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Preface: this guide is on how to use Youtube's remix short button to turn your existing long-form videos into shorts. However, I would actually recommend trying to make original shorts, not only because they're less lazy, but because they seem to do better. For example, I made a short turning that 1 2 buckle my shoe meme into Megalovania, and so far, it's done better than all of my other shorts combined, even though I kind of caught the trend at its tail end. Step 0: Research This might sound trivial, but it is important to know what to make a short on in the first place. My recommendation would be to make shorts on something you know is popular in the shorts community. For example, I noticed a lot of people making Giratina edits and getting decent views with them as shorts, so I made a short out of my Giratina cover, and out of the 3 videos I've turned into shorts, it's done the best by a wide margin. I would also recommend making shorts out of more intense songs. Shorts viewer's like to be excited, so a lofi short probably isn't going to work. Step 1: Trimming Ok, so how the heck do you use this feature anyway? Well, first you just need to go to whatever video it is you want to turn into a short while on your phone (you do have to be on a mobile device), and click the remix button that's right next to the share button, then tap Edit into a Short. (If this button doesn't appear for you, make sure you're logged into the right account.) On the top right, there's a button that just says 15s. This indicates that your short is capped at 15 seconds, which can be good if you're wanting to make a shorter short, however you can also tap this button to change it to 60 seconds instead. (I do NOT recommend using all 60 of those seconds, nobody's attention span lasts that long 😤) In the middle is your video. The highlighted part is what will be shown in the final video, however you can drag this left or right if you don't want it to be right in the center. You can also tap it to pause it. Just below the video is the playhead. You know how these work, just slide it around to choose what part of the video you're showcasing. Finally, at the bottom is the trimmer itself. You can drag the left and right edges of it to control both how long your short is and what part of the original video is going to be in the short. Once you're happy with your trim, click next. Step 2: Adding text On the next screen, you'll see 3 buttons on the bottom: Text, Timeline, and Filters. You can mess with the filters if you want, but they're generally not required. What you're really looking for is the text. In the top left, there's a button that lets you control whether the text is aligned to the center, the left, or the right. It's already set to the center, and this is generally preferable, so you probably won't need to mess with this. To the right is the background button. You can give your text a solid background, a transparent one, or no background at all. Generally having a background is good, though whether you use a solid or transparent one is up to you. To the right of that is a button that lets you change the font of the text. The normal font is fine, but depending on the aesthetic of your video you may want to change it. On the left is a slider that controls the size of the text. On the bottom are the colors you can change your background to, or text if you don't have a background. Once you're happy, click done. Now, having the text show up throughout the entire video is generally not ideal, especially if you're telling viewers to like, subscribe, check out the original vid, etc, as that might turn them off. Plus, if you're telling them to check out the original video at the beginning of the short, that gives them no reason to watch the short, so even if they click through to the long form video, it just kills the short's watch time, ruining its reach and the point. So how do we fix this? Well, you can either tap on the text and then tap timing, or tap the timeline button on the bottom. From here you can trim the text with controls I probably don't need to explain. Once you're happy, click done, then click next. Step 3: Title, thumbnail, tags, etc. The first thing you should do is change the thumbnail. Tap the screenshot in the top left to change your thumbnail to any screenshot from the short. IMPORTANT: THIS IS THE ONLY PLACE YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR THUMBNAIL! Once you tap Upload Short, you will NO LONGER BE ABLE TO UPDATE YOUR THUMBNAIL! Also, you can’t make a custom thumbnail, you can only choose a screenshot from your video. Once you’re happy with your thumbnail, click done and start thinking of a title. You could also do this later when you’re doing the description, but there’s not much of a reason not to do it now. I would recommend referring to step 0 on how to make a title, that is, study other shorts. For reference, the title for my Giratina short was “Giratina’s theme but it’s an epic metal remix #shorts”. I would not recommend filling your title with tags, as you can always put the tags in the description. Once you’re happy with your title, make sure your video is set to unlisted or private, (it should be unlisted by default,) and tap upload short. From there, you can go to Youtube Studio and add whatever tags you want in the description. (Don’t add too many though, there’s a fine line between adding a few tags and wasting your time, plus adding tags that are completely irrelevant to your video is probably against TOS or something.) You don’t need to bother making a real description, since barely anyone reads the description of shorts. If you have something you want to tell the viewer, just pin a comment instead. Step 4: Rinse and repeat Your first short might not do great immediately, and that’s ok! Shorts are very unpredictable, and there’s always the chance it could blow up later down the line. For now, just keep making a couple shorts a day (don’t make too many or Youtube might get suspicious lol) and you’ll eventually be glad you did. Just remember what I said in the preface: try making some original shorts from time to time, especially if there’s a meme that’s going viral that is music-related like 1 2 buckle my shoe. (if you’re out of touch with today’s memes, I recommend subscribing to Lessons in Meme Culture, as he not only showcases modern memes, but explains their origin and the person behind the meme.)