Influencer Courses are Garbage: The Dark Side of Content Creation
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- Опубликовано: 27 сен 2024
- Ninja, Jake Paul, and Graham Stephan are teaching people how to become Social Media Influencers. I think that is bad.
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Sources
Morning Consultant influencer report
morningconsult...
Cheq.ai study on invalid bot traffic:
cheq.ai/soluti...
Ftc on influencers not fully disclosing sponsorships:
www.ftc.gov/ne...
Fake Sponsored posts:
www.theatlanti...
Why You should become on influencer:
forcreators.co...
Awinstudy on percentage of british youth who want to be influencers:
www.awin.com/g...
Este Lauder spends 75% of marketing budget on influencers:
talkinginfluen...
RUclips Viewership study:
www.scinapse.i...
variety.com/20...
Percentage of Twitter users with over 50 followers
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RUclips channel subscription break down
timqueen.com/y...
Hello.
I know it’s been a minute, but thank you for watching the video! A combination of this video being a GIANT pain in the ass to research as well as getting covid (that’s why my voice sounds a bit messed up towards the end of the video) meant this one took a while.
If you get something out of it, maybe consider supporting me on patreon, its one tier, its one dollar, and it does so much to help me keep a stable income, meaning I can put time into big weird videos like this:
www.patreon.com/Supereyepatchwolf
That said I think im probably going to go back to 30 minute videos about dumb media I like for a little bit, this video kicked my butt.
I really appreciate the patience in waiting for this guys, I hope you enjoy. Im going to eat some burgers and watch Riverdale.
Its been over 2 years since covid started and like half the youtubers i watch got covid this month
Thank u
It was really cool seeing the wide variety of people you interviewed for the video
amen to that!
Hell yeah brother
An influencer course might be the only piece of content where the phrase: "Who is this person? I've never even heard of them." is a valid piece of criticism
Hummm.... Unless said person has been coaching a bunch of influencers from zero to fame and fortune.
But yes, under normal conditions you are totally right.
@@jorvaor bro did you even watch the vid
@@MagikarpMan Hi. Yes, I did watched it. What do you think is wrong in my comment? Honest curiosity.
@@jorvaor that you made up a scenario that didn't exist as a random counterfactual. no one is coaching influencers to fame from zero
@@jorvaor you statement on a person coaching a bunch of creators from zero to fame, that doesn't happen and the entire video was him explaining why that isn't possible
Lesly is the real deal! Don’t believe him? I’m the guy whose daughter he killed!
🤣🤣👏.
Btw your video on Kaguya-sama ❣️ a few days ago was awesome. You 2 are both huge inspiration to me and many others online.
Omg lucky! 🤩
Damn, I wish my child was killed by Lesly! You're so lucky
Wow! I'm convinced! 🥳
So sorry for your loss Jeff.
"There is nothing wrong with you if other people don't pay attention to your art. That art is for you. That is enough. I promise." -Super Eyepatch Wolf
That's something I wonder. I understand the sentiment but what's the point of making art if not to share it? To see what others think, be that agreeing or disagreeing.
As an aspiring writer, I wrote for myself but with the dream of having people read my work and speculate on things. Why would I make something subtle if only me, the guy who wrote it, would read it? Without the goal of getting my work to others, I don't see much reason to do what I do...
I hate this kind of thing to be honest. I have another account where I've made 2-3 videos. And I made them for me, sure, _but also I made them to be seen by others._ Why would I put them on RUclips or another similar site on the internet if not so that others could see them? And just making them and posting them didn't really make me feel anything except nervousness. But you know what _did/does_ make me feel good, what makes me feel nice? When I look at those videos, and I read the comments, read people saying they enjoyed the video, that it helped them, that they hope I'll make more videos. That feedback, that attention and validation, _that_ makes me feel something positive. "Make your art for you, that's enough", that kind of sentiment sounds so wishy washy to me, so disgustingly saccharine, and for me at least, completely false.
@@Shenaldrac It's a fine line. You in the end are making art about what you love. When you start making it on something just because that trendy and you have no interest in it, then you'll run into the issue of no heart. That's what I think the true point of that line in, to make art you are passionate about, art for you.
Now just cause it's "for you" does not mean it's also not for others. I want others to read what I write, that's a massive point about writing at all but if I was told to write, let's say Obi Wan as it is right now without my own twists then I'm not getting joy from writing it or giving it a another. Because that is no longer a wrote I wrote for me.
