# Youtube--- what are "shorts"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 24, 2023, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460 "2023-07-24T11:04:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2023, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460/21 "2023-07-24T18:43:12Z")
Is the physical format intended for better viewing on a phone? ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2023, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460/22 "2023-07-24T18:46:18Z")
I’ll add that Facebook is doing something similar; they call them “Reels” but it’s the same idea – their algorithm suggests a bunch of short \< 1 minute videos in your news feed. And I concur that both the YouTube “Shorts” and Facebook “Reels” are attempting to capture some of the TikTok audience. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2023, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460/23 "2023-07-24T19:36:11Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > uBlock Origin has never blocked YouTube comments for me Same. > [@blienmeis](#): > > Do keep in mind that uBlock and uBlock Origin are, or at least were different things. Yes, I know in the past there were two similarly named products and one was good, the other bad. I believe that signing in with an account that has parental controls enabled will block the comments. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2023, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460/24 "2023-07-24T19:47:16Z")
> [@wguy123](#): > > I believe that signing in with an account that has parental controls enabled will block the comments I installed uBlockOrigin, and with one or two clicks it installed itself automatically in my browser. It never asked me to sign up with an account, and never mentioned any kind of options (like parental controls). And now, even after removing UblcokOrigin, the comments are still blocked. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2023, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460/25 "2023-07-24T19:53:12Z")
I think that poster meant that signing into YouTube with an account could do that. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2023, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460/26 "2023-07-24T19:58:14Z")
I don’t sign into youtube, either. But comments are blocked ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2023, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460/27 "2023-07-24T20:02:54Z")
Assuming you properly uninstalled uBlock Origin, try YouTube with an incognito window. If comments aren’t blocked, try clearing your YouTube cookies in your browser? ---
**Author:** ![gnarator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gnarator/32/8266_2.png) [@gnarator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnarator)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2023, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460/28 "2023-07-24T20:05:16Z")
I made a few short videos a few years ago, and I was surprised that YouTube converted them to Shorts on their own. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2023, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460/29 "2023-07-24T20:26:24Z")
Interesting, maybe obnoxious on their part. Are they all filmed vertically? Or do they add blurry borders? ---
**Author:** ![gnarator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gnarator/32/8266_2.png) [@gnarator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnarator)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2023, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460/30 "2023-07-24T20:28:09Z")
A few of them were vertical videos, but one was filmed horizontally. I think they just cut it down to fit. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2023, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460/31 "2023-07-24T20:33:22Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > Youtube is FORCING content creators to create exactly this kind of content. If you don’t produce enough shorts, youtube stops recommending your videos, your channel views plummet to almost nothing, and your channel dies. Just as a data point, I don’t find this to be the case; I make a few shorts, when I feel like it, or not; weeks or months may pass when I don’t make any. I don’t think it makes any difference, for me. Maybe it’s different for more ‘trending topic’ types of channels, and maybe it’s the case that if someone goes wholesale on shorts, then tries to ease off, that might adversely affect recommendations. I dunno. The workings of the recommendations algorithm are not public (by design, YT doesn’t divulge how it works, because that would give people information to subvert it), so anyone who makes statements about it, is speculating - with evidence in the form of their own experience of course, which is not invalid, but is also not likely to be the whole picture. Shorts are very likely part of the set of factors that the recommendations algorithm uses, but I don’t think it’s quite so simple as ‘Your channel dies if you don’t’ ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2023, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460/32 "2023-07-24T20:42:54Z")
Some cameras (like the x360) can export the same footage as a single operation in vertical and horizontal aspect ratios by cropping (the nature of that camera is that all footage exported involves cropping from a wider shot anyway - it’s a feature). Similarly some video editing software can be configured to export a full video in wide format and a short from the same edit in vertical format. The ‘Shorts Sampling’ feature inside of YouTube takes a vertically-cropped section out of any existing video, I believe - I haven’t tried it. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2023, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460/33 "2023-07-24T20:43:05Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > I tried PiHole for a while, but it didn’t block YouTube or Hulu ads on my Chromecast so I didn’t see the point. > [@wguy123](#): > > I tried the Pihole for our Chromecast but it didn’t seem to help. If something is getting around the PiHole, that _usually_ means the device has it’s own DNS info and doesn’t use yours. There’s tricks to get around it, but I haven’t had to employ any of them, so other than knowing of them, I’ve never used any of them. > [@chappachula](#): > > I had never heard of uBlock, so I just added it to my Chrome browser,Windows10. I’ve never had that issue, there could very well be something wonky in one of your settings. However, and this is important, uBlock is not the same as uBlock Origin. Make sure you’re installing uBlock Origin. > **[uBlock Origin - Free, open-source ad content blocker.](https://ublockorigin.com/)** > > uBlock Origin is not just an “ad blocker“, it's a wide-spectrum content blocker with CPU and memory efficiency as a primary feature. Developed by Raymond Hill. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2023, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460/34 "2023-07-24T20:46:32Z")
> [@Danger\_Man](#): > > Technically, they are not any different than regular 1 minute videos They do have to be taller than they are wide; not necessarily vertical 9:16 or anything, just at least one pixel taller than they are wide. If you upload a 30 second video that’s square or wider than it is tall, tagging it as a short won’t work. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2023, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460/35 "2023-07-24T22:31:13Z")
> [@Danger\_Man](#): > > they are not any different than regular 1 minute videos, but presentation matters. Except you don’t have any volume controls (other than muted/unmuted) and you have no way to skip around within the video. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2023, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460/36 "2023-07-25T09:24:39Z")
> [@Danger\_Man](#): > > Twitter could also just be Facebook posts with a short text and no pictures. I think you mean X. It shall henceforth no longer be referred to as the T word. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2023, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460/37 "2023-07-26T22:24:11Z")
On desktop, you can replace the word ‘shorts’ in the URL with ‘watch’ and you get to watch the video in the normal YouTube interface. Bit of a faff, but it works. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460/38 "2023-07-27T04:10:22Z")
That’s a bit superior to what I do. After clicking on the short, if it has at least one comment, I click on it, then click on the comment’s time, which takes me to the standard youtube display. If it has no comments, then I’m stuck. I don’t use Tiktok, so the shorts were new to me. The first night I spent 3 hours looking at them. Finally I realized if I used the trick I described, that would break my automatic clicking on the next short. Since then that’s worked really well. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460/39 "2023-07-27T13:29:14Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Except you don’t have any volume controls (other than muted/unmuted) and you have no way to skip around within the video. I never use volume when watching videos - Youtube, TikTok, Instagram, etc. Rarely do mindless videos impart anything meaningful, just people exclaiming “Oh my gawd!” over and over, or that “Oh no! ♫ oh no!” You lose nothing by watching them muted. For things where dialog is important, like bad jokes, it’s captioned. ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460/40 "2023-08-30T20:31:19Z")
TIL (well, recently) about the [YouTube shorts to normal Video](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/youtube-shorts-to-normal/lhjkldibjjmodfeicnohmenmnddlfkpl) extension. Install it in your browser, then if you play a short, it converts to normal mode with playback controls etc. You’re welcome. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youtube-what-are-shorts/987460.md?page=1)