The current logo of YouTube Shorts
YouTube Shorts are short-form videos that are shown in a 9:16 or 1:1 format similar to the popular social media app TikTok.
Shorts were first introduced in September 2020 and were first released officially in India, being released in the United States one month later.[1] YouTube Shorts was released worldwide (however lacking features) in 2021, resulting in channels to explode in subscribers and views, causing YouTubers to make second channels exclusively for YouTube Shorts. In April 2021, every time a YouTuber that users turned on notifications, it led them to the YouTube Short page instead of the video itself. YouTube Shorts aren't in the monetization program, meaning YouTubers can't make money out of the shorts. However, YouTube announced a fund to support the top Short Creators on May 11, 2021. In July 2021, BTS made a challenge that used YouTube Shorts. In October 2021, Ed Sheeran released his album, and made 14 shorts of its 14 songs, the most popular having over 100 million views.
On February 20, 2022, the Shorts tab was added on mobile devices and was later added to the desktop website.
How it works[]
To make a video as a Short, it needs to be in a vertical or square shaped format and less than a minute long. There are no requirements to making Shorts. There is an editor for using Shorts as well.
To find Shorts, go through the home page until users see the logo that says "Shorts" or type in #shorts in the search bar. Users can also find other shorts from their channels by pressing their channel icon, that leads users to the "Shorts from this channel" screen.
Criticism[]
While the feature was initially praised at launch, much like TikTok, it eventually became a subject of criticism due to it being based on an infamous app. In addition to that, many of the shorts are actually reposted from TikTok for views and profit, similar to Facebook's Lasso and Snapchat's Spotlight.
Another thing is that certain channels repost the same short again and again, which still helps them gain traffic despite the recycling. Some have claimed that this demotivates creative YouTubers who put more time and effort into their videos.
Trivia[]
- Shorts are global; however, features such as the editor page are limited to the United States and India.
- YouTube Shorts are similar to the social media app TikTok, which caused several complaints due to the feature being a clone of the latter as well as containing reposts from it.
- Older videos that are in vertical format and less than 60 seconds long count as a YouTube Short.
- By double-tapping on the screen, users can like the video (a feature that is already on TikTok).
- Originally, if a video ends, it goes to the next Short. Now it loops the video.
- Originally, users could pause the video by holding the screen and let go to play.
- Now users can tap the video to pause or unpause it.
- 1:1 and videos count as Shorts.[2]
- Thin videos don't count as shorts.[3]
- If a YouTube Short has a custom thumbnail, the thumbnail wouldn't be included in the short, but shows a random picture from the video itself.
- Shorts used to be mobile-exclusive, however in October 2021 they were introduced to desktop devices, it lacks some features from mobile, such as the like button animation, and captions. They were added to tablet devices and the mobile website in 2022.
- However, in its open beta stage, Shorts couldnāt be recorded on desktop.
- There is a Shorts Fund, a $100M bonus to reward original Shorts creators.
- Unlike videos, Shorts don't get copyright claims or strikes on the videos if copyrighted music is used.
- Since Shorts last one minute and short-form content is more likely to get more views online, people have made YouTube bots to spam Shorts as fast as possible.
- The only way to save them is by either liking the video, going to the Liked Videos playlist, and clicking the video, or by replacing "shorts/" with "watch?v=".
Gallery[]
References[]
External links[]
- #shorts on YouTube
- Get started with YouTube Shorts on YouTube Help
- New Features and Updates for Shorts Viewers & Creators
- YouTube Creators page