@@upg5147 Eh. It depends on the type of art and, at times, arguably even the type of genre within that particular art form. I totally know of people who, say, paint or knit just to relax or just for self-improvement rather than for any display purposes. I think the same can go for any type of art, including even writing as someone who writes a decent amount but has only minimally ever shared stuff with others so far, in part because my main focus right now is to improve at something rather than "just" to try to entertain others.
It doesn't mean that any of this will stop you from feeling potentially crushed when you do something you're particularly proud of or that you personally think is quite good and it just...doesn't "catch on" for whatever, even if it's just with the one other person you're sharing it with. That's basically inevitable though, unless _maybe_ you're only ever targeting the lowest common denominator and even then and even in the most cynical cases, that's still not immune to criticisms or to flaws or to even outright enmity. See: the Hallmark channel (and company) and the vast number of just Americans who don't care for its generic type of branding at this point for various reasons.
The point of the quote in the OP seems more to be "you should make what *you* want to make even if you're going to share it with others" rather "art is best off never being shared since it exists only for self-satisfaction".
@@MusicoftheDamned Humans naturally are social creatures which means we also have an ego to feed and thus we want to show what we are good at. Self improvement is great and all but why are you improving in the first place? Whether you know it or not, it will lead to know thinking "I'm pretty good now, let's see what so and so thinks". That's just the way it is, be that small form (showing friends/family) or big scale (New York best seller).
I in no way believe art only exists for self satisfaction, that's merely a plus, like any hobby.
the irony being this video was a better "how to be a youtuber" course than anything else you've seen
Yoooo you on to something there 😅
From it I took "do what you do for love of doing it" and "he is rich who wants nothing"
People are attracted to passion. But you have to be seen first, which is the 300 foot tall wall in between most people and that million subs. It's better to just do what you were going to do and see where it gets you.
@@OtakuUnitedStudioa lot of people seem miserable in doing things I do while seeming to struggle less than me. I think that is precisely because I have a scientific method mindset (which is just fancy for "fuck around, find out and write it down") and the expectations you wrote whike they hold themselves to some external, arbitrary standard.
And you know what? At least one of the endeavors I have tackled like this has been very successful so...
@@chukyuniqul If you want that, and enjoy it, then I am not going to stand in your way.
People understood this shit back in the 18th century. "If you want to get rich during a gold rush you don't mine gold, you sell pickaxes". Sure, the miner who strike gold gets incredibly rich, good for him, but for most people the real money is in selling stuff to those that hopes to become the next big thing. These courses are just the digital version of that old age common sense.
If only they were selling working pickaxes lol
That's a great comparison and saying
No cap
at least you got a physical pick axe back then haha!!
Godlike analogy
My neighbours kid wants to be a RUclipsr and I think I’ll show him this video. You described both the gig and the absolute luck it takes to be one better than I ever could 😅
Love your stuff dude. Head banging music with some funny thrown in. Nice
Your neighbors kid needs better parents if this is even on his radar
Super “John” Eyepatch Wolf is just one of those channels that can destroy your understanding of something for nearly two hours, and you’re excited for every minute of it.
That Garfield video just
Also really good at building up an emotional response to anything.
The Forgiveness Of Jon, man...
Spin around three times
I still can’t look at Garfield the same.
John Arbuckle is the original hero
I was safely watching a 'Who's Line' compilation video when Ryan said "Fluff my Garfield".
I almost ran screaming from my house.
I like how Super Eyepatch Wolf's "Leslie" influencer character is more tolerable than the actual people he's making the video about lol
it's definitely the faylin phenomenon. (like when they had Tina Fay do Sarah Palin on snl to make fun of her but it just made her more likeable)
"Plane mansion"
This parsona is hilarious, and I can never take them seriously.
@@R3dcanaryundergroundbro Leslie is cool as hell! I want a plane mansion too!
The first time I ever heard that metaphor about RUclips being like "throwing a message in a bottle into a sea composed entirely of messages in bottles," Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw was saying it and it was 2007. Even fifteen years ago, your chances of making it here were *already* that slim.
Yup. Personally saw that maybe 7 years ago? And even in that video he points out that by some sheer fucking coincidence someone with a big boat and a stupid amount of money will maybe see you and give you some of that money if you keep making messages in bottles for them. Literally in a few seconds telling people how he got his job, and that it was purely luck.
Idk how related my comment will be but I genuinely did not expect to see someone reference yahtzee on a super eyepatch wolf vid.
