Vertical Drama: I clicked on a Facebook ad and came out an expert in fictional billionaires

I don’t know exactly when it happened. All I know is that I clicked on a Facebook ad and, a few weeks later, I found myself in a parallel universe where almost the entire population seemed to consist exclusively of mysterious CEOs, secret heirs, evil stepsisters, and ex-fiancés making decisions so catastrophic they made you wonder whether natural selection had taken a vacation. It all happened so quietly that I didn’t even notice the exact moment when I went from casual viewer to unofficial researcher of a narrative ecosystem that seems to have been built by an artificial intelligence trained exclusively on romance novels, family conspiracies, and sleep deprivation.

It started innocently, as many decisions do when you later find yourself explaining them with, “I honestly don’t know what I was thinking.” A Facebook ad. A short video. An abandoned woman. A cold, impenetrable billionaire. An impossible situation. A cliffhanger. Then another one. And another. In my defense, the first episodes were free and seemed completely harmless. I had no intention of starting a new obsession. I had no intention of exploring a new cultural universe. I just wanted to know what happened after that scene. Apparently, that is exactly the kind of sentence that has already ruined thousands of hours in the lives of millions of people.

After I downloaded the app, I discovered one of the most ingenious business models ever invented in the digital age. The first episodes are free. Curiosity is free. Emotional attachment is free. The desire to find out the truth is free. Finding out the truth, however, costs money. The moment I saw the subscription prices, I went through all the stages of emotional grief. I started with denial, moved on to indignation, and very quickly arrived at bargaining. After that, I did what any modern person convinced that the internet contains the answer to all existential problems would do: I opened Google.

That was when I discovered I was not alone. There are entire communities of people searching for free episodes, exchanging recommendations, posting summaries, discussing theories, and hunting for spoilers with a level of dedication that, if redirected toward real-world problems, would probably produce remarkable results. There are groups, forums, video channels, and entire pages dedicated to this universe. People do not simply talk about series. They analyze characters, compare apps, recommend stories, and debate plot twists with a seriousness that made me realize I had not discovered a series. I had discovered an industry.

Only after I had spent enough time in this world did I learn that what I was watching actually had a name. It is called vertical drama or microdrama, and the name comes from the format in which it is filmed and consumed: vertically, in a 9:16 ratio, exactly the way we hold a phone in our hand. These are not series designed for television or cinema. They are made specifically for the phone screen, with episodes that often last between one and three minutes and almost invariably end with a cliffhanger strong enough to make you tap the “next episode” button one more time.

What initially seemed like a strange little thing I had found in a Facebook ad turned out to be a global phenomenon. The format emerged in China, where hundreds of millions of people watch these productions every day, and in only a few years it expanded to the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world, turning into a multibillion-dollar industry. Today, there are apps dedicated exclusively to vertical dramas, specialized studios, and actors building entire careers in this format.

And here comes the part that surprised me the most. Although many of these stories appear to take place in America, in London, or in various parallel universes populated by romantic billionaires and misunderstood heiresses, a significant part of this industry is now developing in Ukraine. Companies such as Holywater, founded in Kyiv, produce and distribute vertical dramas for international audiences through platforms such as My Drama, becoming important players in the global market. I think this was one of the strangest moments of the entire experience. I had set out simply trying to find out whether a woman signed up on a matchmaking site by her own sister was going to marry a vineyard owner who chose his wife from a catalog. Instead, I ended up reading about companies in Kyiv, monetization models, global markets, and distribution strategies for microdramas. I am not convinced Facebook had this in mind when it served me that ad.

And because any universe large enough inevitably creates its own celebrities, I discovered that vertical dramas already have their own star system. At first, I had the impression that the same actors were everywhere. After a few weeks, however, I realized it was not just an impression. Some of them appear in an impressive number of productions and have become genuine stars of the format. There are fan communities that follow certain actresses and actors exactly the way other people follow Hollywood celebrities. The difference is that, in many cases, the general public does not even know their names.

Surprisingly, after enough hours spent in this universe, you begin to have favorites. Not characters. Actors. You start recognizing faces before you recognize titles. You see a new actor and think, “Oh, I know him. Two weeks ago he was the CEO of a pharmaceutical company. Last month he was the heir to a hotel empire. Now he probably runs an international bank and is secretly in love with someone who does not yet know she is the heiress to a colossal fortune.” And, alarmingly, most of the time you are right.

Then there are the titles. At some point, I noticed that vertical dramas do not really use titles. They use summaries. My Husband’s Secret Crush. 17 Heartbreaks When Love Has No Voice. The Billionaire’s Regret. Married to My Enemy CEO. The Alpha King’s Rejected Mate. After a while, you stop reading the title and start reading the entire plot. It is as if someone published a novel called The Man Who Made a Mistake in Chapter 2 and Regretted It Until the End.

