Shorts
Added 2023-05-04 17:16:41 +0000 UTCSuppose that over the last few years, there's been an exponential rise in the amount of opium usage. It's especially prevalent among the youth. You've started to notice as you walk through airports and look at how people twiddle away their time, sneaking the occasional glance over the shoulder of a stranger, that quite a few people seem to spend those spare moments happily indulging in the drug.
Obviously, this is not a great situation. Addictions rarely are. Also, some people worry about the specific opium den where most of the youth seem to go to get their fix and the way it may or may not make use of their information. People also have expressed worries about what level of involvement the government housing these dens may or may not have in running them, but maybe that's beside the point.
It's a little more complicated than that because not all of this opium is bad, per se. Some of it seems to really help people, but there's no question that on the whole, it's all very addictive.
Now suppose that you're a doctor, and part of your job involves prescribing drugs. Not ones like opium, at least you hope not, but ones that will actually help people and make their lives better. Moreover, a big part of the reason you got into medicine was not just to help people in general, but to help the youth in particular.
In your heart of hearts, you know that there's a somewhat blurry line between the drugs that you prescribe and the opium people are addicted to. It's definitely possible for people to abuse the pharmacy where your prescriptions are dispensed, and as easy as it is to be critical of the opium dens, it's not like your own domain hasn't seen an addiction epidemic of its own. Not only that, but your own pharmacy has even recently opened a window specifically to dispense opium, and asking many doctors to try prescribing opium here, all in the hope of competing with the more popular opium dens.
Still, you feel pretty comfortable that your drugs, at least, are actually helping people.
The question is, should you explore channels of dispensing your drugs, or variants of your drugs, in the opium dens? On the one hand, it doesn't feel great to be a part of the growing addiction. But realistically there are a lot of people, especially the younger generation, that spend much more of their time in the opium den than in pharmacies and doctor's offices. You know it might be an avenue for reaching those people. Mostly, though, you just haven't thought about it much given that you yourself aren't an opium user.
The immediate hurdle is that your drugs don't fit the form factor of what's dispensed at the opium dens. What you prescribe isn't the easiest in the world to use, it requires at least a little bit of patience and concentration, whereas most opium gives a more immediate hit. You could take some time to adapt your prescription or to create new drugs that more closely fit the spirit of the dens, but it's not really something you want to spend a lot of your own time doing.
But then suppose someone comes along and offers to do that adaptation on your behalf. They'll take some of your existing drugs, pull out what may fit well in the dens, and invite people to come to your pharmacy if they like the taste of what they had. You can still spend almost all your time working on the medicines you feel passionate about, and even if it's not in the most virtuous context, a few more people may now have the chance to become aware of your practice. Worth a shot, no?
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Anyway, there now exists a 3blue1brown TikTok. My thanks go to Dawid Kołodziej for cutting up the adaptations.
Comments
Alas, I'm always way late to internet conversations, so I don't know if Grant will see this. I see the tiktok link-in-bio to the youtube channel, but I don't see a link in the comments (or elsewhere) for each tiktok video directly to the corresponding long-form youtube video. Are such links forbidden on tiktok? Or maybe they are there but I'm overlooking them? If not, it seems like it might be helpful to add them. Anyway, the shorts I've watched are very well done teasers. Kudos to Dawid.
2023-08-20 11:36:07 +0000 UTCAmazing story! I am not into Tik Tok either, but as long as someone else is doing the work, it will likely be a net positive to the world.
2023-05-07 03:12:03 +0000 UTCI don't TikTok. I have enough trouble with FaceBook.
