Today, Explained - Attention deficit television

Episode Date: November 21, 2025

The screens are getting smaller, and so are our attention spans. This episode was produced by Kelli Wessinger, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Miles Bryan and Melissa Hirsch, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Adriene Lilly, and hosted by Noel King. Image credit vladans/Getty. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hollywood is struggling, and I want to give Sidney Sweeney an opportunity to talk about that specifically. I think that when I have an issue that I want to speak about, people will hear. Movies are bombing. Christy Springsteen Die My Love, LOL, Dead. Last month has been called Hollywood's worst box office run in decades, and these were prestige films. Tinsletown sees the writing on the wall and is pivoting. making a bet on micro-dramas. Today on Today, on Today Explained, we'll explain what they are,

but the bold-faced names of it all, Disney, Fox, Alexis O'Hanian, Kim Kardashian, Chris Jenner, pouring millions of dollars into the teeny-tiny, next big thing. Coming up. I might be a low-born wolf, but I am still Alpha Ashes mate. Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix Colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer,

but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprise his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster, Downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. The support for this show comes from the Audible Original, The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine.

The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original blockbuster, The Downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2 Ghosts in the Machine.

Available now, only from Audible. I'm C.T. Jones. I am a staff writer at Rolling Stone, where I cover entertainment, culture, and the internet. What exactly is a microdrama? What a fantastic question. Micro dramas are these short episodic films and they're filmed portrait mode. And they're meant to be watched and shared primarily on your cell phone. So as you're scrolling, clicking on apps, that's where microdramas appear. Okay. Great. And now I have. have so many more questions. Microdrama, I mean, microdrama is like me texting my sister about my brother. What, why is it called a microdrama? Yeah, the whole point of them is that they're short, right? So they're in between films and TV seasons, but there are 60 to 90 episodes, and these

episodes can range anywhere from four minutes to 10 to 7. It depends entirely on the project that you're watching. So that's why they call them micro. But it all. also refers to kind of the speed and the production. So we're talking about projects that have very, very, very tiny budgets, and they have a very, very, very tiny shoot time. So altogether, microdrama. What is the appeal? Yeah, I think one of the really interesting things we've seen about the internet in the past couple of years

is that the way people scroll are changing the ways your attention span works. So we've already seen in cases like Mad Men. Not great, Bob. And Ugly Betty. Hi. That's me. People are watching things on their phone now, and that there is a link between how long people are willing to watch TV show, even if it's cut up into 100, 200 parts, if it means that they don't have to get off of their phone, go onto their laptop, and log on to the streaming service where they know that that show exists. And it's also created for these kind of attention spans, so, like, you don't have time to probably watch four episodes of Ugly Betty between your commute and the office.

But if you're on the subway and you have access to data, you're like, I could watch two 45-second clips of Ugly Betty. You are an attractive, intelligent, confident business woman. All right, so what's an example of a microdrama that's super popular? Like, what is the young and the restless microdrama or the Breaking Bad microdrama? So the best thing about microdramas is that they're not really dependent on these type of audiences that will give in the role. So basically, there are a bunch of titles that I could, like, name, for instance, loving my brother's best friend. You have got to get over this crush.

He's your brother's best friend. Or I kissed a CEO and he liked it. Well, boss, who was that? I haven't seen you kiss anyone like that in ages. The titles themselves aren't very inventive, but they don't need to be to capture audiences. And tell Nate, I'm not going to kill his sister. I'm going to marry him. Blaine, I can't be with you.

I'm just a man. Aiden Gold is a werewolf, an alpha, and I refuse to be his mate. How is anyone, everyone, how is money being made here, and for whom? Yeah, so basically what happens, it's kind of a freebie situation where you will either get an ad, served an ad for these microdramas, usually a very poignant part of the show. I have a proposition for you. Kind of a proposition. I know your situation. You're working three jobs. You've got a pile of medical bills and you're behind and everything else.

How do you know all of that? That is exciting, is narrative-driven. I will take care of all that. I will take care of you. All you have to do is one thing for me. And then it cuts right before you find out what happens next. What's the catch? And then the ad pops up and it's like, please go to the app to continue more. You have to marry my daughter.

