Why I hate short-form videos
I’ve been through a series of addictive binges. I watched videos essays on YouTube that are four hours long, dissecting video games with the academic rigor of an Oxford professor. I painstakingly painted Warhammer miniatures for hours, all in the same coloring and highlights (alongside brushed-over blemishes). I even spent half a day researching flat-earth conspiracy theories – not because I cared about them, but because I wanted to understand the people behind the bluster.
All these passions felt like a hole which I tumbled down, hitting a few ledges on the way down, until I acquired a pitted array of black bruises that I can at least show my friends later. “Look what I found,” I exclaim, showing off one bruise as they count how many teeth I lost. But it was worth it, sometimes; I got something out of my accidental journeys.
But short-form videos (Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, TikTok) are different. Platforms do not give the courtesy of a back door once you tumble into the hole. Instead more holes open up, ones perfectly designed to fit your shape and size, and you fall further downwards.
That’s partly because it’s the perfect content machine. We have burnished models where we show exactly what you want, whenever you want, as much as you want. We have built towards this moment for decades, as we accelerated how we deliver content as well as shape it to our liking. We are like Homer Simpson in hell, engorging on racks after racks of bland doughnuts ad infinitum. We are trapped into a prison of surface-level chatter and knowledge, where prettied-up pundits speak with complete confidence on topics where their knowledge has the depth of a Saharan puddle.
Credit: The Simpsons
The content itself rarely challenges us, entering our eyes one way and disappearing into the intellectual abyss a few seconds later. Sometimes an interesting video comes up – the etymology of “onion”, or a new recipe for Thai Green Curry. But then we just… forget about it. It slips away, unnoticed. And this opens over and over again, for potentially hours, as we accept the empty calories with benign interest.
And it works. It shows breakdowns of flat earth videos, or overly deep Warhammer lore, or the best perks for Fallout 4. It rarely goes beyond the bubbles. Or when it does, it’s a twenty year old with the diplomatic knowledge of Henry Kissenger giving an absolute assessment of a war. “It’s pretty obvious,” one chides, as blue strips of light luminate their pasty white skin.
I’ve fallen into this trap before, scrolling on and on. My solution was to disconnect it from the bedroom, a ban where we can reclaim a quiet space for ourselves or a book. But it takes effort.
Your greatest potential enemy is the one who knows everything about you. That means there are two prime enemies in your life: yourself, and the platforms you spend your time with.
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Tangents is where I defend what I like and hate, pushing myself creatively by focusing on what really lights me up. Some topics are expected, while others are… less expected. Each edition comes out once per week, and is also shared in my Immersive Wire newsletter.