Love your videos!
I actually think the things they are saying about traditional education is potentially the most harmful.
Sure the traditional system has plenty of improvement points but online content creation is very volatile and unreliable. I think it's when people depend on it for their living that it get's dangerous. You should still have a normal career and you can do content creation as a hobby on the side. If you have that 0,02% and it blows up you can temporarily live off of it but when that flame burns out you still have skills and likely some remaining contacts and so you can just pick up another job. And if you are in the 99,98% where it doesn't happen you can have it as a hobby on the side.
However if you are dependent on youtube all that stress goes up 10 fold. Normal jobs have things like job security and very clear rules and other such things. Sure it's not perfect but it's a lot more transparency and security in a traditional job than in youtube.
I remember hearing along time ago that Chuggaaconroy was being interviewed about what advice do you give to new RUclipsrs that only have 100 to 200 subscribers and his response went something along the lines of "Imagine 100 or 200 people in real life watching your videos. How cool is that!"
Which always got me thinking. Imagine a room full of 100 to 200 people, that came specifically to watch what you made when you uploaded it.
That's like a high school basketball court full of people that are there to watch something you made.
That's fucking cool
They forgot one thing not all %100 of subs will not watch your content you be lucky to get %10 to watch so really you have maybe 10 to 20 subs out of the 100 to 200 actually watching your content on every upload while the rest are non-subs.
90% of people who will watch your videos will not be subscribed, especially when you're starting out. That's a persistent fact that a lot of people don't really understand and it's why a lot of new content creators actively push that fact. As someone else said as well, subscribers also tend to be a misleading statistic when you don't have many, as they are not guaranteed viewers. They are simply supporters of your channel.
I really don't want to be that "but" guy, however it's more like 100 people are watching your video and loving it, 75 people just watching your video for background noise, and 25 people are there just to hate you for no other reason than they are miserable and want to share it with other happier people. But at the end of the day, 200 people watched your video and that is still cool.
If you have 10k subs, that's a "small" channel. A few hundred years ago, if you had 10k people listening to you then you were a king, an emperor, or the pope.
@@seinmstudio I very much agree
I’m a Japanese content creator for a niche genre, not a RUclipsr.
I don’t even plan to become one.
But recently I was experiencing a situation quite similar to the animation story.
Though I am confident that I’m still making content that I love and care about, the numbers started to get the better of me and started giving me anxiety every time I present new content to my audience worrying if I would meet their expectations.
But your video reminded me why I was doing this to begin with.
It wasn’t for the views or money, I just wanted to share my passion with people who like the same genre as me.
That fact was supposed to be obvious, but somehow social media made me forget about that over time.
Thank you for reminding me that I am the most happy when I do what I love, regardless of the numbers.
I know sometimes it gets overwhelming but I hope you can keep finding happiness from what you’re doing.
Arigatou & Ganbatte!(ありがとう&がんばって！)
As long as you are presenting engaging content your viewers should find enjoyment in it. Your viewers aren’t likely as negative about your own content as you are
Good for you man, don't let it get you, these sites are made to basically entrap you in the skinner box it seems.
what are you on?
@@ahobbyist9520 Most likely nicovideo, Japan's big YT competitor. I doubt you'll get a clear answer, though - this seems like a burner account for anonymity, which is fair enough (this comment is the only thing theyve ever posted, and the channel name translates roughly to "person who likes")
@@MustacheDLuffy Thank you for the encouragement.
Yes, I'm pretty sure most of my audience like my content (or else they'll stop supporting me).
But once I reached certain success that I've never even dreamed of when I started creating, that feat suddenly becomes my standard.
And somehow that bar gets higher and higher and gradually gets overwhelming which led to my mindset of the original comment.
Basically I became my worst enemy.
Small creator lifehack: calculate your view count via broadway theatre venue. The largest theatre On Broadway houses roughly 2,000 patrons, so I can look at a video that "didn't do well" and instead consider that numbers wise, it pulled the equivelant of 4 sold out broadway performances. Considering the average venue is only around 500 seats, that's a lot more.
*The thing nobody ever seems to mention about social media types:*
They're often already rich - or at least middle class - and thus have the money and time to 'invest' at the outset. They're good looking too which is frankly, half the battle.
I just saw another one of your comments like 2 seconds ago
Pretty much ye but also time. 99% of billionaires are above 45 years old and more than 70% of millionaires are above 40 .
There is time to invest in your education/business at any age but the younger you start the better.
