Written by Wen Yehao

Edited by Wu Xianzhi

In 1962, Marilyn Monroe sadly passed away due to an overdose of barbiturates, leaving behind a sigh of regret. Pop art master Andy Warhol repeatedly replicated her face using silkscreen printing technology, turning Monroe into a symbol that transcended life itself.

Over the years, this symbolic portrait of Monroe has transcended eras, with its popularity even surpassing Warhol himself – to this day, many people on the other side of the ocean still use it as their WeChat profile picture to express their personality.

In addition to immortalizing Monroe's face, Warhol also left behind a prophecy that has endured to this day: "In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes." This quote has been repeatedly cited in subsequent years, becoming a sort of mantra of modern culture.

However, even Warhol underestimated the madness of the future, as he could not have foreseen that in today's era, fame would shift from "15 minutes" to "15 seconds" of viral popularity – the rise of short videos has compressed the threshold for content consumption to an incredibly minute scale.

If the "3Q War" was the final battle of the PC era, then short videos represent the greatest fruit borne from the second leap of the internet. Nevertheless, it has been seven years since the explosion of short videos, and a pivotal moment is now upon us.

A Seven-Year Close-Up of Short Videos

For short videos, 2017 was a memorable year, marking the beginning of their rapid growth and widespread proliferation in China.

In March 2017, when Kuaishou completed its Series D funding round led by Tencent, Pony Ma was brimming with confidence, announcing their goal to create a mobile internet product that is user-centric, warm, and vibrant for China.

It was an era of raw and wild content, when Kuaishou was still a decentralized "jianghu" where people of all stripes roamed freely, showcasing their authentic selves and crude humor that captured the hearts of many spiritual believers. Meanwhile, the grassroots celebrity Tianyou, who rose to fame through rapping, was also rumored to be romantically involved with Zhao Benshan's daughter.

At that time, Douyin, which had only been launched for half a year, was still in its infancy and had yet to fully demonstrate its potential. It was primarily a hub for music and dance content enhanced by cool filters, hence the name "Douyin." Bytedance's growth was more evident in its humorous memes, even inspiring a widely circulated joke: "As long as memes live, Douyin will always be the crown prince." Little did anyone expect that this joke would prove prophetic a year later.

In the era of entrepreneurial boom, short videos, as an emerging content form, experienced rapid user growth but were not without competition. On one hand, there was the live streaming war with giants vying for dominance, and on the other, Vlogs emerged as a new contender.

If we use the internet's preferred narrative of "year zero," 2018 undoubtedly marked the dawn of Vlogs in the content sphere. At that time, fully equipped Vloggers could be seen everywhere in urban streets and scenic spots, carrying their micro four-thirds cameras, gimbals, and windshields, and some even carried drones.

As we all know, Vlogs, with their elite mindset and pursuit of quality, ultimately remained confined to niche circles, while short videos, with their underground charm, emerged victorious. In a sense, this echoes Pinduoduo's bottom-up approach during the same period. Even when Ma Hongbin first joined Kuaishou, he initially thought of it as a product built by a group of young socialites until he met Su Hua, a fellow Tsinghua alumnus.

One factor lies in the creative threshold. From one-shot short videos to the continuous launch and optimization of lightweight editing tools like Kuaiying and Jianying, and recently, so-called AI creation, short video players have consistently sought to liberate productivity by lowering production barriers.

While "academic" creators were still shooting Log color footage and struggling to learn Premiere, After Effects, or DaVinci Resolve, the trick of lowering the threshold for video creation proved brilliant. Compared to text, video is inherently a more expressive medium, and reducing the barrier to video creation means that people, who have long been accustomed to being represented by others, finally have the ability to express themselves. And on this land, from cities to villages, from white-collar workers to farmers, there is no shortage of people eager to express themselves.

On the other hand, in the content sphere, a "let it run its course" approach rarely gives rise to viral hits. Only a combination of "algorithm + operation" can replicate blockbusters like an assembly line, tightly bringing creators and users together.

Looking at Douyin's viral influencers over the years, from the early days of beauty and dance content creators like @Feiqiming and @DaigulaK, to live streaming sales stars like Li Jiaqi and Dongfang Zhenxuan, and even the virtual influencer Liu Yexi during the metaverse craze, influencers have come and gone like a never-ending carousel of popularity, each conveying the platform's aspirations – either to expand content offerings and retain fickle users or to build momentum for new monetization scenarios.

