Short form content is.. something. Specifically, vertical videos that typically are around a minute long, but ALSO a very easy way to get distracted and lose hours of your day. I have mixed feelings about short-form content.

I used to make YouTube shorts, which would also go on TikTok and Instagram. I deleted my TikTok and public-facing Instagram a while ago, because I think Meta isn’t a good company and… well you’re about to read that. Honestly I don’t think the shorts I made were bad by any means, they were a nice way to get a quick video out without disappearing for months, but I have come to fundamentally disagree with a lot of what short form content is.

The term “content”

I don’t like it. Not a fan.

I love to put effort into making stuff for people to enjoy, and the term “content” seems to in this day connote what may be referred to as “slop,” or “a product of little or no value.” That’s not to say every piece of content on YouTube shorts or TikTok is slop, but it’s far more difficult to build a long-term engaging story between you and the viewer when it’s so restricted, and easy to swipe away and forget about that video ever existing. I don’t like this whole concept of this “content economy,” that is, the idea of mass producing videos and media in order to rake in large amounts of money, but that’s exactly what is enabled by cheap minute long vertical videos. I had a friend who went very deep into the whole “mass produced YouTube economy,” thing and it genuinely felt exploitative.. though that’s another (very interesting) story for another day. I don’t want to be a part of that whatsoever. I want to make videos for people to watch and genuinely get something out of, whether it’s a finished game to play or a simple feeling of satisfaction seeing the whole story of it through, and I also just like to be creative.

Short-form success

I mentioned that I’ve made shorts before, and I actually had some success with some of them. One of my shorts got over 675 thousand views. (This is where you’re supposed to clap). That was cool, but short-form videos heavily discourage engagement with how they’re designed. The majority of the interactions you will have with short-form videos are: watching, and swiping. While that video did garner a huge jump in subscribers for my channel, it didn’t affect the long-form content videos I actually cared for at all.

Some people base their channels entirely around shorts which tends to go better for that, but you don’t build community or long-term interactions through shorts, you get a subscriber and then they run away and forget you were there. I find it fascinating when I see a YouTube channel with millions of subscribers getting less views than my channel, because I am NOT big. My newest video has 8 thousand views and that’s more than some channels with millions of subscribers that are based around short-form creations. My caveman brain gets some level of dopamine from seeing big number go up, but it’s discouraging as someone who tries to put a good amount of effort into something longer to get so few eyes compared to something I threw together in order to keep people content for a few minutes. I’d imagine it’s also incredibly discouraging to those shorts creators to make anything longer when they see not even a tenth of the turnout at their long videos compared to their shorts.

Wait what time is it?

I was gonna write this blog post about 5 hours ago. Wanna know why I didn’t? I got this STUPID app called Instagram on my phone and it’s full of minimally engaging, constant dopamine-bursting videos that me and the gay people in my phone send to each other. From a user-side they make it so easy to simply swipe, and swipe, and swipe, and you don’t think of how much time could be passing because all of the videos are so short. I genuinely really wish there was a way to remove the shorts button from the YouTube app, and the reels button from Instagram, but they know that’s what brings you back.

I know I could delete them, but Instagram has its weird tentacles all over the place in the social lives of almost anyone under 30. I do want to distance myself, but it’s much harder to do so once you’re already such a longstanding user. (This is also why I’m grateful to have never used Snapchat, I found it creepy that the camera opens on launch).

-ALSO: I have been informed of a distraction-free version of Instagram that’s mainly for DM-ing people, which seems perfect. But alas, I am an iOS user. I have been bested by Android users once again. 😔

The media

Word of advice: don’t take what you see on social media as true news. Especially short-form. Something that news agencies have known for years is that people are more likely to engage, and therefore, bring in more money, if something is shocking. I’m not sure if this is really how it works but I imagine it simplifying down to a sort of psychological caveman-brain moment like this:

If I am to tell you “hey, these berries are safe to eat,” you might note that down, keep it in mind for later, but if I instead tell you those berries are toxic and they’ll kill you, you’re much more likely to keep that in mind in order to ensure you keep not dying. While I see a lot of stuff I do agree with, news-based, I also try to keep in mind that mass-produced, under-researched, biased, shocking content is far more engaging to users than good news, and you should always try to do your own research into a topic before deriving any perspective on it.

The good

As much as I don’t feel very positively towards short-form videos, it’s also hard to completely brush away. The only reason I stopped to come write this is because I saw a video of a Japanese pianist playing Undertale music in a busy city, which was weirdly calming, but also motivating. Shorts have genuinely provided a huge platform for small business owners, artists, game developers, and creators to build and grow an audience. Creators like Andy Land make amazing art which might not get the recognition it deserves through traditional means. To me though, I just don’t feel the best about it as a medium. I have absolutely nothing against people who do make shorts, some of my friends do and they’re typically the more productive and engaging sort, but I simply don’t feel like as a creative it’s been very positive for me with how I want to do things, and as a user while there are genuinely amazing things hidden in there, it’s so hard to find them that it doesn’t feel worth it at times. The commodification of “content,” the lack of proper community building, and the trap that is doomscrolling all make me worry about what the point of any of this content is at all. And the fact that I genuinely can’t remember a single short I’ve seen that isn’t a special standout animation or music post is a bit concerning.

While I’ve got you on the line, what do you think? Is this more of just a personal thing with me? I’d love to hear some thoughts

-Ax 🩷