory Sivertson?

  Roles that mix personal struggles with triumphant endings.

• 20:02Ben Brock Johnson?

  So realism mixed with fantasy?

• 20:05Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, like this could maybe actually happen to you. So you should probably keep coughing up coins to find out how this plays out, just in case you too should say yes to the werewolf.

• 20:17Ben Brock Johnson?

  You know who's definitely saying yes to that werewolf?

• 20:20Speaker 03

  Okay, squirrel, stop playing.

• 20:22Ben Brock Johnson?

  Wanda.

• 20:23Speaker 03

  Sorry about that. I'm outside. The squirrels are playing.

• 20:27Amory Sivertson?

  Wanda Brewer is in her mid 30s, lives in Tennessee, and when she's not outside watching squirrels frolic, she's watching another kind of frolicking in vertical shorts.

• 20:38Speaker 03

  Well, I call them series. I don't call them verticals like everybody else does.

• 20:42Ben Brock Johnson?

  One of Wanda's favorite series is Fated to My Forbidden Alpha,

• 20:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  which she stumbled upon two years ago, just messing around on Instagram, she says.

• 20:56Speaker 03

  That seems like a good series to watch.

• 20:58Amory Sivertson?

  The alpha is Alpha Alexander, of course, played by an actor named Casey Esser.

• 21:05Speaker 07

  I don't care if you're a maid or an orphan. I will take care of you now.

• 21:11Ben Brock Johnson?

  Whoa, spicy. Wanda isn't just a fan of Casey Esser's.

• 21:16Speaker 03

  Casey, you are an amazing actor and a person.

• 21:20Ben Brock Johnson?

  She is the administrator of the Casey Esser fandom account on Instagram.

• 21:25Speaker 03

  I got obsessed with watching his series because you could tell when he acts, he gets really into his characters.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Course it's you. You always try to take what's mine. I warned you what happened if you hurt her.

• 21:42Speaker 03

  Some people might like him as a werewolf, CEO, or a dad, but I kind of like him as a mafia boss.

• 21:51Ben Brock Johnson?

  I would say yes to a mafia boss.

• 21:53Amory Sivertson?

  They make you an offer you can't refuse. Wanda can't resist either, in part because vertical shorts are designed to keep you watching.

• 22:03Speaker 03

  It's something you can actually get into instead of having to wait till, all you gotta wait till next week to see what happens. Right then and there, you can get right to the next episode.

• 22:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  Shouting you from Queensland University of Technology has a special term for vertical shorts: emotional fast food. They are only focusing on romance, revenge, very simple storyline, predictable.

• 22:26Speaker 03

  But they're still retaining the audience every minute because they try to create that instant satisfaction or gratification every minute.

• 22:38Amory Sivertson?

  And the final product feels more intimate, Xiaoteng says. You're watching it on your phone, like your own personal secret. And the MO for the cinematography seems to be zoom in.

• 22:50Speaker 03

  They bring that closeness and they bring that kind of miniatureized world of storytelling to the audience. And that's creating a sense of affection in the minds of the audience. I like them all, even if it's cheesy or revenge or romantic, because in the end they end up the happy ever after.

• 23:17Ben Brock Johnson?

  For superfan Wanda, this feeling of closeness to the characters in Vertical Shorts has been comforting.

• 23:23Speaker 03

  It helps me with my anxiety. It helps me with my depression because March 6th of 2023, I lost my brother. And I watched one of his series. It helped me out a whole lot.

• 23:41Amory Sivertson?

  Wanda points to a series called The Rise of Mr. and Mrs. Mafia, in which a kind young doctor named Lance, played by her favorite actor Casey Esser, of course, has to take care of his mafia family after his father dies. Wanda says she connected with Lance's grief and his struggles with taking on family responsibilities. We both know that your brother can't handle the throne. And after I'm gone, this business, this family, it can't go on without you.

• 24:09Speaker 03

  I kind of seen myself as Casey's character, Lance, in that part, not the doctor part. I wish I could be the doctor, but the family part.

• 24:21Ben Brock Johnson?

  Vertical Shorts may be relatively new, but their storylines, from mafia doctors to lascivious billionaire husbands to sexy CEOs, are not. Xiaoteng told us these streaming apps are usually backed by online book publishing groups.

• 24:38Amory Sivertson?

  Publishers that own a lot of intellectual property in the form of web novels or fanfiction.

• 24:44Speaker 03

  They have that advantage of converting this IP into audio visual content. And I think that's Why we are seeing this gaining popularity? First of all, because this company behind them, they are already invested in the IP of those content storylines. And they know that what kind of content will be very popular among the readers. I'll give her my kidney if you marry me.

• 25:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  All right, I'll marry you. Just keep Rebecca alive. Well, someone gets married and someone else keeps Rebecca alive. Let's hear more on creating these things. You heard producer Cece mention her friends working in the vertical shorts industry. And one of those friends is Anna.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  Whenever I watch people shoot, I can't, I can't hold my laughter. And I can tell that even the director can't hold their laughters. Because some scripts are like really silly and funny.

