.claude/skills/winning-video-teardown/references/taxonomy.md

# Mechanism taxonomy

Tag a video with a mechanism ONLY when you can quote the moment it happens (timestamp + verbatim words). A mechanism that is merely "present in general" is not evidence. If a video does something real that no id below covers, do not force-fit it: list it under `new_mechanisms` with a definition and a quote.

Each entry: **id** - name. What it is. *Psychology.* How to spot it.

## A. Script mechanisms (what the narration does)

### Attention and curiosity
- **S-LOOP-OPEN** - Open loop. A question, promise or unresolved tension is planted and left hanging while other material plays. *Zeigarnik effect / need for closure.* Spot: "but why did...", "we'll come to that", a teased reveal, a number promised later.
- **S-LOOP-NEST** - Nested / staggered loops. A second loop opens before the first closes, so there is always something unresolved. *Sustained tension.* Spot: three or more live questions at the same time; answers arrive out of order.
- **S-LOOP-DELAY** - Deliberately delayed answer. The answer is withheld past the point a viewer expects it, usually past the midpoint. *Anticipation; commitment escalation (time already invested).* Spot: "you'll understand by the end", "part 2 will reveal".
- **S-INFOGAP** - Information gap. The video makes the viewer aware of a specific thing they do not know about something they thought they knew. *Loewenstein's information-gap theory of curiosity.* Spot: "everyone thinks X, but...", "what nobody tells you".
- **S-MYSTERY** - Whodunit / causal puzzle. The failure is framed as a mystery with suspects and a hidden cause. *Pattern completion; detective framing.* Spot: "who killed X", "was it A or B?".
- **S-TEASE-FWD** - Forward tease / re-hook. A mid-video line that restarts attention by promising something coming. *Prevents drop-off at the plateau.* Spot: "and that's when the real trouble started", "but this is not even the worst part".
- **S-PATTERN-INTERRUPT** - Pattern interrupt. A change of register, pace, voice, topic or format that resets attention. *Orienting response.* Spot: sudden short sentence after long ones, a question to the viewer, a joke, a hard cut to a new place or year.

### Narrative
- **S-ARC-RISEFALL** - Rise-and-fall arc. Ambition and success first, then decline; the fall hurts because the peak was built. *Contrast effect; tragedy structure.* Spot: dated milestones climbing, then a turn.
- **S-INMEDIAS** - In medias res. Opens in the middle of the crisis or a vivid scene, then goes back. Spot: first lines describe the collapse moment, then "to understand, go back to 19xx".
- **S-CHRONO** - Chronological telling with clear chapter turns. Spot: "In 1865...", dated beats in order.
- **S-PROTAGONIST** - A named person is the vehicle of the story (founder, CEO, rival), with desires and decisions. *Narrative transportation; people are easier to follow than institutions.* Spot: the story is told as "he decided", not "the company decided".
- **S-VILLAIN** - A cause is given a face: a person, decision or institution to blame. *Moral outrage; attribution of blame.* Spot: "the one mistake", "betrayed", named culprit.
- **S-REVERSAL** - Expectation reversal. The video states a belief the VIEWER holds (the obvious villain, the usual explanation, "it was unbeatable") and overturns it with a fact. The plain peak-to-collapse turn of a rise-and-fall story does NOT count (that is S-ARC-RISEFALL); tag this only where an explanation or assumption is explicitly knocked down. *Expectation violation produces surprise and memory.* Spot: "everyone thinks X, but...", "on paper they were right", "did not kill".
- **S-ESCALATION** - Stakes escalation. Each beat is worse or bigger than the last. *Rising tension; cumulative disaster.* Spot: numbers growing (losses, debt), "it got worse".
- **S-SCENE** - Concrete scene or sensory detail that puts the viewer in a moment. *Narrative transportation / mental simulation.* Spot: a specific room, day, quote, object.
- **S-ONE-THESIS** - A single stated central cause that organises the whole video and is returned to. *Cognitive ease; a story needs a spine.* Spot: "the real reason is X", callbacks to X.
- **S-CONTRARIAN** - Contrarian thesis. Challenges the accepted explanation ("it did not fail, it was killed"). *Expectation violation + status of knowing better.* Spot: the video disputes a common belief.

### Identification and emotion
- **S-SELF-REF** - Viewer self-reference. Ties the subject to the viewer's own memory or life ("you shopped there", "your first coffee"). *Self-reference effect; nostalgia.* Spot: second person, shared-experience phrases.
- **S-NOSTALGIA** - Nostalgia / shared cultural memory. *Warm affect, belonging.*
- **S-CAUTION** - Cautionary tale / it could happen to you. *Loss aversion; vicarious learning.* Spot: the lesson is framed as a risk for the viewer.
- **S-FALL-FROM-GRACE** - Status fall of the powerful. *Schadenfreude; just-world beliefs.* Spot: lavish peak followed by humiliation.
- **S-HINDSIGHT** - "How did they not see it?" framing. *Hindsight bias flatters the viewer as smarter than the actors.* Spot: obvious warning signs listed.
- **S-ANALOGY** - Analogy or simplification that makes a hard thing instantly graspable. *Cognitive ease.* Spot: "think of it like...".
- **S-LESSON** - Utility payoff. The failure is turned into a takeaway the viewer can apply. *Gives the time spent a purpose; self-improvement motive.* Spot: closing lessons, "what you can learn".

