During the Spring Festival holiday, are your friends and family surrounded by skits?

During the Spring Festival, short plays have become the first choice for many people to pass the time. From enjoying them alone late at night to entertaining them at the dinner table, short plays have quickly captured the public's attention with their fast plot advancement and dopamine-like pleasure. This article will explore how short plays have become a national entertainment consumption product, analyze the cultural consumption characteristics behind them, and their future development trends.

At twelve o'clock in the middle of the night, Yixia's phone screen was still dimly lit. Her fingers swiped mechanically, and the melodramatic plots in the skit poured out like a flood: the poor daughter who gave out 5 million yuan as a breakup fee, the gigolo boyfriend who was exposed as the richest man, the fake sisters who rolled their eyes at each other... She yawned, and her eyelids were glued together at the moment she suddenly woke up - in the next episode, the heroine will slap her face at the banquet for revenge!

This is not a late-night secret exclusive to middle-aged women. During the leisure time of winter vacation, Xiaochen, who is still a junior in college, was finishing the last bite of takeaway food to the sound of slapping in "Let Her In"; during the lunch break at the law firm, Milk Tea Sister secretly glanced at the mixed-cut video of He Jianqi, the male lead of "Flowers Like Dreams"; even the edge of the coffee cup of private equity elite Fei Youpeng was reflected with the warm embrace scene of "Falling in Love at 50".

According to the "White Paper on the Development of China's Micro Drama Industry (2024)" released by the China Internet Audiovisual Association, the scale of users in the micro drama industry has exceeded 576 million, accounting for 52.4% of the total number of netizens. When we thought that short videos were the end of the battle for attention, more than half of Internet citizens watched short dramas for two hours per episode, making them a new generation of Internet cultural consumption dark horse.

As of November 2024, the monthly active users (MAU) of ByteDance's Hongguo Short Dramas have reached 140 million, and the daily active users (DAU) have increased more than 6 times in the past 10 months.

On February 2, Liu Xiaoqing, a popular female figure, also shared her daily routine of watching dramas during the Spring Festival on Weibo, saying "I love watching short dramas and enjoy myself while I can." Netizens praised her for keeping up with the trend of the times. The accompanying picture is the Hongguo short drama history record page. "Jiangnan Season", "Twilight Snow City" and "My Mermaid Husband" are all new works launched during the Spring Festival.

From the "electronic pickled mustard" in the sinking market to the "dopamine maker" sought after by the whole nation, behind this carnival, we found several in-depth short drama users to communicate with, trying to analyze how the short drama industry accurately captures user needs, what unique cultural consumption characteristics it has, and what development prospects it has.

1. Entertainment before bed, a great tool for eating

In the 8 minutes of the first 5 episodes, the husband who was engaged as a child cheated on his girlfriend, and the wife was out partying every night, only to be kicked out of the house and left without support because the family found the long-lost real daughter. At the birthday party of the old lady of a wealthy family in Beijing, the gigolo who had been hooking up for three years suddenly became the prince of the Beijing circle and the sole ruler of a huge business empire, and she just gave him 5 million to "part ways amicably".

This is a short drama that Yixia recently clicked on, "It's Over! The Gigolo I Raised Turns Out to Be the Boss", which combines many suspended elements such as the overbearing boss's exposure, real and fake daughters, relationships with mistresses, and cheating besties.

Although she is over 50, Yixia is still a loyal fan of idol dramas and is keen to share her feelings about watching dramas with her daughter. When she returned home for the Spring Festival, her daughter asked Yixia if she had watched idol dramas recently. Yixia, who has been recharging Tencent Video VIP for many years, regretfully said that she had not finished watching the popular platform exclusive dramas "Eternal Night Star River" and "Nine Layers Purple" at the end of 2024. "It's good to watch, but there are too many episodes. I think it's too long."