@@statz3697 Yeh I'm binging YT for a bit and can never keep my thoughts to myself so :D hahaha
Most success is about 90% A) Already looking photogenic and B) having contacts willing to do you a favor in the form of an 'entry level' job that pays enough to buy multiple houses, or give you top billing at an advertising firm, or just AstroTurf for you.
Having a dad who is an investment banker (or whatever) fills in part B by default, and also provides the money to fix part A.
@@zeo4481 What I meant was, because they start of rich/well-off, young and hot, they don't really have any real life pressures or distractions like a job or important studies etc. Plus, they can afford to focus 100% on 'influencing' because they don't have to worry about money and bills. Since 'influencing' makes no money for 99% of its lifespan, they can take that hit; they're insulated from failure.
The "slot machine" approach to youtube success does make a lot of sense.... specifically from the perspective of someone making an online course about how to succeed on youtube. Sure, the actual odds that any individual student will succeed are vanishingly small, but nearly 100% of people it does work for will credit that course for their success, meaning you get more testimonials and more suck- uh... "success stories waiting to happen" signing up from that new creator's audience.
it's really not unlike a Casino in that sense. Very few of your customers will actually come out on top, but everyone who walks in thinks they'll be the one.
Wait I thought eyepatch had a restraining order against you... or was it the other way around?
basement thoughts
O
you are a fraud
Remember when you were part of the Procrastinators Podcast at the height of their edgy racism? Will that be in your course?
As an English professor, I'm thinking about having my students watch this video and write an essay on this topic. Thank you for your vulnerability and imparting such an important lesson.
Thank you for adapting to the age of the internet and actively trying to include it in your teachings.
Do it
it's 2 hours long though, your students might appreciate a shorter video lol
@@greyfox4838 agree unless it's possible to watch this in class
@@greyfox4838 As a recent student, having 2 class periods of nothing but video is fantastic.
Plane mansions are the hallmark of next level business savvy. They can’t tax you if your house is flying over international waters.
I really want to develop a "Theory of the video essay" after videos like this. This was a masterpiece of what the video essay is as an art form. There's so many elements to what makes a good essay that are inate, but I also am fascinated with structure and writing style, editing style, performance and delivery. The irony is that while you can't really reproduce this type of content, when you've been watching as many video essays for as long as I have, I do think there are things to learn almost like you would learn about any artform.
oh neat your here! love your channel man
seeing the two of you making cameos in each other's videos is mad cool
Every video essay needs a wall of mid-transparency tweets over dramatic music.
That's a very meta perspective and I'm here for a long form video on the long form video. Video essays have completely changed my life and how I consume media. I used to hate writing or reading essays in school (had a prof that demanded 5-10 page handwritten literary essays) - but now I can't get enough of watching these! The research, writing, perspective and unique personal input that goes into any of these videos is astounding and it truly is an artform.
Literary and film critics used to be chastised for being too talentless to CREATE so they just CRITIQUE, but now this new YT generation of critics is showing us an entirely new perspective!
(I also don't know who you are yet, but I just finished watching the video and now would like to visit all the channels that were featured because I am INTRIGUED.)
That's a really interesting take, you should make a course to teach people what you've learned about video essays. ;)
The irony is that this video is a better way to teach people how to 'get big' as a content creator than any of these paid-for scam courses. Excellent video, my dude. You're a real one.
"just have enough money where you dont need to work and then you can spend all your time doing passion projects" wow what a great point lol.
@@nullakjg767 Aren't passion projects usually something you do in your *spare* time? So yeah, "Have a job and then make the things you want to make in your spare time, not expecting it to suddenly make you a millionaire" is actually pretty solid advice. RUclips or whatever other platform can be just fine as a hobby, and probably better a hobby than as a get rich quick scheme.
@@flux_casey "passion projects" still have value. They could have much more value then your day job, but most people live paycheck to paycheck and will never get the chance to do anything other than work. Being creative is something that can only be done from a place of privilege. Some people try and find a middle ground and have to game the algorithm so they can continue to create. It's not hard to understand.n
@@nullakjg767 To an extent, yes. If you work fourteen hour days, seven days a week, sure. You're not going to have time to do anything else. And yeah, that happens more often nowadays. But it's sure not the norm. A passion project doesn't have a deadline. Being creative for the sake of wanting to create something doesn't have a deadline. If you're passionate about it, if you want to work on it, then you work on it when you can. Maybe that's only an hour or two a week. Maybe it's something you do instead of watching TV or RUclips or whatever. Unless you're living well below the poverty line working three jobs to make rent, you will have at least a little time to do the things you want to do.
