YouTube introduced Shorts in 2021, allowing users to upload short videos prominently displayed on the platform. This paper presents the first comparative analysis of YouTube Shorts versus regular videos (RVs) in terms of user engagement, content creation frequency, and video categories. The study analyzed 9.9M Shorts and 6.9M RVs from 70k channels between January 2021 and December 2022. Results show that content creators increased Shorts production, especially for new channels, which produced more Shorts than RVs. Shorts mainly target entertainment categories, while RVs cover a wider range of topics, including education and politics. Shorts attract more views and likes per view than RVs but generate fewer comments per view. However, Shorts do not outperform RVs in education and political categories. The study highlights the growing popularity of Shorts on YouTube, their impact on content creation, and the need for further research on their societal effects. The analysis also shows that Shorts are more popular than RVs in entertainment categories, but RVs are preferred in education and politics. Shorts generated 110 times more views than RVs from the same channel. The study contributes to understanding social media dynamics and the spread of short-form content.YouTube introduced Shorts in 2021, allowing users to upload short videos prominently displayed on the platform. This paper presents the first comparative analysis of YouTube Shorts versus regular videos (RVs) in terms of user engagement, content creation frequency, and video categories. The study analyzed 9.9M Shorts and 6.9M RVs from 70k channels between January 2021 and December 2022. Results show that content creators increased Shorts production, especially for new channels, which produced more Shorts than RVs. Shorts mainly target entertainment categories, while RVs cover a wider range of topics, including education and politics. Shorts attract more views and likes per view than RVs but generate fewer comments per view. However, Shorts do not outperform RVs in education and political categories. The study highlights the growing popularity of Shorts on YouTube, their impact on content creation, and the need for further research on their societal effects. The analysis also shows that Shorts are more popular than RVs in entertainment categories, but RVs are preferred in education and politics. Shorts generated 110 times more views than RVs from the same channel. The study contributes to understanding social media dynamics and the spread of short-form content.