YOUTUBER TO BLOGGER

I’ve had a lot of mixed feelings about YouTube recently. I made a video a month ago setting out my goals. I wanted to hit 100 subscribers and 10,000 channel views. Both of which I’ve now done, go me! I also wanted to upload at least 2 videos a month, trying to keep to a schedule I felt like I could manage. This hasn’t gone quite so well. I find it very hard to get motivation to sit in front of a camera with a full face of make up on and be enthusiastic about something. The videos I absolutely love making are BTS related. I made a video talking about my top 5 favourite music videos they’d done and it got blocked worldwide due to copyright. Don’t get me wrong, I understand copyright but it’s so annoying when you put time and effort into something for it to be removed. That was by far my favourite video I'd ever made. I was proud of it. I felt like I was authentic and I enjoyed filming and editing it so much.

I realised that if these are the things I want to talk about and want to share then I’d have to do it elsewhere. I’ve always been a lover of writing, I've always been creative with words. I used to have a blog a long time ago and I enjoyed writing so much but decided YouTube was the way forward as it’s growing so much. I first started YouTube in September before coming to University and at this point YouTube was a much nicer platform to be a part of. Since it’s grown and the content on the platform has changed, so has the way the site is being run.

It’s become way more restrictive as it’s grown. When I started, you only needed 10,000 channel views for your channel to be reviewed for monetisation. Now don’t get me wrong, I never started YouTube for the money, I never wanted to make this a job like most YouTubers do. But it’s motivating to have a goal and receiving money for something you love. After the most recent YouTube scandal surrounding a certain American individual I do not want to discuss, they changed their policy to a minimum of 1,000 subscribers. Now that might not seem much, but when I only had 80 but was a 1,000 views away from 10,000 that truly crushed me.

The videos I enjoyed making and the videos that received the most views and interaction, were the ones YouTube was flagging me for and blocking worldwide. What was I supposed to do? I was struggling with motivation anyway, as I absolutely hated people I knew mentioning my YouTube channel to me. That might seem strange as I was voluntarily putting myself out there, but I just found it cringy to talk about. By all means watch them in your spare time and leave a comment, but don’t talk about it or make fun of me to my face. I struggled with this for ages and took really long breaks from YouTube because of this. But anyway, once I had found the content I wanted to create I found myself unable to do this properly. I was running out of options.

Lots of YouTubers complain about the site and certain people who manipulate it, but they never leave because there isn't another site to move too. If making videos is your job, and its about talking to a camera rather than creating a sketch or short film, then I understand your options are limited. Vimeo is a video sharing site but it’s in no comparison to YouTube at this stage. For me, I have things to say, rather than videos to share. I like talking about topics, so yes I did sit and talk to a camera but I wasn’t doing make-up tutorials or diy guides, something you need to physically show. I decided that instead of saying my words, I’d write them. This way my voice would be heard. Yes this takes more mental capacity as you have to physically read instead of passively watching and listening to a video, but I wanted to leave YouTube so this is what I’ve done.

My blogs won’t usually be like this. They’ll be up-beat, enthusiastic and sometimes critical. But I felt I needed to explain this transition and introduce myself here on this medium. I know the content I make won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but what’s the point making content that I don’t enjoy making? I’m not going to sit here for 20 minutes and write about something I don’t care about even if it would get more reads than something else. I don’t want to do that. I want to be authentic. I also want to be versatile. I have a lot of random hobbies and random interests so I hope there will be something for everyone on this site.

Anyway, I think that’s my rant about YouTube done and I feel like I’ve explained myself enough? I promise in the future I won’t be ranting about something as pointless as this. But I do want to talk about things that people are afraid too. I have a medium and I have a voice, why not use it?

Hannah xo