Hook

A hook is the opening few seconds of a short clip — the part that decides, almost instantly, whether a scrolling viewer stays or swipes away.

Short-form lives and dies on the first three seconds. A clip cut to start mid-build-up loses people before the payoff. ClipMe's scoring favors windows that open on a strong moment, so clips tend to start at the hook rather than the warm-up — and word-level captions make that hook readable on mute.