The microdrama boom has been ruled by billionaire CEOs, secret marriages, mafia romances, and cliffhangers that feel engineered for endless scrolling. Now, Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat wants to prove that vertical storytelling does not have to stay trapped in romance.
Hartbeat is expanding its LOL Network into original vertical comedy programming, with plans to build a slate of short-form comedy content for digital viewers. The move places Hartbeat directly inside the fast-growing vertical content space, but with a genre the company already knows well.
Hartbeat President and Chief Distribution Officer Jeff Clanagan said the company sees comedy as the next natural lane for vertical storytelling.
“Let’s call it what it is. Vertical is the business, and microdrama is just one genre inside it,” Clanagan said. “Right now that genre is stacked with the same billionaire-CEO, secret-marriage, mafia-romance cliffhangers running on repeat. Comedy is the open lane, and we’ve been operating in it at scale for a decade.”
He added, “The audience, the talent and the distribution are already here. We’re not entering vertical. We’re expanding what we’ve already built.”
According to Hartbeat, LOL Network has more than 13 million social followers across platforms and generated over 500 million vertical views in 2025. That existing digital footprint gives Hartbeat a major advantage as it moves further into short-form vertical content.
The company’s first project in the new slate will be Freshman 15, a series of 15 stand-up specials, each running 15 minutes. The series will spotlight digitally native comedic talent and debut first on LOL Network through an exclusive first window.
Hartbeat is also partnering with Artists First and digital production studio Kids at Play to produce more original vertical comedy content. Artists First represents major comedy names including Anthony Anderson, Awkwafina, and Niecy Nash, along with microdrama directors Danny Farber and Kristen Brancaccio.
The companies have worked together before. Hartbeat, Artists First, and Kids at Play previously collaborated on Die Hart, the Quibi series that later moved to The Roku Channel, as well as the 2024 Paramount/Comedy Central film Cursed Friends.
For Hartbeat, the bigger goal is to challenge the idea that vertical content has to be dominated by one kind of story.
“The microdrama category has proven that vertical storytelling is a real business,” Clanagan said. “What it hasn’t proven yet is that the genre monoculture we’re seeing today is what audiences will still be watching five years from now. Every dominant format eventually opens up. Comedy is where vertical opens up first.”
Kevin Hart has already tested the short-form space before. He was one of the early partners in Quibi, Jeffrey Katzenberg’s mobile-first streaming service that launched in 2020 before shutting down later that year. This time, Hartbeat is not trying to build a new platform from scratch. It is using LOL Network’s existing audience to meet viewers where they already are.
Luke Kelly-Clyne, head of studio at Hartbeat, said the slate will bring together emerging digital creators and established comedy voices.
“We’re working with a new generation of comedic creators who understand the audience, and with legacy comedic voices whose work deserves to reach that audience in the format it’s already watching,” he said. “The goal is to build programming that surprises, that feels built for this moment, and that continues the work Hartbeat has been doing in comedy for years.”