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TikTok has turned culture into a feedback loop of impulse and machine learning

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292 points natalie3p | 1 comments | 10 Sep 25 16:08 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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keiferski ◴[10 Sep 25 16:33 UTC] No.45200147[source]▶
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 most popular video creators are doing both; even MrBeast routinely has videos over 30 minutes long.

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quxbar ◴[10 Sep 25 16:35 UTC] No.45200190[source]▶
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.
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xhrpost ◴[10 Sep 25 16:43 UTC] No.45200322[source]▶
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.
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echelon ◴[10 Sep 25 17:07 UTC] No.45200685[source]▶
I hate this bifurcation.

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.

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1. hnuser123456 ◴[10 Sep 25 19:33 UTC] No.45202517[source]▶
IIRC youtube enables maximum monetization on videos that are at least 10 minutes long. So you end up with a mixed bag of 10-minute videos where some are content that could've been said in a couple of sentences and been 30 seconds, that were stretched out into 10 minutes of filler, and some where the content should've been 30 minutes or more, squished down to just over 10 minutes to try not to have an intimidating video length.