### Credibility and texture
- **S-NUMBERS** - Specific, concrete numbers (money, dates, shares). *Specificity signals credibility and makes scale vivid.*
- **S-SOURCE** - Named sources, documents, quotes from people. *Authority.*
- **S-CONTRAST-NUMBERS** - Peak-vs-trough numbers side by side ("94.75 dollars to 36 cents"). *Contrast effect.*
- **S-PERSONA** - A recognisable presenter personality with opinions, asides, direct address. *Parasocial attachment.* Spot: jokes, "friends", personal judgement, catchphrases.
- **S-PACE-VARIETY** - Deliberate variation of sentence length and tempo. *Prosodic rhythm sustains attention.*

### Stakes, flow and forced continuation (added 2026-10-24, from the Moser Baer script review; feeds `video-script-production`)
These name the moves that review said scripts need. Tag them only on a quoted moment, and count them in winners and non-winners alike, because nobody has yet shown they separate the two.
- **S-STAKE-ANCHOR** - Stake anchor. A figure or fact is framed first by what it means for a named person, the viewer, or a contrast, so it already matters when it lands. *Importance drives information-gap curiosity.* Spot: a question, loss, person or belief, then the number. A bare number after a bare number does NOT count.
- **S-HUMAN-SCALE** - Human-scale translation. A large figure converted into per-person, per-rupee or per-day terms the viewer can feel. *Cognitive ease; concrete scale.* Spot: "that is about 7 paise for every rupee", "about Rs 34,000 per worker".
- **S-PREDICT-TEST** - Prediction, then test. States what should be true if the thesis holds, then shows the data as the result. *Turns a fact into evidence; the viewer waits for the verdict.* Spot: "if that is right, we should see X ... let us check".
- **S-LOAD-CONTROL** - Load control. Limits new figures or terms per stretch, glosses jargon by analogy at first use, and names the central idea and reuses the name. *Working-memory limit; signalling.* Spot: "think of it as...", a repeated named idea, a number skipped in speech but shown on screen.
- **S-HINGE-BUT** - Causal hinge, complication. A section exists because the previous one set up an expectation that this one reverses. *Expectation violation drives the story forward.* Spot: "but", "that is not what happened", "yet".
- **S-HINGE-THEREFORE** - Causal hinge, consequence. A section exists because of the previous one. *Cause and effect makes the order feel necessary.* Spot: "so", "which meant", "because of that".
- **S-FORCED-HANDOFF** - Forced handoff. A section ends on a question that its own answer created, and the next section answers it. *Unfinished causal chain; information gap reopened at the moment of closing.* Spot: the last sentence names the thing the viewer now needs to know, and the next sentence supplies it.
- **S-DEST-HINT** - Destination hint without direction. The opening tells the viewer the shape of the answer or the end state while withholding the route. *Suspense and curiosity from order of information (structural-affect theory).* Spot: "the exit is why the gate is shut" before any cause is named.
- **S-PROMISE-LADDER** - Promise ladder / over-delivery. The opening seeds a bigger or stranger payoff than the title states and the video delivers it, or delivers an unannounced extra. *Delivering above expectation; trust.* Spot: a second promise in the first minute that is paid after the midpoint.
- **S-FIRST-PAYOFF** - First payoff. A concrete, checkable payoff inside about 30 seconds confirms the click was right. *Promise confirmation lowers early drop-off.* Spot: the scene, fact or number that the thumbnail promised.
- **S-IMPLICIT-PULL** - Implied pull. Something stays pending without a question being asked: a known date, a person at risk, something the viewer knows that the people in the story do not, a repeated image whose meaning is not yet given, a prediction awaiting its test, or a stated gap. Note the subtype (clock, irony, jeopardy, prediction, motif, gap, pattern) and quote the signal and at least one later touch. *Suspense from restricted escape routes and concern for someone under threat (Gerrig and Bernardo; Brewer and Lichtenstein).* Spot: the same date, image or person returns two or more times before it is resolved. A plain explicit question does NOT count (that is S-LOOP-OPEN).
- **S-PLAIN-VOICE** - Plain spoken voice. The narration sounds said, not typed: contractions, varied sentence length, points stated without staging. Tag only with a quote that shows it, and name any machine-prose tell the video avoids or uses (negation pivot, staged run-up, drumroll fragments, stock depth). *Parasocial ease; repetition fatigue.* Spot: a point made flatly where a staged line was available.
- **S-LANDING** - A number lands on a person or a picture. Right after a figure, a sentence with no further figure turns it into something felt (a person who pays, the viewer, a comparison from daily life). Quote the figure and the sentence that follows it. *Statistics plus a person beat either alone on different outcomes (belief vs intention); cognitive relief after a load.* Spot: a loss figure followed by "a plant full of people", "that's your salary".
- **S-PARABLE** - A short invented scene that lets the viewer feel a mechanism before the numbers ("say you sell tea from a stall..."). Quote the first and last line; note whether it contains figures. *Concreteness; worked example.* Spot: "imagine", "say you", "suppose", a generic person doing an ordinary thing.
- **S-TWO-SIDED** - The presenter argues both sides of a contested call in the same stretch and then says where they land or declines to. Quote the case for and the case against. *Refutational two-sided messages; perceived fairness.* Spot: "the case for", "on the other hand", "I won't pretend", a verdict withheld.