If you're privileged, yeah. You can dedicate yourself to RUclips or whatever platform and you'll have a higher chance of popularity. Of turning it into a job. But the entire point of a passion project is that it isn't about success. It's about making the thing you want to exist. If you care enough about it, and aren't working hours that will put you six feet under within five years, you'll find time to make it. Because it's your hobby, and you need no other incentive to work on it than it makes you happy.
@@nullakjg767 in every passionate career paths, people are always advised to not quit their school or job until after they take off, this is true for musicians, for artists, and for writers, so why not youtubers? I don't really understand your issue, the advice you're making fun of is actually pretty common sense
"If you need an AI to tell you what video to make next, I think you really need to think if you should be making videos at all" -SEW.
Aged like fine wine.
Wait why?
@@PixelRockett the best reason I can give for not using AI to decide your videos is because, AI doesn't get people. It can look at what's popular, but it doesn't know why it's popular. it's like using a certain oil for a dish without knowing why the other people who make the dish used that oil. sure the dish is going to turn out well, but you can't apply the knowledge to other dishes because you don't know the why behind the how. second, the video idea won't be something you're passionate about, and a lack of passion will make your content feel corporate and soulless in a way that people can sniff out quickly and get annoyed with. many people hate a lot of the people who churn out content meant to be popular because they can just tell that the only motivation behind it is money. artists should create for the joy of creation, not with the expectation of money. and video creation is an art.
@@ShoppingatAM How did it age like fine wine?
@@PixelRockettif the whole reason to make a RUclips channel is to do what you want, then WHY would you rely on a crappy machine-learning tool to make your decisions instead of just doing what you want?
The best piece of advice I was given when it comes to content creation is, "Make something because YOU want it to exist so much that you don't want to imagine a world without it." It sounds dumb, but damn does it work!
Holy shit dude... In the last 3rd of the video where you talk about the evolution of becoming a content creator... God... It was so perfectly made... All true.
so good i’m going to remember this
Hi Goomba looking forward to seeing more milo soon
@Newcious
Newcious is another one of those _"finally its here!1!1"_ spambot accounts. Please Report them when you come across them because some of them can also can have malicious links
That is how we do. 👊
The scene in Blue Period, where the main character is laying on the floor, crying, saying, "just because you love something, doesn't mean it is easy," has always stuck with me. It's beautiful because despite feeling like that, he still gets up and continues to do the thing he loves, despite it hurting him too. You have to love the thing you do, or else you'll just be miserable.
Haven't read the manga, but Jesus does that hit harder than bricks, it literally could be applied to anything
I don't agree with your last line, you can certainly be miserable doing something you love, but that love can get you through that and out the other side with something valuable.
Shout out to all my miserables
Blue Period was raw
I loved Blue Period, I thought it was going to go a different way when I read the manga after the first season ended but its very good eitherway. I suggest anyone to watch the anime or read the manga or both lol. Honestly one of the first anime I enjoyed in years because its so relatable and original.
There’s a classic finance book called “where are the customers yachts?” The title refers to a story about a visitor to Wall Street who admired the yachts of the bankers and brokers. He naively asks “where are the customers yachts?” Which of course none could afford despite dutifully following the advice of their brokers and bankers.
Financial influencers like Graham Stephen follow a similar job description to the bankers of making money off of their customers rather than actually making their customers money.
Employee: "Wow boss, that's a nice Ferrari!"
CEO: "Well kid, if you apply yourself, work hard, and put in the extra hours... I'll have another one next year."
Link right here: ruclips.net/video/AXMVFfym1Vg/видео.html
I first heard about it from Warren Buffett. Well worth the read/ listen.
It's really a stark contrast here:
Influencers tell you to make slop, cheaply mass-produced videos that you have no interest in simply to fill a quota and try to hit on trends. Those videos pull maybe a couple thousand views on a good day.
Super Eyepatch Wolf makes well-research videos about topics he deeply cares about, and there is rarely a video (outside the "favorite things" series) that doesn't pull at least a million views.
I think the lesson here is self-explanatory. There is of course a lot of luck involved here because some of those people that make slop make it big, and SEW says himself that he got extremely lucky with how things worked out. But I am also sure that SEW is very proud of his videos, while the slop those creators ask you to create will never be of any value to anybody.