The free short plays at Hongguo Theater have become her new favorite. From occasionally watching recommended short plays on Douyin to becoming a loyal user of Hongguo, in recent months, Yixia has been accustomed to watching short plays every night before going to bed for entertainment. "In fact, the plots of each play are similar, but I just enjoy watching them." Sometimes, in order to finish watching the ending of a play, she would even stay up until one or two o'clock in the morning, and fall asleep at work the next day.

More users of all ages are flocking into the short drama consumption market, thanks to the emergence of one top short drama after another.

Xiaochen, who is still a junior in college, was converted by the revenge drama "Get Her In". Around December last year, Xiaochen saw the recommendation note of "Get Her In" on Xiaohongshu, so he downloaded it according to the note and finished watching it. "It is more daring than long dramas and more exciting." So before finding a good long drama, Xiaochen tends to fill his free time with short dramas.

Fei Youpeng, who works for a private equity fund company, was keen to recommend the first drama he had watched, "50 Years Old," to his friends. "Just with this short drama, I've become fascinated by this format." Although he also realized that some of the highlights were the same, Fei Youpeng felt that "perhaps this format is more advanced, creating a deeper opposition and reversal in such a short space."

Their consumption scenarios are often related to eating, relieving stress, entertainment before bed or killing time, but without exception, they are very private.

Xiao Jiang, who just graduated from high school, is now working in customer operations at a company in Wuhan. He first came into contact with skits last summer, and since then he has found a magic tool to eat with meals. After downloading a special APP, skits have been upgraded from scattered "electronic pickles" to a systematic "main meal". During the time when he was addicted to skits, Xiao Jiang spent two to three hours a day watching them.

Compared with reading novels or playing games, which are more exhausting, lawyer Milk Tea Sister, who has been working for several years, has also started to choose to watch short dramas to relieve stress. She is also obsessed with the male lead of "Flowers Like Dreams" He Jianqi and created a single Xiaohongshu account to recommend him. "I also watch other short dramas and other actors, but this account will only post about Brother Qi."

For them, short dramas are not necessarily the best, but they are definitely the most cost-effective, especially free short dramas, which most directly meet the current widespread demand for fast-food content, and thus gradually gain a wider user group than the so-called sinking market.

The small screen attributes and personal consumption make the current short drama look like a more personal and even private entertainment product. At least so far, it does not bear any public value and does not have too many social attributes. It only needs to mobilize the most classic theme elements - love, power, wealth, etc., to most directly meet the most basic emotional needs or entertainment needs.

More platforms have launched separate short drama sections to meet the potential short drama consumption needs of users on the site, which has helped further expand the overall short drama market.

Long video platforms such as Tencent and iQiyi have set up horizontal screen short drama areas on their sites. Pinduoduo launched its own short drama channel, Duoduo Short Dramas. Xiaohongshu also planned a short drama Spring Festival event this Spring Festival, launching 100 free short dramas and linking the personal accounts of short drama actors and behind-the-scenes staff to quickly create an atmosphere for short drama discussion on the site.

2. Short dramas focus on what users care about

"Sensual Life" is Huahua's favorite short play. The abandoned son of a wealthy family is in urgent need of advancement. The golden lawyer who has suffered a change in his family agrees to become his business spy and shadow lover for a huge reward. One deal, four tasks, undercover, poisoning, seduction, and breaking up with the third brother. "Everyone has their own ulterior motives and sets traps for each other. Those who look harmless are actually demons, and those who appear vicious actually have a bottom line."

"The plot hits my spot, the rhythm is also very good, the actors' performances are also very accurate, and there is a rare camera language." Huahua said. Her main job is related to text editing, and she has more than ten years of experience in reading online novels. This job also requires her to keep in touch with short dramas, the latest novel adaptation path.

For short dramas, the actors' appearance, acting skills and character relationships are often the initial motivation for her to click on a new drama. Huahua was looking forward to "Sounds, Colors, Dogs and Horses" before it was launched, because she had already paid attention to the male lead actor Zhen Ziqi, "He is really a leader in the crazy criticism track..."