But for people who are active microdrama watchers, what usually happens is you have a free subscription and you can watch up to a certain amount of episodes of a particular show. And then it costs anywhere between $4 to $15 to upload more credits so that you can finish the rest of the show. And a lot of these microdramas, because they are kind of reliant on these instant transactions, it's instant feedback. Right, it's people who want to scroll, who want to keep scrolling and keep following this, they're willing to be like, okay, here's $2, here's $3, here's $2 to finish the show, when in reality, if you look at it, most of these microdrama apps in a yearly format cost far more than a Netflix subscription or a Hulu subscription or a max subscription, as it were. Where do microdramas come from?

Microdromas are actually an import. The very first place where they really took off in popularity was actually in China. Between 2018. Between 2018 and 2020, we saw this huge, huge rise in interest in microdramas. Look, there are over a billion internet users in China. Half of them have watched these mini-drama series before, and a third of them are scrolling through them every day. So it's a huge industry, 35 percent.

But what China really set apart from this was that you could make microdramas fast and and cheap. And a lot of other countries saw the success of that and decided we can do this as well. So when the United States kind of took on all of the things that made Chinese microdrama so successful, they ran into this huge wall, which was, we can make things fast and we can make things cheap. I don't know if the actors are going to like it very much. What is it like to be an actor or an actress in a microdrama? It all depends on who hires you. A lot of micro dramas in L.A. have tried to set themselves apart, especially these newer companies, as places where you can get great pay.

You can kind of learn on the fly. You're getting a bunch of things and a lot of training that you might not get, say, if you were straight out of NYU's Tish. But other experiences on other sets could mean that if you sign with a microdrama company who is just in it to make the content as fast as possible, a lot of actors allege these grueling hours, poor pay. racial disparity in leading roles and lack of stun safety. I talked to one vertical actress, 24-year-old Molly Anderson, who told me about kind of how much harder it is for women who are acting in these microdramas than men. Men have these beautiful, a lot of times handsome roles where they're the sex symbols and microdramas have mainly female audiences.

Molly told me, the male actor is going to be dressed up in a very nice suit, 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 waterboarding. You are not going to crack. You're just going to cry. You're going to cry like you've never cried before, but your spirit, your spirit remain solid. That's the typical day.

Yikes. Are you getting paid for 70 episodes? One of the interesting things about microdramas is that the contracts also vary wildly, depending on what company you're working with. So as a writer, you could be looking at $2,000 to just hand in a script. As an author who has a book idea that they want to kind of take and use $1,000, $5,000, it really, really depends on who you're working with and how much they want it. For an actor, you're probably looking at $500 a day, which is super, super, super affordable and really great rate for people who are non-union. And from a Hollywood perspective, you can say yes to projects because you're not committing the world. And if anything, you're committing $100,000 here, another $100,000 there.

Costs and money that would frankly disappear or round up to small percentages for giant projects. I've talked to a bunch of vertical actors who are kind of caught in the middle of this. They see the way that the industry is changing and they love the idea of Hollywood executives being more willing to say yes to stories. What they're concerned about is that verticals and particularly the way that they are made

will leave these actors behind in the process. Hollywood is obviously having a lot of problems right now. I think October was one of the worst months for movies like really, really like well-reviewed movies, movies people were excited about, and then no one went to see the Springsteen thing, no one went to see the Jennifer Lawrence thing. So if you're Hollywood and you're seeing,

hey, there's a way to do 70 episodes and pay an actor, you know, $500 a day and still make a little bit of money with every single person who views them, do you think that this is going to change Hollywood? I actually don't. I think microdramas are incredibly interesting, but I think the problem Hollywood sees right now is, frankly, a cowardice. Hollywood is drowning right now under this exhaustion with IP because for the past five years, executives have been afraid to make creative content.

Microdramas, on the other hand, succeed by creating serialized content with storylines that are virtually public domain. So it's IP, just so many IPs crammed together that you're like, yeah, I guess I'll watch it. Sure, I'll watch this werewolf billionaire CEO. Do you see what I mean? All of those buzzwords smashed together. I don't think this will change Hollywood. But I think it's because microdramas aren't intending to change Hollywood. Microdramas aren't about, you know, taking over the Emmys, taking over the Oscars.

