What Is It Really Like to Be a YouTuber?

What Is It Really Like to Be a YouTuber?

The First 4 Months

My wife Shelly and I released our first video at the beginning of May of 2019 and now at the end of August 2019, we have released nearly 50 videos.  It has been the most exhausting, satisfying and lowest paid jobs I've ever had.  That includes household chores as a kid.  I was given free housing, food and an education so that was a much better deal than I realized at the time.  When I'm asked my favorite president based on my standard of living, I have to say Nixon because I was very well taken care of during the Nixon Administration.  When I finished university in the early '90's, the Clinton administration wasn't as kind.  I've since stopped blaming presidents for my success.  But I digress..

Good riddance.

It is a strange time in history when the country can be going downhill sideways but personally things are going swimmingly.  What was an evening suggestion turned into a whole new hobby and job that I really enjoy.  In that, we made an early decision to release video before we really knew what we were doing.  We continue with this philosophy because like most things in life, the rabbit hole of knowledge is deeper the more you dive.  We had no idea what tags were. We still don't have a good handle of what our CTR ratios should be.  We have so much analytics at our fingertips that we really haven't looked at any of them and said, well, that video didn't work.  

Stats!

Our audience isn't that big to begin with.  Once we got 30 or so friends to join, we started attracting others. We realize friends and family will burn out on our content and Google's search engine isn't kind to new channels so it takes awhile to get traction. But even a group of several hundred isn't enough to constantly watch your videos.  Depending on the video, once they are watched, the audience needs more content.  We release every video with the idea that it is the best one we have ever done.

In the editing phase, I at least try to do one extra thing per video.  At first, that was easy, because everything was new.  Besides a camera and editing tools there were two things that I feel really made a difference without spending a lot of money.  Yes, a DSLR camera would be awesome and be able to record 60FPS HD recordings.  As far as I know, nobody searches for just 4K video so we had to concentrate on things we could change on a budget.  First up was our audio and video.  We realized early on that the microphone on the camera wasn't going to work long term, so we were able to get lapel mics that improved our sound immensely.

BOYA BY-M1 3.5mm Lavalier Condenser Microphone

Adobe Premiere Rush could lessen the sound of the air conditioner running but it couldn't fix the reverb effect of a microphone set far away from the subject. BOYA lapel mics were really cheap and added quite a bit to the sound of our videos.  Loud sounds still blow the mics away but it's much easier on the listener than dealing with the echoes that come with an internal camera microphone.

The next improvement was to lighting.  We went with a kit from LimoStudio that added portable lighting.  This was a great all in one kit that included light bulbs.  We also use them for traveling interviews so I look forward to using those more on weekends.  So for less than $75, we had enough to have pretty decent sound and lighting.

Photography Photo Portrait Studio 600W Day Light Umbrella Continuous Lighting Kit by LimoStudio

Like I said earlier, we release videos even before we know what we were doing.  That has been best idea or strategy we have had.  YouTube hungers for content.  A new video on an old topic will beat out the old if it is good content.  A new video always is positioned higher to give it a chance to be the next viral video.  Our content doesn't aim to be viral although we push that boundary where we can and try to do a topical video like LEGO Conventions to dealing with grief.  We would rather give the viewer 10-20 minutes of content than reduce it to a 1 or 2 minute clip.  Maybe that's holding us back but we really don't want to give in to the short attention span theater.  Speaking of short attention spans, let's talk about Facebook.

What really doesn't help is Facebook.  While we announce every single video on Facebook, their algorithm easily detects rival Google content and buries it.  We understand our friends and family may tire of our 2-3 video announcements a week as opposed to a picture of Sheldon or Andrew's latest performance, but we can't blame you for what you aren't being shown.  Uploading a version to Facebook is a possibility but we barely have time to schedule tweets, Pintrest, Tumblr, Mix & Reddit announcements let alone upload a 2 gig file to Facebook & YouTube.  So, we have branched out to blogging which allows us to talk about just about anything.

The same goes for our videos.  We aren't held to any rules that keep us from doing any video we want.  We know that there are channels that paint a portrait in 2 minutes or show a beautiful 4k quality acrylic pouring, but we do not want to be locked down to just doing pour videos forever.  Shelly has opened herself up in her two portrait videos.  These show great insight to her process but I realize that this won't be a "thing" even if it does go crazy popular.  These are the days that YouTube may be at it's best for us.  We can still do anything we want.  While we welcome comments and suggestions on what you all want to see, the majority of the direction is from us.  That is a great place to be in.

So what's it really like being a YouTuber at 50?  It's harder than it looks, I'll tell you that.  I'm really glad we don't make Minecraft, PUBG, Fortnite, or any video game content.  That crowded ship has sailed and sank. As I mentioned before, I really don't like the Tic Tok mentality.  While we admire and would love to create PBS or Sunday Morning type content, the thought of doing a "house tour" or "reaction video", just makes me ill.

Ok, sure, if you are like me you are thinking that a challenge where Shelly has 15 minutes to shop in Michaels with $50 worth of nickels would be fun. And you would be absolutely right.  I would watch that.  But how far will we go?  Shelly and I are on the same page so I think we will stick with it and figure it out.

I do enjoy learning Adobe products and the ins and outs of some aspects of social media.  I've only scratched the surface of Google, Amazon and Facebook and you have no idea how scary it really is.  If you have a certain interest, I can find you. I can reach out to your phone and find you for a price. I no longer have to put my product on the end-cap of the grocery store and wait. I know your age, I know where you are and you will see my ad. Marketing is no longer a psudo-science or anywhere near being cool like an ad made out of the show "Mad Men".  But I guess that depends on which end of the ad you are.  I'm sure those Madison Avenue ad men would have loved this age too.  It also makes it a bit easier for us to find our audience too but it's a slow climb.

So, if 10 or so years from now, someone asks me what president was best for creativity on our YouTube channel, I may have to say the administration of Trump.  Let's just hope we settle into a fun and engaged niche soon and Trump also gets another job in 2020.  I fully expect history to repeat itself.  I'm sure I will look back on this era with the same thoughts as I do the Nixon era.  A crook to end all crooks was in charge, but I sure had a great time.  What comes after is even better.

-Jason
YouTuber Life Creates Art