Ugh. I fully understand that the "shorts" obsession and promotion is encouraged by user activity and preferences, and thus is a cultural feedback loop, but... I hate it. Pushing out longer-form media in favor of 1-2 minute clips (at best) leads to a culture of people who know a little about a lot of things, but a lot about nothing. I'm fine with these short clips having their own space in TikTok, as long as there's still a space for long-form media and discussion. YouTube is that space, but their competition with TikTok is slowly changing that such that both sites are becoming shorts-saturated.
But maybe, at 32, I'm reaching "old man yells at clouds and complains about walking uphill both ways back in his day" age.