I keep clicking the "not interested" X button that closes the shorts section oh the homepage, but no matter what it just keeps coming back. Unkillable zombie style.

https://www.mrfdev.com/enhancer-for-youtube can hide them for good

Not if you're on a device or a tablet, sadly.

Maybe not if you are stuck in Apple's ecosystem, but on Android firefox extensions work

> Maybe not if you are stuck in Apple's ecosystem

Even then: https://github.com/qnblackcat/uYouPlus has a "Hide Shorts Cells" options :)