### Ending
- **S-END-CLOSE** - Closes the main loop explicitly and returns to the opening image or question. *Closure.*
- **S-END-NEXT** - Ends by pointing to the next video or part. *Series continuation / open loop across videos.*
- **S-END-LESSON** - Ends on a lesson or moral. (see S-LESSON)

## B. Packaging mechanisms (title, thumbnail, first seconds)

### Promise and curiosity
- **P-SPECIFIC-PROMISE** - States a concrete thing the viewer will learn. The more specific, the lower the risk of feeling like a trick. Spot: names the company, the amount, the cause.
- **P-INFOGAP-TITLE** - Opens a gap with a question or half-statement the viewer wants closed. *Information-gap curiosity.* Spot: "Why X died?", "What really destroyed it?".
- **P-HIDDEN-WORLD** - Promises to reveal what happens behind a familiar surface ("the inside story", "the untold story", "what they never told you"). *Curiosity about hidden structure; insider access.*
- **P-INFO-ASYMMETRY** - Implies the creator knows something the viewer does not, and offers to hand it over. Works when the promise is checkable and delivered; reads as a scam when vague or unpaid. Always record how the video earns it.
- **P-CONTRARIAN-TITLE** - Challenges the accepted explanation. *Expectation violation.*
- **P-VERDICT** - Gives a conclusion up front ("Why X failed") so the open question is how/why. *Search-intent match; low risk of disappointment.*

### Subject and stakes
- **P-FAMILIAR-SUBJECT** - Names a household brand or person the audience already cares about. *Existing attention and emotional stake; no cold-start problem.*
- **P-DISASTER-FRAME** - Disaster / collapse framing. *Negativity bias; loss aversion; schadenfreude.* Spot: died, destroyed, collapsed, downfall, killed, fall.
- **P-SCALE-NUMBER** - A big or exact figure in the title. *Scale makes stakes concrete.* Spot: "₹8000 Crore".
- **P-EMOTION-WORD** - Emotionally charged adjectives ("shocking", "painful", "tragic"). *Affective priming.*
- **P-CASE-STUDY-LABEL** - Labels the video as analysis ("case study", "explained"). *Authority and utility signal.*
- **P-NOSTALGIA-TITLE** - Triggers memory of a brand the viewer grew up with.
- **P-TIMELY** - Tied to a news moment or year. *Recency and relevance.*
- **P-FRANCHISE-FORMULA** - Uses a repeated, recognisable title formula (Rise and Fall of X; Why X failed). *Pattern recognition lowers decision cost; matches search habits.*
- **P-SEARCH-MATCH** - Matches the literal query people type. *Search discoverability.*

### Thumbnail
- **T-FACE-EMOTION** - A human face with a strong emotion. *Faces and emotion capture attention.*
- **T-BEFORE-AFTER** - Peak-vs-fall contrast in the image (logo then ruins, rising then falling chart). *Contrast tells the story at a glance.*
- **T-LOGO-RECOGNITION** - The brand logo or product is instantly recognisable. *Fast subject recognition.*
- **T-TEXT-HOOK** - Three or fewer words that add something the title does not. *Division of labour with the title.*
- **T-COLOUR-CONTRAST** - Strong colour contrast or a single focal element. *Stands out in a feed.*
- **T-CURIOSITY-OBJECT** - An odd, incomplete or intriguing object (a crack, a redacted item, a pointing arrow). *Visual information gap.*

## C. Delivery checks (not mechanisms; answer in `promise_delivery`)
- Does the video pay off the specific promise made by the title and thumbnail, and when (timestamp)?
- Is the promise bigger than the content? (clickbait risk)
- Does the first minute confirm the viewer clicked the right thing? (expectation match)

## D. Junction types (not mechanisms; answer in `script.junctions`)
For every boundary between two stretches, say what links them, using exactly one of:
- **THEREFORE**: the next stretch exists because of the previous one (consequence, decision, test of a prediction).
- **BUT**: the next stretch reverses or complicates what the previous one set up.
- **AND_THEN**: the next stretch is simply the next item in time or in a list ("then", "next", "in 2012", "now let us look at"). Nothing in it depends on the last stretch.
- **NEW_TOPIC**: a deliberate reset (ad, recap, chapter title card) with no causal claim.
Quote the hinge words or the first sentence of the next stretch. Be honest: a chronological telling in which each dated beat follows from the last is THEREFORE; a list of dated milestones is AND_THEN. If most junctions in a winner are AND_THEN, say so; that is a finding about winners, not a defect in the method.