And in my opinion, his "Favorite Things" series is some of my favorite content on youtube
@@TheFrederickog357 it's one of my favorite things
Lmao I am a proud enjoyer of both high quality, well researched content and completely degenerate, soulless drama slop content 😂.
"Content creator" is such a sickening and sinister phrase. It doesn't describe what people want to do, it describes what the algorithm wants from them. People who genuinely want to create have some specific thing in mind, some idea they wish to bring out into the world. It's not always well-defined, but it's never just "content". "Content" is the algorithm's term, the only word generic enough to describe aspirational art, casual goofing, and procedurally generated Finger Family clones. As long as you're feeding something into it - binding some fraction of your personhood to its engagement metrics - it doesn't have to care about the details.
Its like saying "labor worker". Its like a robot describing an overly generalized and shallow description of a career. Like wtf does that even mean?
Finally someone putting in words something i've Always felt
Yeah it's useful as a sort of catch-all term because technically anyone who makes media (music, art, photography, videos etc) is a "content creator" but it's a terrible description of any one person. It's like "office worker". Sure, a lot of different jobs happen in offices, including desirable ones, but I don't know anyone who would say that as their occupation
This is the most accurate comment ever.
It's a hell of a lot less pretentious than "Influencer"
As someone who completely devoted themselves to Let's Playing for four years non-stop, it was a miserable time. Scheduling my entire life around upload times and trending games, equipment upgrades, juggling social time between family, friends, relationships, doing an audio engineering course AND recording up to 5 videos a day *AND* finding time to sleep (about 3hrs a night), it was an absolute nightmare and I will never return to it again. I only gained 4,000 subscribers in 4 years. That's 1000 subs a year, compared to some channels getting that DAILY!
I remember once I let a Lets Play video render overnight and I woke up to a bluescreen saying the video failed to render. The anxiety of that not uploading on time was more emotionally painful than my girlfriend breaking up with me. When the video was finally successfully uploaded, it maxed out at 12 views. And all it cost me was my mental health and my relationship.
Eventually I stopped and now I just upload whenever I want, far far far less stressful. 🙂 Chasing numbers is complete misery.
Make what brings you joy and share THAT. ⭐
Happy for you Man. Don't let unpredictable view counts take your entire life away. Always, ALWAYS put yourself first.
@@melodybaoin1425 Thank you 🙂 I'm definitely doing that these days. Now I'm devoting my time to being social again, joined a music group and putting my energy into making my 3rd album AND learning to make my first videogame 🙂 🎮
Yea well you know what?!?!!
Subscribed ;)
YAAAAYAYYAYAAYAAYAYAYAYYA
That's fascinating... I'm sorry you experienced that
Damn this was a really good video, I used to obsess over analytics as well but really being successful on youtube is different for everyone on here. Everybody has different amounts of persistence, strategy, and luck. You really can only go into this expecting nothing in return, that's how I started at least. It only worked out for me because I was one of the very first in my niche and have continued to be very consistent for a decade
Nathaniel bandy I thought you died
I definitly believe being one of the first people to do something helps with growing a channel, since you become the foundation for what a lot of other aspiring creators wish to emulate.
Great to see so many creators posting on this vid
Being part scuttlebug is an advantage though.
@@midnalazuli793 being the first to something definitely helps. I used to grind out Let's Play videos at a ridiculous rate back in 2015, and the only thing that really got any traction were Fire Emblem Randomizer videos. I was one of the first people to do that, and FE being a kind of niche community as it is helped it grow in that scene. Almost every episode had over 1k views while I would upload Pokemon stuff (which is lowkey what I REALLY wanted to grow) and those videos would only have a couple dozen views. Traditional LPs are pretty much a thing of the past now and were on the way out when I was uploading, but that one series blowing up vs. other series that weren't as "groundbreaking" going nowhere is a clear case of that to me.
I show this video to people who tell me they want to be youtubers. This is one of the best videos on RUclips. I'm nearing the top of 1 million subscriber mountain. Let's see how it goes
Your over 1mil, hope it’s been going well!
Dunno when it hit, but congrats on 1M!
Holy shit it's Zero!
Dude, your videos get 10k hits on average, how do you have 1M subs? Did you buy the channel or something?
@@sebastiangudino9377 Through their youtube shorts, which are, um... not quite content farming but close.
Fun fact: that isn't hair dye that he's wearing, making this video just took fifty years out of his life. Appreciate the dedication to your craft, Mr. Eyepatch!