The vertical screen composition makes the character portrait more prominent, and close-ups of the face and half-body shots are the most common shots. The actor's expressiveness and sense of atmosphere become extremely important. Therefore, when choosing a favorite short play from the vast supply of short plays to spend a night with, the actor himself is often the primary factor.

"My first reaction is definitely to look at the face." Milk Tea Sister was attracted by He Jianqi's appearance and watched all his skits; beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Yixia prefers Zeng Hui and Zhang Beixi, "I think they speak very gently."

The sense of substitution is another killer feature of short dramas. Almost all short dramas are closely centered around the push and pull of character relationships, and the script always assumes that the audience can become a character in the story. Zeng Hui and Deng Lingshu's version of "He's Too Wild" has a popularity of 29.36 million on Hongguo.com. Yixia was deeply impressed by the plot in the play where the male protagonist helps the female protagonist change clothes. "The male protagonist protects the female protagonist at all times. Do you think there is such a man in the world? Impossible, but I love to watch it when it is filmed."

Therefore, when creating a domineering CEO in a short drama, you cannot film him manipulating a business merger or managing the company in an orderly manner. Instead, you should film him driving a luxury car to host a banquet, identifying a green tea girl in a second, and even taking care of a baby. The two cute babies in the hit short drama "Boss Pei Wants to Become a Successful Father by His Son" have captured a large number of wild mothers. Yixia also said that this kind of drama with cute babies "will arouse my maternal love."

When short dramas can satisfy more emotional projections, the user's viewing experience is enriched and enhanced.

In Huahua's opinion, the advantage of short dramas lies in the fact that they are produced based on short videos. "They are short in duration, contain a large amount of information, and have many plot twists. You don't have to use your brain, it's very direct." In this era of explosive information resources, short dramas' competitors are not just traditional long dramas. "Satisfaction" may not be enough to summarize their core competitiveness. Extreme information density is the secret to winning in this battle for attention.

The user's thinking is brought to the extreme. The short play is about what the user cares about. Each episode is equipped with 3 face-slapping, 5 reversals and 7 suspense hooks. The frequent horizontal jumps between various people not only amplify the emotional conflict, but also enhance the emotional concentration. The short play has established a reward mechanism for the secretion of dopamine in the brain, providing a continuous source of motivation for the audience's emotional needs to be met.

3. Becoming a national entertainment consumption product

Huahua currently watches 3-4 dramas a week at her lowest frequency. In the early days, she could watch several dramas a day. But she realized that there seemed to be a lack of a place to record her current feelings about watching dramas. Movies and TV series can be marked on Douban, and she chose Xiaohongshu to mark short dramas.

Since May 2024, Huahua has started to update short drama reviews on the Xiaohongshu account @我会去买花, and has posted more than 120 reviews so far. Among them, the recommendation note for "Bring Her into the House" has received over 10,000 likes.

In addition to Douyin's direct traffic to short dramas, Xiaohongshu is a short drama seeding site that is more popular among young users. It is also a gathering place for "young white-collar workers", the core audience of the so-called free short dramas of the leading short drama production brand Tinghuadao. The Hongguo short dramas are affectionately called "the eldest fruit" by them.

Unlike long dramas or movies, where audiences usually face a situation where they have a focus on a certain period of time, such as the Spring Festival movie season and the summer season of ancient idol dramas, the attention of short drama audiences is often distracted by the extremely fast pace of new releases and uneven production standards. In order to quickly find more good dramas and get a good viewing experience, they rely heavily on word of mouth on public social platforms. The weight of audience preferences is infinitely raised, gradually forming a decentralized cultural consumption circle. The short drama review bloggers on Xiaohongshu are the product of this trend, promoting good dramas and pulling out bad dramas in a similar way to KOLs.

