Hook

On a feed, the hook is not the introduction. It is the whole negotiation. A viewer decides in well under a second whether to keep watching, and that decision is made from the first frame and the first three or four words, before any context exists.

What a hook has to do

• Create a gap. State a situation whose outcome is missing, so continuing is the only way to close it.
• Be specific. "This changed everything" says nothing. "I got fired for a typo" says the whole premise.
• Show, not promise. "Wait for it" asks for patience. Showing the strange thing already in frame earns it.
• Arrive immediately. No logo, no title card, no "hey guys".

Hook shapes that keep working

• The open question: "Why does every airport smell the same?"
• The contradiction: "Sleeping more made me more tired."
• The stakes-first story: "My landlord kept my deposit, so I read the lease."
• The POV line. See POV video.

How to know whether yours works

Look at the retention curve rather than the view count. A weak hook shows as a cliff in the first two seconds. A hook that works shows a gentle slope. See retention rate and average view duration.

If the cliff is at five seconds instead of one, the hook worked and the second beat did not, which is a pattern interrupt problem rather than a hook problem.

MakeViral writes scripts to a hook-first structure and places the hook line in the first frame. See the guide on how to go viral on TikTok.