Damn 70 year old SEW do be looking fine
@@brunop.8745 ikr? Silver Fox is a good look for him.
He needs a just for men sponsorship now
@Bionick Toa Okay so I see where you're coming from but to me it's a lot funnier to imagine that making this video took fifty years off of his life so I'mma just keep going with that
@@nelus101 Yeah, I thought we were all in on the joke
As a failed content creator that put 3 years into the content machine but never made it and ultimately just deleted everything just to escape the stress and emotional harm, this video helps me process a lot of that and feel like I wasn't alone.
The amount of times I've deleted and restarted my channel as a way to share what I create is more then I can count. Its hard being a small creator when you have to work a full time job as well and don't have a safety net.
It's been two years. This is still the most important RUclips video I've watched.
It came out during a personal low point. Videos that I poured a lot of effort into didn't get the numbers I wanted, so I resigned myself to making stuff that was familiar and could reliably pull in views. Before I knew it, I was chasing that numbers high above all else. I was using every "trick" I knew to get one more click.
Then I watched this. It made me remember what kind of content I actually wanted to make. It gave me the courage to start experimenting with weird ideas again. Now, with everything I've learned, I have a channel that I'm proud of AND it's more successful than ever. Even those videos from 2 years ago have surged in views because they found my new stuff and wanted more.
I'm not a big channel or anything, far from it. I barely have any reach. But I want to thank you because this video made me enjoy creating again.
as an animator raised on the internet, i've already accepted failure. i've watched children be boosted to dangerous degrees. being exposed to things like SA, burnout, depression, harrassment/d0xxing,,,everything. ive also watched my friends get some cool jobs and create some amazing things. i always wanted to be that "young and talented" animator on youtube/newgrounds. but its terrifying how the internet chews you up and spits you out. it all seems so possible when its all so fake. this is a nice video shedding some light on the dangerous addictive nature of internet fame. thank you for sharing it with us.
Not an animator, but I am an artist and I can relate. I’m just old enough that while RUclips was around the majority of my childhood I didn’t start using it consistently until I was at least 10-12, which is extremely young but older than a lot of children now who start watching from quite literally pre k age. The internet definitely encouraged me to practice art and I’ve considered getting into it, but more than anything it’s exhausting to consider. When there’s a million Elsa Gate adjacent channels and unthinkable amounts of content created far faster and cheaper than any visual artist can actually keep up with, why even try?
@@gray2578 id try for your 12 yr old self honestly. put out the things you want to see for yourself in your own time. artist to artist my guy!
Animation is a full time job. You have to be rich to be able to do it "just for funsies" on personal projects.
@@nullakjg767 ehh, not really
Animating doesn't need to be taken seriously. It's just another art form anyone can express themselves with, much like digital painting.
There are some free apps for animation out there (Flipaclip, Opentoonz, etc) and you can look up tons of RUclips videos about how to animate. Not to mention you don't need to pay an enormous amount of money to cleanup artists, storyboard makers, directors, etc. Especially when you're only do it for funsies.
if anything the only thing that you're always gonna be spending is your time (and maybe even your sanity if you're not careful.)
Fandom animation, especially for ongoing fandoms still releasing content just absolutely sucks. It's all gotta be a race to do things first.
"If it works, why doesn't it work?" Is such an amazing quote that could be used for so many of these kinds of things.
"Ethically Steal" is one hell of a thing I wasn't ready to hear. My brain literally stopped processing information after that and had to pause. Excellent stuff here mate. Love your videos.
"I have 4 wives and 17 husbands none of them even know each other"
Ngl that line made me burst into laughter and made my day
Well good for him for embracing his homosexual side more
I would watch that
ALL SEASONS
AND SPECIALS
*AND THE MOVIE!*
XD
That would require a lot of careful planning
I love the creators like you and Markiplier who look around where they are and are just “I have no clue how i got here.” It’s honest. So much of “making it” on the internet is luck, perseverance and talent is involved obviously but luck is a HUGE factor.
Yeah, honestly Mark is one of the few top RUclipsrs that I still respect as a decent person
Bo Burnham is the best example of this. He has been in it since the beginning. Bo is so aware of the anxiety, the stress, the audience, the content and how it effects and affects the artist making it. He even tells people to not seek advice from people who were just at the right place at the right time. Success, when starting from nothing, is deeply based on luck.
