YouTube Shorts Experiment

YouTube Shorts seem to get a lot of exposure on the YouTube home page (what used to be the recommended videos) and the dedicated Shorts shelf.

In a blatant move to compete against popular short form video aggregator TikTok, YouTube is pushing shorts to generate engagement and keep viewers on the platform.

This move is similar to what Instagram has been doing in the past years, taking “inspiration” from competitors and introducing suspiciously similar features such as Stories from Snapchat and Reels from TikTok.

Shorts can be created directly from the YouTube app for some users when they click on the “Create” button (from which you can either upload a video or go live) and they can upload content that is up to 15 seconds long but if this feature is not available they can simply upload a short video (up to 60 seconds long).

I have been noticing that more and more of the channels I subscribe to have been publishing shorts: from PlantTubers (the irony that many plants start life as tubers is not lost here) to DIYers, Shorts allow creators to publish content quickly and the YouTube algorithm seems to reward them for it.

I wanted to see what happens when you publish a Short and the obvious choice for me was a cat video. Even though people’s viewing preferences have evolved over the years, cat videos on…