I doubt that you could find a microdrama CEO who says, yes, I think kissing my brother's best friend is going to sweep this year at the Oscars. That's fine. I'm not afraid of some competition. But what they want to do is target viewers during their in-between time. These kind of passive scrolls that you can know can kind of give your attention to an ad or a three-minute clip about a cheerleader or a hockey player or a kind of sexy werewolf. This is where micro-dramas thrive,

and this is why I think they won't ever actually take over Hollywood because they don't want your intention. Microdramas work the best when you're not really watching them. Because if you were going to watch a microdrama like you might watch the new Springsteen movie in a dark room with your closest friends, you've got nothing but time to look at the screen, I bet if you watched a microdrama like that, you would go, wait a minute, I don't think this makes sense. This might not even be good. How could rules were never her thing not be good? Just me? C.T. Jones writes for Rolling Stone. Coming up is TV getting dumber. Yes, of course it is. You don't need me to explain that. But did studio executives order it to get dumber? We're going to ask.

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Today Explained is so back with Julia Alexander. Julie is a media correspondent at Puck News. So, Julia, in the first half of the show, we talked about microdramas. you know what these are? Yes. Do you have a favorite one? In the sense that they're all the same, I suppose I enjoy all of them as much as I dislike all of them. What is the appeal? What is the love of hate grounded in? Do you know what it is? It's not for me and I understand the love for it though. I think the Venn diagram of people who like microdramas and people who love to read smutty fan fiction is like one

giant circle. And I think actually the appeal of microdramas is that they're not a Netflix original or a Martin Scorsese movie. They're the complete opposite. They're a guilty pleasure at 99 cents a chapter. We were going to title this episode, The Second Screen Problem, but nobody actually knows what that means. When people in the industry talk about the second screen problem, what do they mean? So it depends on who you're asking in the industry. If you talk to creatives, the second screen, meaning the phone screen, that you're watching TikTok's on while watching a movie on your big TV or the iPad, you're surfing Exxon while watching a TV show on your big TV. The second screen is just a lack of attention

that is being paid to the main movie or film on the television. But if you talk to executives, the question or the problem of the second screen, rather, is one of does the adoration for TikTok and Instagram reels and YouTube shorts mean that people will spend enough less time with our streaming services that they'll cancel and we have to fight back for those subscribers. But before the phone came around, people would do this with magazines and they would do it with books and they would do it with other things. We've always been distracted by other forms of entertainment competing for our attention. We've just never had as many things competing for such tiny slices of the attention pie. And Instagram is much more compelling than like

reading a Dean Kuntz novel during the TV show. Yeah, it requires far less brain power. I want to ask you about something that got everyone so angry when we found out about it earlier this year. So there was reporting in N Plus One saying that Netflix executives are telling writers to dumb down the writing in TV shows and movies and make it really clear what is happening. So this scene from the movie Irish Wish is used as an example in their reporting. We spent a day together. I admit it was a beautiful day filled with dramatic vistas and romantic rain.

But that doesn't give you the right to question my life choices. Tomorrow I'm marrying Paul Kennedy. Do people in the industry, as you are, do people cover the industry, did they know that this was happening? So I think it's important to clarify that no one is out. And by no one I mean, no executive is out saying, dumb this down. No executive is out in the town saying, hey, by the way, it makes shittier television. That's really going to help us when we increase prices again, right? What they're saying, if this is being said to people, and I have personally never heard it in my reporting, what they would be saying is we understand that our audience has less attention than they might have 10 years ago.

and our audience has more opportunities to put that attention on another video format, whether they're watching reels or TikTok. And we understand that that is our direct competitor in a way that, you know, someone flipping through a magazine or watching a movie, that was not necessarily going to be a direct competitor. So it's not about dumbing down. It's about acknowledging where the future of competition is coming from. That actually makes a lot of sense to me.