The Tomato romance novel "Only After I Died I Realized That I Was the White Moonlight of the Prince of Beijing Circle" has been adapted into a short play more than 20 times, and "Too Wild" has been remade into a short play in a total of 8 versions. The story, which lacks strict logic, cannot withstand such repeated appreciation no matter how wonderful it is. For ordinary audiences, it is enough to refer to the viewing guide given by the drama review blogger who compares the starring actors and plots of each version, and choose one or two versions.

Such a grass-seeking chain, coupled with large quantities and frequent new releases, has allowed short dramas to subvert the discourse power and supply and demand relationship of the traditional film and television industry. Super users and ordinary users affected by this have gained unprecedented initiative in short drama consumption.

For Fei Youpeng, watching skit commentaries is also a common way to screen. He saw "50 Years Old" on a skit commentary account. The commentator compressed the first 40 episodes of the show into about 30 minutes of content. Fei Youpeng feels that sometimes, some similar exciting plots appear repeatedly, and skit commentaries allow him to focus only on the plot and the story itself. Some UP hosts active in the film and television area of ​​​​Bilibili, such as Wow Wow Wow Girl, Low Jun Hot Drama, Guo Benny, etc., have also made special skit recommendation videos.

More and more consumers of short dramas have put forward higher requirements for the content and overall production level of short dramas. In-depth users like Huahua are already familiar with the production companies, directors and screenwriters behind the short dramas. "Tinghua Island may be more inclined to female themes and cater to female audiences. I am also paying attention to Maju Studios. I will also try to watch any new dramas directed by Xu Zhimo and Shifan."

Similar themes and formulaic story development are the results of the preferences of short drama users in the previous stage. The viewing needs of the lower-tier markets and the middle-aged and elderly groups have not been met for a long time. Short dramas first solve the problem of going from 0 to 1. As the proportion of short drama users in first- and second-tier cities increases, the problem of going from 1 to 10 is on the agenda. This Spring Festival alone, you can see more high-quality short dramas brought by professional film and television companies on Hongguo.

Milk Tea Sister's attention to the production company behind the short drama may also be due to her concern for He Jianqi's career development. She also visited the set of "Bandit Queen" produced by Feiyang Theater. "I stayed on the set for a day and watched Brother Qi act in person, so my feelings for this drama are different from other dramas."

Compared with domestic entertainment artists, Douyin and Kuaishou are the main battlefields for fans of short dramas. Only the top short drama actors have fan organizations such as Weibo fan clubs. In addition to watching dramas, Milk Tea Sister also follows He Jianqi's Douyin live broadcasts, offline meet-and-greet sessions, magazine business and other activities. This is also one of the richer consumption experiences that users can get under the trend of short dramas becoming an independent mainstream content format. She posted He Jianqi's live broadcast slices, OOTD and other content on Xiaohongshu, and has more than 3,000 fans. "Milk Tea Sister" has become a familiar ID among fans.

But even a heavy consumer like Milk Tea Sister has recently begun to reduce the proportion of short dramas in her personal entertainment life. Huahua also admitted that after a year of intensive short drama watching, she has become tired of all the same themes and routines. She wrote on her Xiaohongshu account: "I watched 5 in a row today and I didn't like any of them..." She even wants to stop watching short dramas for a while and watch something else to slow down.

People's thirst for stories is never just pure entertainment. Or, as writer McKee said, "Entertainment is about immersing yourself in the ritual of story to achieve an intellectually and emotionally satisfying purpose." Therefore, no art form can simply remain at the level of repeating excitement or flashy, empty, and false stories.

The underlying logic of the Internet has given rise to the consumption trends of decentralization and the failure of mega hits. After short dramas have taken advantage of this to "brutally" occupy the public's time, how to make more systematic explorations in terms of genres, aesthetics, and forms of expression will determine whether short dramas can truly complete the reshaping of the entire chain from production, dissemination to consumption, and thus become a national-level Internet entertainment consumer product.

Note: Li Shangyang also contributed to this article.

Author | Zhang Shuhan (Shanghai)