• 25:47Ben Brock Johnson?

  Anna lives in New York City. And last summer, she helped produce five vertical shorts series, just last summer.

• 25:54Speaker 03

  As a new graduate, I definitely want to like work harder, work extra hour to get people to recognize me.

• 26:03Amory Sivertson?

  And Anna told us that, yep, a lot of vertical shorts series that are popular in the US are adaptations of popular Chinese web novels. But they're also sometimes adaptations of Chinese vertical shorts that were a hit.

• 26:16Speaker 03

  The screenwriter translated into the US script and makes some, some parts of the script like Americanized, more understandable for the American audience.

• 26:29Ben Brock Johnson?

  Americanized as in they throw in some American slang.

• 26:33Amory Sivertson?

  And maybe some more werewolves and CEOs and reincarnated characters, since that's what we apparently like, according to that TikTok audience analysis.

• 26:42Ben Brock Johnson?

  And by the way, not only the scripts are being Americanized here, so are the casts.

• 26:48Amory Sivertson?

  If you're thinking hashtag vertical shorts, so what?

• 26:52Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yep. Professor Catherine Liu told us that when vertical shorts came to the US, those Chinese production companies cast white actors to play the protagonists. They're still working from a Chinese paradigm, which is that, you know, America is white. They don't understand the complexity and the diversity of American society. They do.

• 27:14Speaker 03

  I understand DEI for better or worse. And it's really about fantasies, like this projection. Like, I think they just think like romance is white people. And then we have everyday life, which is normal people.

• 27:35Ben Brock Johnson?

  Do you think the industry has done a good job of Americanizing the product?

• 27:43Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 27:45Amory Sivertson?

  This is Tony, Cece's other friend.

• 27:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  That's a deep sigh, Tony.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  I wouldn't, I wouldn't say so.

• 27:55Amory Sivertson?

  Tony works as a cameraman in the vertical shorts industry, also in New York City.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  I don't think this is an Americanizing issue. It's more like a script quality issue.

• 28:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay, fair enough.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just mass-produced garbage.

• 28:14Ben Brock Johnson?

  Wow.

• 28:21Ben Brock Johnson?

  Tony, if you couldn't already tell, is pretty burned out on making vertical shorts. Anna is too. This particular corner of the larger industry seems to be soaring, but these up-and-coming filmmaker spirits sure aren't.

• 28:37Amory Sivertson?

  And they told us neither are their paychecks, at least from some of the vertical shorts production companies they've worked for.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  They pay us minimum wage and giving us like no contract.

• 28:49Ben Brock Johnson?

  All right, no contract, not great. Minimum wage, not what you want. But the reason for the skimpy pay might be skimpy budgets. According to that TikTok analysis of the industry from last year, a vertical shorts production company, like the ones Anna and Tony worked for, usually has a budget of about $150,000 to $170,000 for an entire series.

• 29:14Amory Sivertson?

  Compare that to Netflix's original series budgets, which range from $3 million to $15 million per episode. Anna says the vertical shorts industry is a shortcut of everything.

• 29:28Speaker 03

  They squeezed the normal production of one to two months into like seven days of the production.

• 29:36Speaker 03

  And they also like exploit our like energies of making meaningful contents into like a short use of time and using the 12 hours to get as much as they need from like all the crews and cast.

• 29:57Amory Sivertson?

  And Anna told us that for one of those 12 hour workdays, she was only making $150 as a script supervisor on her first set.

• 30:06Ben Brock Johnson?

  You can't pay New York rent on that.

• 30:09Amory Sivertson?

  No, you cannot. But you can't pay rent on no work either, which is why we're not using Anna and Tony's last names. They can't afford to burn bridges in an industry that is offering them something right now.

• 30:24Ben Brock Johnson?

  Xiaoting Yu from Queensland University of Technology says that vertical shorts have filled a labor void in the film industry, especially over the last couple of years, when we saw tens of thousands of union actors and screenwriters and crew members on strike. And during that time, vertical shorts production companies swooped in with opportunities for non-union workers. They're trying to revitalize the market by hiring the redundancy in the current industry. So there's work to be had, but the hours are long and the pay is bad. Then again, people are watching these vertical shorts that Tony and Anna are making.

• 31:08Amory Sivertson?

  Wanda sure is. So you'd think it'd be rewarding on some level to know that people are enjoying the fruits of their creative labor, right? Right?

• 31:17Speaker 03

  I think vertical shorts is a opposite of creativity. Like, working in those contents, I think is very like pathetic of us.

• 31:28Amory Sivertson?

  Pathetic, Anna says. And that's not all she has to say about vertical shorts.

• 31:34Ben Brock Johnson?

  How do you feel like this content impacts the creativity industry?

