How to Make 'This or That' Videos With AI (2026)

Most short-form formats ask the viewer to sit back and receive something — a fact, a story, a ranking. This-or-That asks them to do something instead: pick a side. “Pineapple on pizza, or never again?” is a small question, but it's one almost nobody can scroll past without an opinion, and that opinion is exactly what shows up in the comments a few seconds later.

This guide covers what the This-or-That format actually is, why binary choices drive so much more comment activity than a straight fact video, which niches have the deepest well of genuine debates to draw from, how to structure the matchups so the format doesn't feel repetitive, and how Kineclip generates This-or-That videos automatically as one of its selectable formats.

What the This-or-That format actually is

A This-or-That video is a run of quick binary matchups inside a single niche — four to six rounds, each one framed as a clean either/or with a one-line reason for the “right” answer, moving fast enough that no single round overstays its welcome. It closes on the most divisive or surprising matchup of the set, then hands the mic to the viewer: “which side are you on? Say it in the comments.”

It's still a fully produced, narrated, vertical video underneath — the same script-voiceover-image- caption pipeline as every other Kineclip format. What's different is the shape of the script: instead of one throughline, it's a series of short, self-contained rounds, which makes it forgiving to write and easy for a viewer to jump into partway through.

Why binary choices out-comment fact videos

A fact is something you receive; a choice is something you take a position on. Viewers comment on This-or-That videos at a much higher rate than on straight informational content because there's something to defend — “wrong answer, obviously X” is a comment that writes itself, while a purely factual video mostly just gets a like and a scroll. On platforms where comment volume feeds back into distribution, a format engineered to provoke a take has a structural edge over one that only informs.

The trick is picking matchups that are genuinely debatable, not obviously one-sided. A one-sided matchup gets no argument, which means no comments and no reason for the algorithm to keep pushing it.

The best niches for This-or-That

The format needs pairs people actually disagree about, not pairs with one clearly correct answer. A few niches have a deep, renewable well of those:

• Cooking— dish vs dish, technique vs technique, ingredient swaps people have strong opinions on. See the cooking niche guide.
• Gaming — character vs character, console vs console, era vs era. See the gaming niche guide.
• Relationship— red flag vs green flag scenarios, dealbreaker vs not, dating etiquette people genuinely split on. See the relationship niche guide.

It's a weak fit for niches built on documented, single-answer facts — history or finance content usually plays better as a Top-5 Countdown or What-If, where there's real information to deliver instead of an opinion to stage.

How to structure a This-or-That script

A This-or-That script that keeps the comments coming follows a consistent shape:

• Open the debate:State the theme and dare the viewer to choose — “we're settling this once and for all” sets the tone before the first matchup even lands.
• Fire 4-6 rapid matchups:Each round is one clean binary with a single quick reason the “right” side wins. No hedging, no long explanations — the pace is the point.
• Save the most divisive pick for last: Order the matchups from mild to genuinely controversial, so the video builds instead of flattening out.
• End with a direct ask:Close by asking viewers to defend their pick in the comments — the format doesn't work without explicitly inviting the argument.

How Kineclip generates This-or-That videos automatically

This-or-That is one of eight selectable video formats in Kineclip, alongside Top-5 Countdown, What-If, Story Time, POV, Streak, Ranking, and VS-comparison. You pick the format and the niche once when setting up a series — any of Kineclip's 22 supported niches — and every video generated for that series follows the same rapid-matchup shape automatically. See how AI video generators work for the full pipeline.

Each set of matchups is written fresh (OpenAI, not a saved bank of pre-written pairs), so a series doesn't recycle the same debates — the system tracks what's already been covered and steers new scripts toward fresh pairs. From there it's the standard pipeline: an OpenAI voiceover reads the script in your chosen voice, fal.ai generates matching images in your art style, word-synced captions are burned into the render, and the finished video gets a 0-100 viral scorebefore it posts to TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. Connecting accounts is optional — you can also just download the files and post them yourself.

This-or-That vs the other Kineclip formats

Each of the eight formats solves a different attention problem, and This-or-That's job is provoking a take, not delivering information or telling a story. Top-5 Countdown works when there's a genuine list to rank; Story Time works when there's a real narrative arc; POV works when the content is a moment the viewer should feel themselves inside. This-or-That works when the content is really a series of opinions — forcing a factual list into a This-or-That shape produces matchups nobody actually disagrees about, which kills the exact mechanism the format depends on.

Getting started

If you want to see a This-or-That video generated end to end rather than just read about the structure, start with Kineclip's get-started flow— pick a niche, select the This-or-That format, and get a free sample video before committing to anything. From there, the $4.99, 7-day trial unlocks a full daily-posting series, with paid plans from $19/month after.

Frequently asked questions