Meanwhile, without realizing it, I had accumulated enough experience that, at this point, I could calmly deliver an academic lecture on the international ecosystem of mysterious billionaires, secret heiresses, missing twins, and ex-fiancés who realize in episode 73 that they made a mistake. Because once you have watched enough vertical dramas, you begin to notice the patterns.

First comes the CEO. He runs a company worth billions and, in theory, should be extremely busy. In practice, he has enough free time to appear simultaneously in restaurants, airports, hospitals, hotels, conference rooms, and any other place where the script needs him.

Then comes the secret heiress. She lives in a modest apartment, works in a café or an ordinary office, and has no idea that she owns approximately half the national economy.

Next comes the strategic stepsister, a person who invests more energy in destroying the protagonist than most people invest in their own professional development.

Shortly after that, the ex-fiancé appears, a character who spends between fifty and eighty episodes making disastrous decisions, then has a spectacular revelation and discovers that the protagonist was, in fact, the love of his life. This always happens after it is too late, and sometimes so late that the woman in question has already become an heiress, saved three companies from bankruptcy, and married someone else.

Still, the real moment when I understood the rules of this universe came when I watched the story of a billionaire owner of a wine empire who chooses his wife from a catalog. Not through friends. Not through a dating app. Not through a romantic accident. From a catalog.

In the real world, people choose partners through a complicated mix of compatibility, attraction, social context, and decisions of varying quality. In the universe of vertical dramas, someone looks at a list of candidates and decides that one of them will become his wife. No one considers this unusual. No one asks questions. No one seems to have a problem with this approach. And that is exactly where the magic begins.

At some point, I completely gave up looking for realism. I started looking for the limit. How absurd can a script become before the very concept of probability files an official complaint?

The answer is simple: much more absurd than you imagine.

There are mafia bosses who fall in love with the woman who hates them. There are alpha werewolves who find their destined mate in the most improbable circumstances. There are ignored wives who leave and trigger a collective existential crisis among all the men who treated them badly. There are missing twins, convenient amnesia, unexpected inheritances, lost children, and marriage contracts that inevitably turn into true love.

And somewhere among all these improbabilities, millions of people keep pressing the “Next Episode” button.

The truly interesting part, however, is that the success of these series makes perfect sense. After an entire day of analyzing real problems, making decisions, answering emails, managing projects, solving conflicts, and trying to understand an increasingly complicated world, the brain no longer wants complexity. It wants reward. It wants emotion. It wants stories where good and evil are easy to identify and where every question quickly receives an answer, even if that answer is completely absurd.

Vertical dramas are, in a way, the emotional equivalent of chips. No one consumes them for their nutritional value. We consume them because they are extraordinarily efficient.

At some point, I made the mistake of trying to estimate how much time I had spent watching these series. I do not recommend it. There are things it is better not to know about yourself.

If I had invested the same number of hours in a foreign language, I could probably now hold a decent conversation in Mandarin about the international export of premium wines. If I had invested the same time in sports, I would have remarkable physical endurance. If I had invested the same time in financial education, maybe I would already understand how to become a millionaire.

Instead, I have acquired extremely specific skills. I can identify a secret heir before he himself finds out he is an heir. I can detect an evil stepsister within the first twelve seconds of her appearance. I can estimate, with a surprisingly small margin of error, how many episodes it will take before the ex-fiancé regrets his choices.

I am not sure these skills can be added to a résumé, but I also cannot prove that they cannot.

After weeks of in-depth research into the relationships between mysterious billionaires, lost heiresses, missing twins, marriage contracts, selective amnesia, and revenge plots that require approximately eighty-seven episodes to implement, I have reached a single conclusion.

I am no longer convinced these series are written by humans.

There are two possibilities. The first is that somewhere, in a secret building, a group of writers works in twenty-four-hour shifts and challenges one another to introduce two more secret heirs and an accidental marriage within the next three minutes. The second is that these series are generated by an artificial intelligence fed exclusively on romance novels, soap operas, coffee, and sleep deprivation.

At this point, I am not ruling out either option.

Still, after watching enough episodes to identify within the first thirty seconds whether the heroine is poor, rich, adopted, abandoned, an heiress, or all of the above, I am beginning to believe I have acquired a new professional skill.

I do not know whether there is an international certification for this, but if there is an application form for vertical drama screenwriters, please send it to me. I already have all the necessary qualifications. I can produce at least three secret heirs per hour, generate family conflicts with no connection whatsoever to observable reality, turn any ordinary conversation into a cliffhanger, and, more importantly than all of that, I have insomnia.

If I am going to be awake at two in the morning wondering why the CEO of a company valued at several billion dollars has time to personally follow the protagonist through fourteen restaurants, two airports, and three continents, there might as well be a chance for me to get rich from it.

Because honestly, if absurdity has become a business model, I think I am ready to contribute to the industry.

If you need me, I will be somewhere in a corner of the internet trying to find out where to submit my résumé for the position of creator of secret heirs and billionaires with unlimited availability.