> - shorts (they're fine in a separate space, just not in the timeline)

No they're not. Nothing that mandates vertical video has ever been fine nor ever will be. Tiktok, Reels, Shorts, all bad and should be destroyed.

Unless the action is primarily vertical, which is rarely ever the case, it's always been and always will be wrong.

Yes I will die on this hill. Videos that are worse to watch on everything but a phone and have bad framing for most content are objectively bad.

There is nothing wrong with the concept of short videos of course, but this "built for phones, sucks for everything else" trash needs to go away.

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dingaling 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Have you ever encountered portrait photos? They're orientated vertically because the human form, either head, bust or full body, fits better and excludes distractions.

Vertical videos, if they're focused on a human, work fine for the same reason.

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smitelli 2 days ago | parent [-]

I'd be interested in seeing an example of a well-composed 9:16 portrait photo. All the ones I have found look awkward.

	▲	HankStallone 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, portrait photos aren't as narrow as that. I just measured some of mine, and they're 5x7, 8x10, and 11x16. By comparison, 9x16 feels claustrophobic. I suspect that a still image is also different from video because, without motion, there's no feeling that if the person might move a few inches to one side and go out of frame.

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infecto 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You might be dead on that hill then. That ship has sailed long ago. Short format is mostly consumed on phones in vertical. Long form is still standard widths.

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count 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

“Everything but a phone” is a tiny tiny percentage of the devices used to consume content on YouTube. It’s not just mobile first, it’s basically only mobile…