• 31:42Speaker 03

  Just destroying the creative industry, for sure. I know that ninety-eight percent of the crew and like cast working on vertical shorts don't appreciate the creative aspect of it. And almost everyone is working for it only for the pay. For people like us who just graduated from college. It's very unfortunate that because of all the strikes, all the stuff happening in the industry, that we don't really have the chance to like, experience what is it like to create meaningful content.

• 32:28Amory Sivertson?

  Making vertical shorts might not feel meaningful to Anna, but that doesn't mean they aren't meaningful at all, says Professor Catherine Liu of UC Irvine. She's been really impressed with the vertical shorts she's studied with her students.

• 32:41Speaker 03

  What they're able to do with vertical drama is already really great, considering the budgetary constraints. There is no reason why the format could not adapt or adopt science fiction, action thriller, horror, film noir, which I think are really, really, really mature, interesting, critical, escapist, but also like really mentally stimulating genres.

• 33:12Ben Brock Johnson?

  Professor Liu has created something called the International Short Drama Festival at UC Irvine, which includes an award ceremony, like the Oscars, but for vertical shorts.

• 33:23Amory Sivertson?

  The awards include things like Best Action Short Drama, Best Actress in a Short Series, but also Best Werewolf Drama.

• 33:36Speaker 03

  To raise the level and the quality of these dramas by, you know, giving people awards and distinction and creating distinction and recognizing achievements in the genre.

• 33:48Ben Brock Johnson?

  All of this leads to a much bigger question. Is this where Hollywood is going? Are vertical shorts the future of the film industry? It would definitely not take over the

• 34:00Speaker 03

  Current legacy media.

• 34:02Ben Brock Johnson?

  Shouting you again.

• 34:04Speaker 03

  Because I think that like we're witnessing online drama or web drama. They've gained their significance for some time, but never been able to replace the true quality or premium content that are produced by professionals.

• 34:22Amory Sivertson?

  But Shouting also says that even though vertical shorts might not replace Hollywood, they could influence it in some way.

• 34:30Speaker 03

  What they will left are just traces or imprints that will change or shape the current consumer habits and industry practices. Because the legacy media always absorb what's working from this new economy.

• 34:52Amory Sivertson?

  This is an interesting way to think about the potential impact of vertical shorts. That maybe they won't upheave the film and TV industry as we know it, but they might inform or disrupt it in small ways over time.

• 35:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, like maybe movies will stop being three plus hours long. I'm looking at you, The Irishman.

• 35:14Amory Sivertson?

  And The Brutalist.

• 35:16Ben Brock Johnson?

  No, The Brutalist is fine. They got an intermission. It's fine.

• 35:19Amory Sivertson?

  Do they really?

• 35:20Ben Brock Johnson?

  And it's a better movie, just saying.

• 35:22Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, God. Well, for every year that vertical shorts continue to be produced, feature-length films will get 60 to 90 seconds shorter on average.

• 35:31Ben Brock Johnson?

  But also, let's hope those production companies get organized so Anna and Tony can get paid.

• 35:37Amory Sivertson?

  I'll howl at that moon all day.

• 35:46Ben Brock Johnson?

  This episode was produced by CCU. It was co-hosted by myself and Amory Sivertson.

• 35:52Amory Sivertson?

  It was mixed and sound designed by Emily Jankowski.

• 35:55Ben Brock Johnson?

  Our managing producer is Sumita Joshi. Our production manager is Paul Vikes. The rest of our team is Dean Russell, Grace Tatter, Franny Monahan, and Caitlin Harrop.

• 36:05Amory Sivertson?

  Endless Thread is a show about the blurred lines between online communities and reincarnated werewolf CEOs. Just put them all together.

• 36:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  If you've got an unsolved mystery, an untold history, a crazy story from the internet you want us to tell, if you want to tell me about your opinions about my opinions on The Irishman or The Brutalist.

• 36:26Amory Sivertson?

  Or if you want to tell us about a vertical short that you think we should watch,

• 36:31Ben Brock Johnson?

  Hit us up.

• 36:33Amory Sivertson?

  Email [email protected].

• 36:48Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken? A podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questram School of Business. Follow Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts and listen on for a preview of a recent episode featuring Janet Kang, Executive Director of the Just Horizons Alliance, on who stands to benefit from AI in education.

• 37:10Speaker 03

  I am absolutely in favor of AI in learning in the right context.

• 37:15Speaker 07

  And just to explain why you're excited about it.

• 37:17Speaker 03

  Oh, my gosh, individualized support, right? Personalization and to be able to scale quality education in places where it was historically impossible. So for certain kinds of learners with different kinds of learning styles and disabilities, for example, speakers of different languages, there are amazing ways AI can boost learning. It just has to be with the right context. And age appropriateness is something we do a lot of work in because it is very different depending on where in that maturity cycle you are in terms of how your brain develops.

• 37:48Speaker 00

  Find the full episode by searching for Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts and learn more about the Marotra Institute for Business Markets and Society at ibms.bu.edu.

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