It begins on a beach. One of them is running, the other is on a horse (shirtless). Their eyes meet. The moment is a little too dramatic, maybe even a little too much, but it pulls you in anyway. The Royals sets the tone early, framing its love story with the kind of scene that feels designed to be replayed, reposted, and set to music on someone’s Instagram story. It’s not just romance. It’s content.
Today’s Indian OTT rom-coms aren’t just made to be watched. They’re built for the algorithm. Shows like The Royals, Mismatched, and Call Me Bae are engineered for a generation that doesn’t just binge, they share. With every aesthetic frame, meme-able meltdown, and quote-card-worthy line, these stories are designed for a second life online.
The Royals, which premiered on 9th May 2025, is a frothy satire about broke royals and the girlboss who crashes their palace. The show is currently trending at #3 globally on Netflix in the non-English TV category, marking a major international moment for Indian OTT. But its cultural footprint extended far beyond the platform. Shirtless stills of Khatter playing polo, candlelit slow dances, and lines like “Prince of my LinkedIn dreams” took over Reels within hours. She didn’t need many lines to become the internet’s favourite. Showrunner Rangita Pritish Nandy summed it up perfectly in an interview: “Ishaan goes shirtless a lot. I doubt anyone will complain.” And nobody did. Critics may have been divided, but audiences were hooked on the spectacle. And then there was Zeenat Aman—poised, unbothered, and casually offering puffs of weed in designer saris. Aman herself is a prime example of a star who got a second shot in the spotlight thanks to Instagram, where she posted reflective essays on aging, beauty, and life, and struck a chord with younger audiences who may not be familiar with her filmography but were drawn to her honesty and grace. That same energy carries into her role here. She didn’t need many lines to become the internet’s favourite.
Visual appeal is just one part of the new rom-com formula. Call Me Bae, which premiered on Amazon Prime Video in 2024, follows Bella “Bae” Chowdhary (Ananya Panday), a disowned heiress-turned-social media intern. The show’s influencer-powered rollout made it a digital darling even before release. Post-launch, reels featuring Bae’s outfits, zingers, and “rich girl in recovery” transformation flooded timelines. But it wasn’t just the styling. The writing was built to travel. Lines like “you’ve been #Behencoded” were designed for replication, a playful, slightly cringey twist on bro-code that quickly caught on. Supporting characters used it like a secret handshake, and it became one of the show’s most repeated sound bites. Off-screen too, the spirit of that line echoed. Actor-singer Lisa Mishra, who appeared in both Call Me Bae and The Royals, spoke about sharing a real-life “behen code” with Ananya Panday and Bhumi Pednekar—pointing to a moment in pop culture where sisterhood is as viral as fashion.
These shows speak in caption language: sharp, sentimental, and screen-grab friendly. Mismatched Season 3 continues to churn out moments that aren’t just part of the script, but part of the social media content wave. Lines like “Falling in love is a feeling, but staying in love is a decision,” were widely shared across X and Instagram after the season dropped. There are even compiled lists of dialogues between Dimple and Rishi showing just how tailored the writing is for digital virality.
This isn’t just a 2025 phenomenon. The 2016 series Little Things was one of the first streaming rom-coms to come of age on the internet. It sidestepped the dramatic gestures and twists to focus on portrayals that felt emotionally in tune with contemporary relationships—arguments over food, late-night conversations, the slow buildup of inside jokes, and lines like “You can give me a thousand reasons for not to marry you, and I’ll still marry you.” Born on the internet (it was a web series created for YouTube by Dice Media before its Netflix run), the show understood the formula of familiar moments, almost using its relatability as a currency to manufacture virality.
There was also Modern Love: Mumbai, a show that unfolded through a vignette-style storytelling, perfect for swipe-and-scroll attention spans. Its six emotionally layered episodes didn’t explode into reels or meme culture, but gently made their way into timelines through long captions, fan essays, and midnight tweets. “Raat Rani,” starring Fatima Sana Shaikh, stood out as a soft anthem for self-love and starting over. Viewers shared how it mirrored their own emotional resets, often pairing screenshots with personal reflections. It wasn’t glossy or influencer-driven, but it stayed with people in a quieter, lasting way.
Some shows went viral for their boldness. Netflix’s Lust Stories hit a cultural nerve with Kiara Advani’s iconic vibrator scene. According to a report, one Indian adult toy retailer saw a 55 percent spike in sales following the episode. Memes followed, but so did think pieces. The show didn’t play it safe and that’s exactly why it blew up.
Meanwhile, Four More Shots Please! doubled down on lifestyle fantasy. Feminist monologues, rooftop parties, endless wine—the show offered aspirational chaos that fit perfectly into the curated world of social media. Even when the storytelling faltered, it remained one of Amazon’s most-watched titles. But it’s worth asking: were these moments created with virality in mind, or did they simply take on a second life because they existed in an extremely online world? It’s hard to say for sure. What’s clear is that once out in the world, these scenes moved fast—from screen to feed to caption-ready content.
But behind the aesthetic and algorithm is something more human. These shows are landing at a time when young people are deeply disillusioned with dating. A 2024 Forbes Health study says that 79 percent of Gen Z and 80 percent of millennials feel “burned out” by dating apps. Swiping has become exhausting. Romance feels like effort with no payoff.
And love? It’s easier to watch than to live.
Streaming rom-coms offer a fix. They give you butterflies without the bandwidth. You don’t have to text first. You don’t have to get ghosted. You just tune in and let someone else fall in love for you with perfect lighting and a banger soundtrack.
It’s not just escapism. It’s emotional outsourcing. Posting a quote from Mismatched or a screengrab from Call Me Bae becomes a proxy for saying “I feel this” without having to be vulnerable. You don’t confess anything, you just repost. And in a culture where real intimacy feels riskier than ever, these curated stories offer something soft, satisfying, and safe.
OTT platforms know this. Influencers are cast in cameos. Dialogue is sculpted for shareability. With Mismatched, Netflix India rolled out GIFs, stickers, and BTS reels alongside the show. Call Me Bae launched with Instagram takeovers, fashion breakdowns, and quote cards. The Royals has been memed so thoroughly, it feels like it was storyboarded for social first, script second.
And that’s the new reality. In 2025, a rom-com doesn’t just want to be loved. It wants to be clipped. Captioned. Sent to your best friend at 2 AM. These shows understand that attention is romance now. That a scene isn’t iconic unless it can be added to your Instagram story. So maybe the plot doesn’t always matter. Maybe the story doesn’t even have to be groundbreaking. As long as it gives us that one line, that one look, that one reel that’s worth posting, we are in.