Industry investigation.
Conspiratorial-warm shorts and mid-form videos investigating industries, supply chains, and the operators inside them. Shorts-first, staccato pacing allowed.
What works in this niche
- Hook in the first 1.5 seconds (shorts are unforgiving)
- One claim per short, one piece of evidence, one stinger ending
- Long-form pulls from the shorts that overperformed, never the other way around
- Conspiratorial-warm tone (not paranoid, not preachy, just curious)
- Show one named source on screen, builds credibility fast
Format: 30 to 60 second shorts plus occasional 4 to 8 minute long-form. First-person, conspiratorial-warm voice. Data-shock hooks, staccato sentence allowed.
Hook patterns that earn clicks
- Data shock: a number, a price, or a margin viewers don't expect
- Insider reveal: 'I worked in this industry for X years'
- Pattern callout: 'every time you see X, it means Y is happening'
Top performers we track
Anonymized to protect operators. Revenue figures are estimates from public engagement, not declared earnings.
Common pitfalls
- Drifting into actual conspiracy, kills credibility instantly
- Long-form scripts that read like extended shorts (no arc, just facts)
- Generic stock footage of factories, very low-effort signal
- Skipping the source on screen, audience treats it as opinion
FAQ
Shorts or long-form to start?
Shorts first. The pattern we see in operator-tracked channels here is to find which shorts pop, then expand the winning topics into 4 to 8 minute long-form. Going the other direction (long-form first) wastes 6 to 12 weeks.
How do I avoid the conspiracy trap?
Cite a source on screen for every claim, and never editorialize past what the source supports. The tone is 'here is what I found, draw your own conclusion' rather than 'they don't want you to know.' The first builds trust; the second burns it.
Is RPM really this low?
Shorts RPM is structurally lower than long-form. The math works because cadence is 3 to 5 uploads per week and the algorithm pushes shorts to broader audiences. At scale, total monthly revenue often matches a similarly-sized long-form channel.
Want the full pipeline tuned for industry investigation?
Script, five A/B titles, SEO description, and thumbnail. Tuned per channel archetype. From operators with 1B+ views.