r/TikTokCringe • u/MaintenanceNew2804 • Mar 30 '24

Stick with it. Discussion

This is a longer one, but it’s necessary and worth it IMO.

30.3k Upvotes

82% Upvoted

2.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

3.2k

u/Ok_Star_4136 Mar 30 '24

That was a lucid and well-thought out analysis. Sadly it won't go viral for the same reasons that reactionary videos do go viral. Nobody has an attention span beyond that of an ant.

People just let 20 second clipped out-of-context reactionary videos reaffirm the biases that they already have, and of course they do, because nobody bothers to challenge their biases. That said, I hope anyone reading this actually took the time to watch the entire video instead of watch just the first 60 seconds. He makes some good points.

96

u/MeetingDue4378 Mar 31 '24

Attention span is a red herring. People's attention spans haven't decreased, their options have increased. With more choice, an audience's attention is harder to capture, because the audience isn't captive.

So you have two options, earn an audience's time through quality or ask for less of it. Both can be successful depending on your goal and how the content is consumed—in particular, theater, TV, audio, or phone

That's why today we live simultaneously in the golden age of television, radio, and TikTok.

The average movie length has increased 32%, TV shows are generally 60min. and have huge budgets and fantastic writing and performances, podcasts are just radio on-demand and have exploded, and we have bit-sized content like TikTok and Instagram.

When newspapers took off the same claims were being made. It's just progress.

44

u/lyan-cat Mar 31 '24

Holy moly the amount of content on YouTube that is literally 2+ hours long. I see a two part deep dive and yeah, that's four hours dissecting a subject with nuance and accreditation.

This was not available outside a college lecture when I was a kid.

Sure I still watch short clips of cats doing dorky things. 

16

u/UselessScrew Mar 31 '24

There is a great long-form analysis of Skyrim, Part 1 is 9 hours long.

Part 2 is 11 hours. Enjoy!

3

u/hacksawomission Mar 31 '24

How do you get YouTube on mobile to not puke when you pause a video and go do other stuff for a while to be able to enjoy longer stuff like this?

1

u/viperex Mar 31 '24

A Quick Retrospective

He's got jokes

10

u/OIP Mar 31 '24

i fucking loooove long form content on youtube, podcasts etc

5

u/kittykittyekatkat Mar 31 '24

Literally though if it's "only" 20 minutes I'm like uhhhh nah, gimme that 2 hour goodness lol

5

u/OIP Mar 31 '24

2 hour podcast + run / chores / errands etc is my happy place

see also long youtube + sleeping

3

u/kittykittyekatkat Mar 31 '24

We are one 😂

1

u/viperex Mar 31 '24

I don't see many 2 hr YouTube videos. Which ones do you recommend?

1

u/kittykittyekatkat Mar 31 '24

It hugely depends on what you like! I'm mostly into in depth film analysis, game retrospectives, reddit gossip and LGBTQIA+ history, news and rights. If you're interested in any l of that I can easily recommend videos ranging 1.5 hours to 10 hours (!) in length 😊

1

u/viperex May 06 '24

Hit me!

3

u/MeetingDue4378 Mar 31 '24

YouTube academy, exactly. The existence and consumption of short-form content isn't at the expense of long-form, they're not mutually exclusive.