From the perspective of the business, what actually surprised me is how many people seem to, so furious about this. So I hate scripted television so much, like, especially lately. Like, I don't know. It's just, like, mind-numbing. But I can't help but feel that this change is going to lead to the downfall of society. Where do you think, as consumers of the stuff, as the people watching, why does this make

us angry? I think we all want to believe that we are of higher quality caliber than in fact we are. And by that, I mean, you look at all these people who are outraged. I mean, I'd be outraged. If someone came out and said Netflix is, you know, purposely dumbing stuff down, I'd be like, well, that sucks and I don't like it. But in reality, I was watching Frankenstein the other night with my fiancee, and he was playing Candy Crush the entire time. And then in a group chat the next day, he's complaining about the quality of films. But the quality of the film, such as Frankenstein, a beautiful Guillermo del Toro movie, which is not the Lindsay Lohan Irish Wish, it has nothing to do with a Netflix executive company. coming out and saying, you know, you've got to dumb this down. It has everything to do with the fact that they're responding to what people are saying in the actions that they do. And if people really did not want Irish Wish, they would not watch Irish Wish, but the Lindsay Lohan Christmas movies, for example, and all those other kind of Netflix fare that we associate with a specific trope are heavily watched. One of the effects of what you're seeing play out is that we had a golden age of television about 15 years ago.

It's your job! I give you money, you give me ideas! You never say thank you! That's what the money is for! Say my name. Eisenberg. You're goddamn right. I'm so looking forward to seeing your mother again.

When I'm with her, I'm reminded of the virtues of the English. But isn't she American? Exactly. POTUS is gonna resign. And I'm about to become president. America Fifteen years ago a lot of the bigger movie stars

and the writers and directors in film who didn't want to make Marvel movies and didn't want to make big sci-fi blockbusters move to TV. And so for a period of about 10 to 15 years we had a great moment of just stunning, well-written, gorgeous television.

And then what happened was the competition for eyeballs on the TV screen started to really speed up and you had YouTube come in. Oh, wow. Woo! Double rainbow all the way across the sky. Oh, my God.

You had Mr. Beast. Who would win in a game of Togo War? The strongest man on earth or a hundred kids. All of a sudden, people were watching this type of fare on their television screens, and that meant that they were watching less Netflix or less Hulu or whatever it might have been. So all of the prestige fair that really. worked on cable, you know, 20 years ago, it stopped working as much today. And so you're getting a lot more unintentional slop, but it's not because they're trying to produce it. It's

that they're trying to produce just more content than ever before. And if you put quantity over quality, you're going to inherently get some rough, rough gems mixed in with all those diamonds. Could you envision a world where viewers say, we don't want the slop, we don't want the dumb shows, we want prestige, or is that unlikely to ever happen? I actually think that's exactly what's going to happen. And it's going to take some time, but here's what I think's going to happen. The amount of generative AI contents we talk about SOAR 2, you think about even these micro dramas a little bit, which in part are being made because of generative AI technologies that are allowing them to make things cheaper and faster. This is going to increase the amount of content.

We're going to enter an infinite content era, and a lot of it's going to be really sloppy. And as humans who love good storytelling, it's like how you were seeking out really good TV, and I try to seek out really good TV and films. We're going to have to go and figure out where that is, and we're going to pay for it. And so you might have an Apple TV Plus or Netflix in 20 years, 25 years, be $40, $50 a month, but you'll pay for it. because they will end up leaning into higher quality programming and backing away from some of the slop as that slop takes over all of our other content viewing.

But in order to get to that breaking point, things have to break a little bit further. It is incredible to me that your take is so optimistic. I don't think I've heard this before. Everyone's so down on the future of movies and television. I mean, there is a world that is inevitable in where YouTube will eat everyone. lunch. It's kind of, it's been happening. It'll continue to happen. The baseline quality of

YouTube videos will likely get better over time as creators get more savvy, but it's never going to replace the need to watch a really good movie or a really good TV show. Now, I think the number of those titles will come down, and I think that's going to be really cataclysmic for people who work in Hollywood and people who work in this industry, because you'll have fewer jobs. But in terms of producing really high caliber art, throughout it all, really high quality art has always stayed and people have always sought it out. I really do believe that there's a world for some of these streaming services, not all, some of these directors and actors, not all, to continue to leave a really strong mark. But it's going to be a much smaller industry than it has been over the last 100 years. But there will still be an industry and it will still make good stuff.

And it won't charge you $0.99 a chapter. Julia Alexander, media correspondent with Puck News. Thank you. Kelly Wessinger produced today's show. Jolie Myers edited Patrick Boyd and Adrian Lilly are our engineers. Miles Bryan and Melissa Hirsch, check the facts. I'm Noelle King. It's today explained. Vox's membership sale is still on Vox.com slash members if you're interested. I don't know.

I'm going to be able to get it.