81–90 of 222 posts
This post popped up a blocking window before I was even 3 sentences in, so maybe unsurprising that I clicked away in less than 60 seconds. If the author wants people to read whatever it is they have to say, maybe they should not put distractions in front of their writing?
I deleted TikTok and my Twitter account. Also stopped watching TV. I'm happier and more productive.
So strange to think about how Vine could’ve won this and an American company could’ve been the leader here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I won't even look at a youtube video essay about an obscure vintage RPG (my preferred form of guilty pleasure viewing) if it's under 20 minutes long.
I watched a 2 hour video on the history of computer RPGs, I think it was specific to DND, and found it captivating. Would also like to hear your recs.
I almost never want 2-hour documentary style videos, yet 1-minute teasers leave me even more dissatisfied.
I want 5-minute to 15-minute videos. They can be either overviews or summaries that cover broad stretches or super focused essays that go deeply in depth on just a singular hyper-focused point.
Long-form typically means opinionated and written for a lay audience. Filled with unnecessary pregnant pauses, fluff, and breathing room. Historians trying to craft a narrative.
Stop wasting your viewer's precious time on b-roll or building a case. Smart audiences will trust you if you're succinct and factual.
So take the heinously verbose documentary format, trim it down to just 10 to 15 minutes, and you're left with a fast-paced, frenetic, fully dehydrated, factual blow-by-blow.
That's the sweet spot. Maximum information density.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I could watch an hour long fast paced video just fine, but watching a slow paced show, or reading a book is so much more difficult. Attention and concentration are skills that can be trained, so not all is lost. I was feeling like I was losing my focus about a decade ago and decided that every morning I'd wake up and read a novel for 30 minutes or so. Within a few weeks you'll notice the difference.
I don't understand. The problem is not that we don't have attention or concentration. Otherwise how can he watch hour long fast paced video. This a different form of attention. I would like to call it the intensity of attention. Reading a book, require attention but of lower intensity. While watching an hour long fast paced video, require a high intensity attention.
My attention span went (back) up after I forced myself to read some books start to finish. It’s something you can lose, but fortunately it’s also something you can regain.
Also, I'm sure I have to subtract a huge number of these people from the dumb list, because they probably just watch a bunch of TikTok to unwind or get summaries of the events of the day, then move on to real content. People spend a lot more than an hour in front of screens, and have for the past 75 years. Plenty of the world was already watching dumb short animal videos, fail videos, success videos, astonishing videos, etc. long before TikTok.
Early youtube absolutely despised and made difficult uploading videos over 10 minutes. The thing was made to share tsunami videos and what were basically animated personal snapshots.
Acting like this is a qualitative change is just easy ragebait, and this story has been written again and again since MTV debuted (which is why it felt the need to refer to it.) That was almost 50 years ago.
edit: Martha Quinn is 66 years old.
Too simple of a narrative. At the same time, YouTube videos are getting longer, and people are watching more YouTube videos on TVs than on mobile devices: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2025/02/12/launched-... So I think we're seeing more of a bifurcation: in-depth longform videos are becoming 30, 40, 60, even 90 minutes long, whereas anything shorter than 10 minutes is being compressed to 30-60 seconds. The…
Yea, because it's a superior format. I love YouTube but my problem with the content of YouTube is that almost all videos are introducing you to everything every time. For example, there's this science video about this interesting property of fire right? They start with what's fire, when it was invented, what led to be studied this way and then they deliver the money shot. It is O.K. to be introduced to a topic once b…
Too simple of a narrative. At the same time, YouTube videos are getting longer, and people are watching more YouTube videos on TVs than on mobile devices: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2025/02/12/launched-... So I think we're seeing more of a bifurcation: in-depth longform videos are becoming 30, 40, 60, even 90 minutes long, whereas anything shorter than 10 minutes is being compressed to 30-60 seconds. The…
I wager most people are putting those on while having a meal and using their phones or tablets at the same time. Moreover, 99% of the most watched content on YouTube is utter garbage that would make the average reality show on TV twenty years ago look like The Godfather in comparison. Gossippy, clickbait videos made to induce an immediate dopamine dump and be used as background noise aren't "in-depth" anything. I don't think people are sitting in front of a TV watching an hour-long, non-sponsored, ad-free interview with Margerite Duras and doing nothing else concurrently, for instance.
On top of all that, this trend of making longer videos comes mostly from an attempt to increase ad revenue. Let's not be fooled here.