Scroll stopper

In a feed, the default action is the swipe. A scroll stopper is whatever you put in the first moment to interrupt it: a striking frame, sudden movement, a face mid-reaction, a line that opens a question, text naming the exact person the video is for. YouTube's analytics carry a viewed versus swiped away figure for Shorts, and it reads as a measure of how well that opening did its job. The first few seconds carry the weight whether the Short runs fifteen seconds or a full minute. The common mistake is confusing loud with specific. A jolt buys a moment of attention, and what happens next depends on whether the viewer can tell what they are being offered.