hook-machinelisted

# Hook Machine The hook is 90% of the outcome. On every feed, the first 1-3 seconds (video) or first line (text) decides whether the algorithm keeps showing your content — because it measures whether *humans* stopped. A great piece with a weak hook dies; a mediocre piece with a great hook travels. So generate **many** hooks and select ruthlessly; never ship the first one. ## The mechanism a hook must trigger A scroll-stopping hook creates an **open loop** the brain needs to close. It does one of: promises a specific outcome, breaks a pattern/expectation, names a tension the viewer feels, or makes a claim they must verify. If it does none of these, it's a topic label, not a hook. ## Method — generate wide, then cut 1. **Extract the payload.** What's the single most valuable/surprising thing in this content? The hook sells *that*, not the topic. 2. **Run the hook archetypes** — generate 3-5 hooks per archetype: - **Contrarian** — "Everything you've been told about X is wrong." - **Specific result** — "How I got 12,000 followers in 9 days with 3 posts." - **Curiosity gap** — "The one setting that doubled my reach (nobody talks about it)." - **Callout** — "If you post daily and still get 200 views, watch this." - **Stakes/loss** — "You're losing followers every time you do this." - **Story cold-open** — "I almost deleted this account. Then this happened." - **Question they can't not answer** — "Why do some 5-second clips get 2M views?" - **Number/list