Vertical Thinking

Vertical video format was considered bad taste—everyone knew you were supposed to turn your phone sideways to film anything. But TikTok and Instagram changed the math. The interface demands vertical now. It’s all vertical, and nobody questions it anymore.

Lena Meyer-Landrut’s new video for ’Don’t Lie to Me’ embraces that completely. Shot in portrait format and directed by Paul Ripke, it mimics a smartphone display itself—all the interface elements, the visual chaos, notifications stacking up. It’s modern in the way that only something made right now can be, and yeah, sometimes it’s sexy. That matters less than the fact that she actually understands this moment.

She lives this stuff. She’s on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube constantly, and it’s not some calculated strategy—it’s where she actually exists. She knows how to provoke attention. There’s the Instagram story in some thin top where her nipples were clearly visible through the fabric, and it got exactly the press response you’d expect. No coyness about it. She understood the mechanics.

This video confirms it. She’s not imitating this culture—she’s actually living inside it.