In this race for new content, Douyin has continually extended its reach, dabbling in various fields, staging a play where "channels reign supreme" in the content market. This is one of the reasons why Douyin was able to turn the table and defeat former players like Miaopai and Meipai. Meanwhile, Kuaishou's stability stems not only from its unique community tone that fosters a highly sticky user ecosystem but also from its reclamation of traffic distribution rights, reinforcement of public domain strategies, and reversal of head streamers' monopoly on traffic.

Despite the relentless criticism surrounding issues like "algorithmic values" and "information silos" in the wake of the short video boom, as Su Hua wrote in "Accept Criticism and Move Forward": "The algorithms used in community operations have values because they are driven by people. The values of algorithms are the values of people, and their flaws are flaws in values."

In other words, algorithms not only shape content and users but are also shaped by them, forming a symbiotic relationship. The logic of "killing time" has been rationalized – people on Douyin and Kuaishou are increasingly becoming like the people they see on those platforms, and short videos have become a ubiquitous presence, displacing established norms wherever they go.

Fatigue and Variables

Flipping through the financial reports of long-form video and live streaming players over the past few years, "increased competition from short video platforms" has emerged as a ubiquitous explanation for user churn, tinged with a sense of frustration and helplessness.

Meanwhile, at a curriculum reform seminar at a southwestern university, H5 web development courses have quietly been removed from the compulsory list for the Network and New Media major.

A few years ago, H5, which blends text, graphics, animation, and video, was hailed as a "jack-of-all-trades" in multimedia, attracting significant attention from the marketing world. However, with the rapid rise of short videos and live streaming sales, people gradually realized that the highly inflammatory "sales pitches" in live streams made the meticulously crafted H5 seem long-winded and redundant.

This means that in just seven short years, short videos have swept through the industry, clobbering long-form videos and Vlogs, and exerting intangible pressure on the broader content ecosystem. However, even this seemingly omnipotent storm has gradually shown signs of fatigue after years of relentless progress.

This fatigue stems partly from the highly mature centralized traffic monetization model. Take Douyin as an example; the combination of short videos and algorithms has not only changed the previously passive "click" interaction logic but also allowed the platform to continuously fragment users' time and fill those fragments with precisely targeted content and ads, thereby achieving multi-layered monetization.

In the past, many merchants "parasitizing" on short videos could enjoy traffic dividends, such as white-label factory stores reaching consumers directly through algorithmic targeting. However, as the industry matured, it was followed by relentless competition for traffic and the imposition of "traffic taxes" by platforms through internal transfers.

This ultimately led to a vicious "arms race" – the more precise the algorithm, the more frequent the ads, leading to user apathy, lower conversion rates, and merchants pouring more money into buying traffic, driving up costs and eroding profits.

Under this backdrop, merchants increasingly sought an escape. Take Dongfang Zhenxuan as an example; even though it originated on Douyin, it ultimately chose to strike out on its own, building its own app and partnering with e-commerce giants like Taobao and Pinduoduo to break free from the shackles of a single platform.

Another example is short dramas. According to Photon Star's understanding, if a user spends a total of 100 million yuan on in-app purchases, 80 million of that will go directly to advertising and promotion, most of which ends up in the platform's pocket. After deducting production costs, short drama companies receive only a fraction, roughly 5% to 7%.

Given this, while short drama companies in China cannot yet compete with short video platforms, those who have learned from their mistakes in overseas markets have begun building their own apps. This means that despite the platform's ironclad monopoly, merchants continue to attempt breakouts, seeking to tear down the invisible walls and regain control over their own destinies.

Over the past seven years, short video players have made significant gains but have struggled to conquer one major frontier – social networking. This exposes the structural constraints inherent in centralized short video platforms from their inception – under the deity-making model that prioritizes traffic, users primarily exist as spectators rather than participants, with their behaviors limited to browsing, liking, and occasional commenting, making it difficult to establish lasting social connections.

Taking Bytedance as an example, from Duoshan to Feiliao, it has repeatedly attempted to penetrate the social networking sphere but has consistently failed. Now, Bytedance is placing its bets on AI social networking, attempting to return to the fray with Doubao. Whether it can break the curse this time remains to be seen.

As the short video industry stumbles, players like WeChat Video and Xiaohongshu, with their decentralized DNA, have brought new variables to the table.

