I’m not really sure what to write for this post.
I haven’t done much at all in regards to my YouTube channel for the past couple months, and this month was much the same. I’ve had a few ideas for videos and even did some writing on them, but I stopped working on them for one reason or another.
The first one I started working on, is what it’s been like learning Japanese. I don’t remember how far I was into it when I did my last monthly update (I think I was close to finishing the script but I hadn’t recorded VO yet). I was happy with the script in the moment, and I was even okay with it after recording the VO. But once it came time to gather visuals, it kinda fell apart for me.
I’m used to relying on gameplay footage for the visual aspect of my videos. It’s easy to record gameplay of me playing Crash Bandicoot 3 when I’m talking about Crash Bandicoot 3. But what do I show when I’m talking about learning a language? My mind first jumped to stock footage, but stock footage always bored me in videos, so I didn’t want to go down that path. I also felt like I couldn’t just throw gameplay of whatever game I was playing at the time in the background, because it feels too low effort. Any time I see a video like that I think of Leafyishere-esque content, and I wanna stay far away from produced content like that. I don’t go crazy overboard in my visuals like Ahoy or something like that, but I also don’t want to put out videos with footage completely unrelated to the topic.
In addition to all that, I felt my script was lacking. As I was editing the audio together, I had some self-reflection, and it felt a little too dramatic. I was talking about how I never really had my own challenge in life that I chased purely out of self-interest, and not because it was for a class or job. There was a lot of reflection that didn’t really lead to anything interesting.
So I just dropped the video. I’m still learning Japanese, mind you. It’s going well, but I am slowing down noticeably. I’m trying to be more diligent about watching shows and studying grammar though.
I started planning out another video not long after that. I was thinking about Minecraft a lot with the first part of the Caves and Cliffs update coming out, and I kinda wanted to just talk about it for no reason in particular.
Okay. I wanna make a video on Minecraft. What’s my angle?
…
I couldn’t find one. My first thought was to do a “Review” of Minecraft, but I’m not really sure how to go about that. Minecraft isn’t really a game anymore, it’s a social phenomenon. I haven’t done a whole lot of traditional reviews, because I genuinely don’t know what I should talk about. I wrote that Crash 4 video specifically thinking about how hard it is to “beat” it. And in the process of talking about that, I quickly went over all the other aspects of the game like controls and the story. It could technically be called a review, but I didn’t really think of it as one when writing it. I was talking about that one specific aspect of Crash 4.
That’s the type of video I’m comfortable making right now. I don’t wanna make a general review of Crash 4 where I talk about the graphics, gameplay, story, and audio. I just wanna talk about one of those, like the gameplay, and describe the story/audio/graphics/whatever as needed.
I don’t know what aspect of Minecraft I’d want to talk about. I had some ideas, like to talk about the crafting system or inventory management, but I dunno… Could I get a whole video out just talking about crafting in Minecraft? Maybe. After writing that here, I’m kinda liking that idea again.
As I’ve been thinking about the trouble I’ve had making videos recently, it’s made me realize I need to do some soul-searching when it comes to my YouTube channel and writing as a whole. I think my biggest problem, both from a content and growth perspective, is that I don’t have a hook.
All of my favorite YT channels have one or two things that keeps me coming back to them. Nerrel is funny and insightful, Tim Rogers is esoteric and bizarre, and Matthewmatosis is insightful and well-spoken.
What do I have?
I don’t know. I try to offer a unique perspective and be funny sometimes, but I don’t know how well that comes across. Am I actually funny? Do I come across as someone knowledgeable about the subjects I talk about? As a base line, am I even enjoyable to listen to?
This is most definitely some imposter syndrome shit, but I can’t answer any of those questions with a strong “yes.”
So… yeah. I know I’ve already kind of been on a break, but I think I need to take a more productive break. I need to spend some time thinking and writing about what content I want to put out and what kind of person I want to come across as. Even though I’ve put out 15 scripted videos, I don’t have a strong stance on either of those questions.
I’ve had probably a dozen or so comments telling me how they liked my videos, and that’s awesome, don’t get me wrong. But they don’t really stick with me. I’m not sure what that means. Maybe it means I’m not happy with the stuff I’ve put out, so external praise doesn’t mean as much when I don’t have any internal praise? It’s hard to say.
I guess that means I need to take steps to make something I’M proud of. While I’ve put out videos that I think are cool and fine, there’s not one I could point to now that I’m really proud of. Then again, I don’t rewatch my videos very often, so my perspective might be distorted. I’ll try to rewatch all my videos while I go through this phase of self-discovery.
If there is anyone out there reading this… I don’t really know what to say to you. Either you’re me reading this in the future or one of my future one million subscribers. If you’re one of those subscribers, thanks for reading my minor existential crisis. If you’re me from the future, I hope sowed the seeds for you to not only succeed as a content creator, but as a person who just wants to be happy about the stuff they make.
Keep it real y’all.
– Preston