Gregor Shapiro
2023-05-05 05:59:41 +0000 UTCOhh yeah, I’m able to view it here. For some reason it wasn’t playing a few hours ago. Also, just saw that it’s been posted to instagram reels as well :)
2023-05-05 02:25:48 +0000 UTCAh yeah, since your shorts will be along the lines of previews/trailers, I agree that a different channel would be optimal. I don’t watch many shorts myself (I’m more of a fan of typical, horizontal Youtube videos) but since I have created/posted hundreds of them, I’ve learned various things in the process. I don't always follow all of these suggestions myself, since I value the creative process more than the "success" of a given video, but I've observed the analytics and seen which shorts did better than others. Of course, I feel like I’m giving cooking advice to a master chef, since your videos are so well-crafted that they would probably succeed even if you ignored all of this advice. With that said, here’s a few random observations that come to mind. As a preliminary warning: it can be easier to gain subscribers from shorts than from long-form content, but not all of them remain as long-term dedicated viewers. It can be quite difficult to get Tiktok viewers to click away to visit a Youtube page. On Youtube shorts, it can be a bit easier to draw viewers towards long-form content, but still a smaller proportion of them will remain dedicated viewers, compared to viewers gained directly through long videos. The shorts algorithm is its own beast, but like with typical Youtube videos, it values a high “average watch time”. It also values consistency, so it will probably treat your later shorts better than your first few. Since many viewers will instantly click away from shorts they are not interested in, it’s extra important to have a catchy title (without resorting to exaggerated clickbait of course) and first few seconds of video. As an optional consideration, if a short happens to loop around in a pleasing way, you’re more likely to have some viewers watch it multiple times. The algorithms love shorts with many interactions/comments (which unfortunately means that controversial content gets an unfair advantage). This can mean that shorts will do better if/when they are about a mathematical topic that is likely to spark debates in the comments. Most shorts viewers won’t look at the video description, so if you have an important addition to note, you might want to add it in a pinned comment too. Now, this response is probably long enough (I imagine I’ll hit a size limit soon), but if you ever would like a more detailed version of these observations and others, I’d happily tell you more specifics in an email or whatever method. And feel free to message me if any questions come up down the road. As I’ve mentioned to my viewers several times, you are one of my favorite video-makers and math educators of all time. Thanks for everything you do.
2023-05-04 23:40:27 +0000 UTCahaha. I read the text first and was very much confused. Then I saw the video. Great analogy 😄
2023-05-04 23:21:23 +0000 UTCI think the preview format is a good move. Moves people from a den to a nice park bench with some coffee ☕
Jordan Brown
2023-05-04 22:31:39 +0000 UTCI very much empathize with you here. If you're also going to do youtube shorts, I think it's better to have a second channel for that, which potentially drives people to the longer content. named "3b1b shorts" as a channel maybe.
DomNomNom
2023-05-04 21:14:37 +0000 UTCBut you are here. No need for TikTok. You are already hooked. :)
2023-05-04 19:36:44 +0000 UTCHilarious. Damb, I'm addicted. Guess I always was, even before TikTok. :)
2023-05-04 19:34:49 +0000 UTCIf a "peddler" of drugs that are harmful (to individuals and society) is going to trawl for customers amongst the non-using population, it seems only fair for a peddler of beneficial drugs to trawl for customers amongst the drug-using population.
2023-05-04 18:57:48 +0000 UTCI've just made a second channel for that. Even if there are ways to keep it out of the main channel's subscribers' feeds, it somehow still feels right to separate them. I post the ones that are <60 seconds on there. I think the best shorts will be ones that are custom-made for the medium, whereas what I'm posting right now often read more like previews to long-form content. Feel free to share any thoughts from your experience, though, I'm all ears.
3blue1brown
2023-05-04 18:38:48 +0000 UTCGreat description! By the way, if you ever decide to post some of them on "Youtube shorts" as well (there are ways to do that from a channel without showing up in notifications or subscription feeds so that it doesn't bother your main viewers) and have any questions, feel free to reach out. I've posted hundreds of math-related shorts on both Tiktok and on the Youtube shorts page before and would be happy to share my findings/suggestions.
2023-05-04 18:27:43 +0000 UTCBrilliant analogy.
Tesseract King
2023-05-04 18:22:51 +0000 UTC
