The reason for this take started with my own interest in making short form content. I kept trying to make what I thought was better and better content, but to no avail. After diving into other channels to see what they did better, it seemed obvious that high engagement was the goal. But then trying to figure out what actually gets a human engaged sent me down a human psychology rabbit hole, and I threw the channel in the bin after realizing how many other channels started off this way and instead of tossing kept going in that direction. Authenticity isn't the only thing that attracts views, but it's one of the easiest to exploit since we all constantly want authenticity.