For a while, every social platform had its own identity: YouTube was for clips, Instagram for pictures, Netflix for on-demand, Facebook for friends, Twitter for news, Snapchat for messaging. But they all grew up alongside the smartphone, and as billions of new users came online, they started making content that fit the tall, skinny devices in their hands. Selfies became a vertical art form, and despite years of resistance from people who insisted our eyes were meant to scan horizontally, phones won. We hold our phones upright, so our entertainment went upright too.
Snap figured this out first, launching Stories in late 2013 as a relaxed way to share your day. CEO Evan Spiegel called it a “totally new way to share your day with friends - or everyone.” It took off massively, and by mid-2014 it was Snapchat's most popular feature. Mark Zuckerberg noticed, and by August 2016, Instagram had copied Stories almost exactly. Kevin Systrom, then Instagram's CEO, gave Snap “all the credit,” implying this was no longer proprietary - it was just in the air. Stories started showing up on LinkedIn, Tinder, Medium, and elsewhere.
Stories weren't always video, but as cameras and upload speeds improved, video became dominant. Video stories had two semi-magical properties: they were perfect for endless scrolling and made ads easy to integrate. Within months of Instagram launching Stories, half its users were using them, and Facebook began flooding ads into the product. The semi-randomness made ads feel less intrusive - a dog photo, a hike video, an ad for jeans, a friend's makeup routine, brunch pics, an ad for blush. Video ads felt premium, took the whole screen, and were far more lucrative.
With apologies to the short, brilliant life of Vine, it wasn't until TikTok took off that things really turned again. TikTok launched in the US in 2018 but had been popular in China as Douyin and elsewhere as Musical.ly. It combined vertical-first Stories with YouTube's permanence, made video easier with filters, trends, music, and duetting. By defaulting to the algorithmic For You page, TikTok freed creators from curating profiles - just pump out videos and trust the algorithm. It became one of the fastest-growing apps, with daily usage numbers the envy of the industry. Instagram had more users, but TikTok users spent far more time TikToking.
When TikTok became a phenomenon, everyone jumped on the vertical video bandwagon. Reels launched in 2020 on Instagram and Facebook; YouTube created Shorts a year later. Twitter launched and killed Fleets by end of 2021. Full-screen, vertical-scrolling video became the lingua franca of the smartphone. Platforms also learned to stop relying on friends for content and instead show whatever the algorithm thinks you'll like. Social networks were gone, replaced by social media - entertainment with a comments section.
Short-form vertical video has effectively won the internet. Business is booming: Meta said in 2024 that Instagram users spend over half their time in Reels, and in 2025 said Reels was turning into a $50 billion annual business across its apps. About 63% of young adults and teens are on TikTok, per Pew Research Center, and one in five teens report being on the app “almost constantly.” YouTube reported 200 billion daily Shorts views at end of 2025, with Shorts earning more per watch hour than standard videos.
The last few years have been about relentless standardization. Shorts and Reels copied TikTok's design, duetting, and music integration. They adopted TikTok's prioritization of content over connection - followers are dead, long live the algorithm. When TikTok pushed into shopping, Reels and Shorts became more shoppable. YouTube grew on TVs, so TikTok and Instagram invested in TV apps. Videos got longer, all the apps got into livestreaming and micro-dramas. They copied each other on big things like algorithm controls and small things like Clear Mode.
As social platforms spin around each other, they've gained surprising company. Spotify built a vertical-scrolling feed. Disney built TikTok clones for ESPN and Disney Plus, both called Verts. Netflix, Prime Video, and Paramount Plus all called their clones Clips. The reasons are time spent and advertising. The endlessly scrolling video feed is one of the most engrossing forms of entertainment ever devised - to the point of becoming a regulatory problem. In 2024, when Meta switched its default video player to vertical-first across all platforms, the race was officially won.
Short-form video has become a dominant force in internet advertising. Advertisers are comfortable making vertical ads, and AI handles the targeting. YouTube's Brian Albert told me, “So long as clients give us different assets - a six-second ad, a 15-second ad, a long-format, a vertical ad - AI is essentially powering everything else.” The combination of AI and vertical video has become a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more it wins, the easier for everyone to get on board.
Vertical video haters, I have bad news: It's only going to get worse. TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram are likely to become more short-form and vertical. Facebook is testing a version that loads a full-screen video feed on open - if that happens, there will be no Facebook, only Reels. Streaming services, after years of raising prices, are turning to advertising. Netflix decided the best thing is to build something that looks like TikTok. A recent HubSpot report found short-form video was by far the most-used and most successful marketing content in 2025, with marketers planning to invest most in it this year.
That said, there are glimmers of a shift. Fed up with algorithms, some users demand the return of friends and family in social media. More young people are putting down their phones, resisting AI, and seeking different entertainment. Movie theaters are having a big year; one of the year's most exciting new phones is a flip phone. As long as we live in this era of social media and entertainment, vertical video will win. It would take a cultural revolution to stop it - and there might just be one brewing.