Step-by-step instruction that ends with the viewer having actually completed a specific task.
- YouTube (long)
- YouTube Shorts
- TikTok
Each one is defined by what the viewer watches happen, not by topic — and each carries a boundary rule, so you can tell it apart from the format next to it.
All 30 formats
Step-by-step instruction that ends with the viewer having actually completed a specific task.
Answers how or why something works, conceptually, in under ten minutes. Nothing gets built.
The software interface is the subject: a narrated, cursor-driven demonstration of a tool in use.
A long-form researched piece, twenty minutes and up, that defends an explicit thesis.
Numbered episodes with prerequisites, designed to be watched in order from the beginning.
An unscripted, real-time response with the source content playing on screen beside you.
An authored take on current events or discourse. The source is referenced, not played.
An edited, guest-centric conversation in which the host draws out one subject properly.
Adjudicates one specific, checkable claim and issues a clear verdict with the evidence shown.
A third-party true story retold chronologically over archival material and documents.
The creator's ongoing lived experience, filmed chronologically as it actually happens.
A recurring multi-hour conversation on static multicam, with minimal editing by design.
An unedited real-time broadcast where the live chat is a genuine co-star, not an accessory.
Audience questions set the agenda in real time. You bring expertise; they bring the running order.
A bounded first-person story from your past, told straight to camera with a real ending.
A set number of enumerated items, each an originally scripted beat, usually counted down.
Third-party clips assembled around a theme, where the curation itself is the value added.
Two or more things run through one controlled protocol until a winner can be declared.
One product, from first contact through to a stated verdict.
Many purchases evaluated in one sitting — volume and reaction over individual depth.
A self-imposed rule or constraint, and the video is whether it holds up.
Unscripted interactions with members of the public, where their reactions are the content.
You make a thing. The finished object is the payoff and the process is compressed around it.
Written comedy or drama with characters, performance and a punchline.
A performed piece — music, dance, stand-up — where the performance is the entire video.
Sensory audio is the product. Microphone technique matters more than anything on screen.
A silent or music-only capture of a process running cleanly through to completion.
Delivered as animation, with no live capture anywhere in the pipeline.
A narrated script over licensed, stock or archival b-roll, with zero original capture.
Sub-sixty-second vertical video built as a repeating series around one hook formula.