While WeChat Video also has a centralized traffic distribution mechanism, it largely inherits the characteristics of WeChat's social network – users' interactions are not isolated but embedded within existing social connections. This means that when a user likes or comments on a video on WeChat Video, it spreads within their social circle, enhancing secondary content dissemination and discussion.

In e-commerce, for example, compared to the hit-driven approach of Douyin and Kuaishou, WeChat Video prioritizes the accumulation of public and private domain traffic. Data shows that the average order value of e-commerce on WeChat Video has surpassed 200 yuan, outperforming other platforms, and its repurchase rate is also impressive.

Xiaohongshu, which emphasizes "traffic equity," pursues a similar strategy by focusing on both short videos and e-commerce. In the past, merchants had limited options, but now they have another path. This also opens up new possibilities for the "short video + XX" business model. It is foreseeable that future collisions and integrations between different short video factions could refresh the tired short video landscape.

Is Short Video the Universal Key?

Seven years, a time frame that carries an inexplicable sense of destiny in business parlance. As short videos celebrate their seventh year since their explosion, they seem to be facing the inevitable interrogation of this "seven-year itch."

According to Ma Hongbin, head of Kuaishou's International Business Department, when he left Meituan to join Kuaishou in 2017, there was no logical rationale behind his decision. Little did he anticipate that short videos would bring so many possibilities to the world.

But is short video truly the universal key?

Abraham Maslow, who proposed Maslow's hierarchy of needs, once used a classic metaphor in "The Psychology of Science": "If the only tool you have in your toolbox is a hammer, every problem will look like a nail."

This logic is vividly illustrated in short video players' frenetic forays into other sectors – whether it was the rush to enter live streaming and e-commerce, Kuaishou's experiments with dating and job recruitment, or Douyin's head-on challenge to Meituan, the underlying logic remained consistent: explore more business scenarios to inject more commercial potential into short videos.

In this process, short videos seemed to become the sole "hammer," with nearly every internet sector viewed as a "nail" to be pounded by short videos.

However, the reality appears to be different. Short videos are essentially content, while the core of business scenarios lies in services. This means that while short videos capture users' attention, it is not as easy as in the past to completely capture their "wallets."

Take a simple example. In 2023, Douyin aggressively entered the food delivery business, attempting to push the "short video + food delivery" model to market. Seven years ago, food delivery, which seemed unrelated to short videos in Ma Hongbin's eyes, has now seamlessly integrated with them.

The logic behind this is straightforward – food delivery is a high-frequency, rigid demand scenario, while short videos can visually showcase the food preparation process, unique selling points, and genuine customer feedback, creating a closed-loop immersive consumption experience. With its traffic advantage, Douyin seemed poised to enter the multi-billion dollar market and compete with Meituan and Ele.me.

The commercial battles between giants are always glamorous on the surface but turbulent beneath. Despite its traffic advantage, Douyin underestimated the formidable hurdles and hidden barriers in the food delivery sector.

At the most basic level, food delivery involves a complex ecosystem encompassing order generation, food preparation, and delivery fulfillment, far from a simple traffic game. While Douyin excels at traffic acquisition and distribution, its core competencies are not closely related to supply chain management, rider management, or user service networks in the food delivery industry.

As previously mentioned, the essence of business scenarios lies in services, not content. Douyin's attempt to conquer service territories with content armies is akin to wielding a hammer in search of screws, a mismatch of means and ends.

Ultimately, due to a lack of solid infrastructure and in-house delivery services, Douyin's food delivery ambitions quickly cooled – not only failing to deliver the expected disruptive growth or shake up Meituan's industry position but also exposing Douyin's vulnerabilities in cross-border ventures.

A similar story unfolded in e-commerce. As the "product finds people" scenario centered on short videos and live streaming showed signs of fatigue, short video players like Douyin and Kuaishou began to focus on shelf e-commerce, attempting to revive the "people find products" scenario of active searching and browsing.

To this end, Douyin even launched the Douyin Mall app directly – while retaining the short video entry point, it exudes a "de-short-video" tone. Additionally, the recent popularity of "ultra-long videos" on Douyin may also signal a shift in platform attitudes.

In the final analysis, in the seventh year of short videos, they are still doing well, but when short video players face the problem of "where to grow", it may be time to jump out of the short video frame.