I can guarantee that specific topics will enter my consciousness when the year ends. Always. One topic is YouTube. It’s not about YouTube; it’s a manifestation of being creatively unfulfilled. But let’s keep this focused on YouTube.
YouTube never fails to arise because it’s the creative outlet for which I feel I have unfinished business.
Failing at YouTube
Let’s try to summarise the journey briefly. I started YouTube in 2016 as a result of my divorce. I did it purely because I felt the camera would be my travel companion as I started to travel solo. This proved true. Success.
Then, I kept it going; the channel wandered everywhere, and I didn’t define my audience. The result was no growth. I set a lot of videos to private at that point to concentrate the channel on the travel. Fail. Ultimately, I stopped making videos as I felt stupid for doing it. Ironically, when not publishing, my channel hit 1K subscribers and came within a whisker of the watch time for monetisation.
I don’t view it as a failure because I learned a lot, but if you want to know the details, you can read about them here.
It’s Unfulfilled Potential
The problem with YouTube is that I don’t feel I filled my full potential. Unfulfilled potential just hangs around in my brain, and these come to the surface when the ‘state of renewal’ happens at the end of the year.
The unfulfilled potential falls into three categories: –
- Better content
- Personal challenge
- Having something to say
These are related, but let’s look at them individually.
Better Content
I could make better content, and there was more road to travel. I have aspirations that are way beyond my practical ability to deliver, but we’ll get into that later. The critical point is I don’t think I got to the best content I could deliver.
Personal challenge
YouTube sits in a strange place. I don’t see this blog as a personal challenge, but I see YouTube as a personal challenge to master the various skills enough to see a channel grow. I don’t see things growing to crazy levels, but part of me still wants to master the skills more and see results. This is partly related to my career, as while I’m not a digital marketing strategist, I’d like to succeed in that area in this small, single way.
Having something to say
I’ll admit it: I’m a product of the modern world as much as anyone else. I have things to say that I delude myself into thinking others would find helpful, and I’m not happy just sharing it with one or two friends (assuming I even do that). I think that’s a very modern thing, everyone thinking they should have a platform.
The Challenge of Unparalleled Quality
The big challenge is when I look at the types of videos I’d like to create, I pick the ones that exhibit unparalleled quality. I pick ones that produce videos worthy of being documentaries on Netflix.
I found Elina Osborne’s channel a couple of years ago. I watched her Pacific Crest Trail series, and I was just like, well, shit. It was the first time I encountered something on YouTube that if I’d seen it on Netflix, I’d not have questioned its presence. It’s the difference between ‘cutting’ a YouTube video and editing something into an actual film.
Natalie Lynn’s channel, which I discovered only yesterday and immediately watched all of her borderless series, tells you two things: the content is profound, and there are some seriously talented twenty-year-olds. Like so talented you feel useless as someone in their early fifties.
These aren’t YouTube videos; they’re episodes of a TV show. They completely enthralling from the point of view of the content, the story and, since I’m inclined to do this, the layers of skill and talent on display for them to exist.
Riza’s channel (though I’m not sure if that’s her actual name) is a bit more oriented to traditional vlogging. It’s not a series that sets out to be like an actual film and took months, if not a year, to assemble. She is vlogging weekly. But don’t let that fool you about the quality.
I love how she describes her channel. It is about ‘romanticizing her life‘ and being the ‘main character of her life‘. I love that. It speaks to the belief you should be able to find some deeper purpose and meaning in your content. The beauty of this model is it can manifest a brand that allows for many topics to be discussed, as you’re never ‘just’ discussing those topics. They are beautifully constructed vlogs, and I’m interested in the challenge she’s effectively set herself of finding a story or something ‘profound’ every week.
I recommend everyone check out these channels. They are amazing.
They set a challenge for me as they caused me to reflect on my point of dropping out of YouTube before I’d satisfactorily met my challenges to allow me to make a clean break.
Delusions of Grandeur
I recognise that setting out to achieve what these three channels have created is a delusion of grandeur, but it tasks me nonetheless. After writing that sentence, people of a certain mindset will think, don’t sell yourself short.
True, but let’s be practical about what this content takes to produce, both big and small. In no particular order: –
- They have a refined and critical filmmaker’s eye
- Spending hours just lighting and composing a single shot
- A willingness to film so much stuff from small to large
- A willingness to do pickup shots to fill the blanks
- Taking 30 hours to colour grade 2 minutes of video
- They can spend a year producing and assembling the ‘film’
- An impeccable knowledge of how music is constructed
- Houses with interior designs worthy of film sets
- They have someone else who can film them
- A profound level of introspection and self-awareness
- An ability to write and construct the meaning
- They seem to have more interesting lives than me
In Nataly Lynn’s content, you can also include an ability to film with herself laid down in the middle of roads, which isn’t possible in the UK.
That’s not even the complete list. The level of skill inherent in item (1) is significant, it’s so layered and a skill I don’t have that I couldn’t even begin to articulate what is involved in that simple bullet point. The difference is assembling the facets of a scene to communicate the emotion even when no one is speaking.
If you want to know the depth of skill and effort check out this discussion about just one video in the Borderless series.
I have to accept the practical limits that I face and also the fact I’m not going to dedicate my life to learning deeply layered skills that go into the content on those channels. The only items from the list that are readily available are (9) and (10). I can do that. I’m not saying I can’t be better at (9) and (10), but improvement is always possible.
And, Finally…
Reaching for the content on those channels is a delusion of grandeur, but using them as an aspiration and folding what can be achieved into my content is not. That’s what bugs me. I don’t think I ever reached that in a way that let me make a clean exit creatively.
So, every year, I face the same question: do I try my YouTube channel again or start a different one? It’s not even a year ago. The last time I hit this topic was six months ago.
The desire to produce videos that have a level of thought and value inspired by meaningful writing, even if I accept they’re not going to feel like films and to master the marketing package within YouTube to find the audience that responds still hangs around and bugs the damned hell out of me.
Like every year, I’ll get over it. A mixture of the commitment it takes, a healthy dose of imposter syndrome, and just not having the psychology to maintain the clarity of purpose over an extended period when no one else gives a shit will ensure that.
So, I’ll see you next year.