Absolutely! So many people are talented. Probably even more talented than a lot of the people who make it big. But it depends on so many factors that are also influenced by just pure probability or are random.
Who you know. Whether your look is marketable, how your personality comes off to people. Are your beliefs compatible with general population? And then whether or not someone who can boost your careers sees all of that. Which is contingent on so many things you have zero control over. Haha. You can't make someone see you as a star.
And when you're competing at the highest level...everyone is great. Everyone has talent. So one makes anybody stand out in a pool like that?
Are most of the stars we have stars because someone saw that? It could just be because someone made them one. That happens all the time.
jerma too
facts
My great granfather was a painter and he hasn't sold any of his paitings. My family still has these and i asked myself a question why he kept going. Now i realised that he was and is a true chad because he just did what he loved
Now that's some awesome stuff.
Dude. I'm sure you get a lot of comments like this from other RUclipsrs, and you likely don't (and shouldn't) read comments, but... I gotta type this anyways. This video came my way by a completely unrelated coincidence and it literally could not have come at a better time for me right now. Straight up feels cosmic.
The way you described the "road to one million" story is spookily accurate to the feeling I had when my channel first started growing, and the fear I had as it continued into this year as I went full-time. It is incredibly validating to hear this portrayed so perfectly from someone else. The numbers, the monetization, "surpassing" once bigger RUclipsrs, and how all of that can be rug pulled away from you so easily. You could not have described those feelings more accurately, how they dominate every emotion in your head and make work/life balance impossible sometimes.
Over this past year I've been trying to improve that work/life balance and schedule myself better. It's a struggle, partially because I'm just kind of a lazy bastard, but also because it requires a ton of self-discipline that I have for WORK, but not for PACING. I struggle a lot with healthily pacing my work out, and without that discipline, you never feel like you're NOT working, and it's super draining.
I had also felt like I was slowly eking away from making videos purely because I wanted to make them, turning it into a job and appealing to an audience or sponsor. It's always a good reminder that art, in its purest form, exists for the joy of it's artist. And people can recognize that when it's genuine! I could not have asked for a better time to remind myself of that principle.
Since I've already been trying to improve my pacing, scheduling, and work/life, this video clinches it. I had already uninstalled RUclips Studio from my phone, but I'm also going to block that hellish ranking counter in Studio on desktop. Nobody needs that. That will be the first step for me, among others.
This video should practically be required viewing if you want to be a RUclipsr. Thank you for it. It's so unbelievably well done.
"Just do what algorithm tells" is such a joyful answer to hear for people who seek youtube only for easy money with abosutely zero effort just like they've heard about it from others.
I know linking yt videos on comments is suspicious, but this guy has a great video about the algorithm and mediocrity
ruclips.net/video/-PbrDUEUhIM/видео.html
I'm not an RUclipsr, but I'm an author. After many years of dreaming about getting my first book published, I've just signed a contract with a small publisher. Though I'm really happy with it, it's weird how much I still feel like there's something missing. We are conditioned to never be satisfied, and to be always comparing ourselves with others. There's always going to be another goal, another milestone to reach. And the same applies to Instagram, Twitter and RUclips. Social media made us addicted to validation.
Honestly, I think it more served as the ultimate outlet/magnet for those seeking validation. It’s a multiplier
I remember when I first started making music and it was like: 10 streams is my goal! Then 100, then 1000, then 100 followers so on so forth. We absolutely are conditioned to be so goal orientated even though it can be so counter-intuitive to our personal and artistic growth. I found myself releasing a song, seeing it do well then immediately trying to re-create it for similiar growth. All that did was give me huge writers block and imposter syndrome. Now I just try to take things as they come. Best of luck with your writing!
I literally just started writing my first book this year after day dreaming about doing it. Starting, and trashing it a few years back. So seeing your post made me smile. I'm not to the publishing part yet, and I honestly haven't even looked.
@@drowningin This is gonna sound oddly coincidental and like I'm just clinging on to this thread or something, but I'm actually in the same boat lol. Within the past few months my passion for writing and worldbuilding has finally been rekindled after being suppressed by academia for way too long. Seeing not one but two comments from writers on a video that's resonated with some of my fears about creating and publishing content is genuinely inspiring. I wish both of you the best of luck in all of your writing endeavors.
I am soon to be in this very same boat. I am 80k words into a draft of my first big novel, and a lot of smaller presses are very interested in it. However, I know with a smaller press also comes a lot of the leg work, but not nearly as much as self publishing. I still want to submit to larger houses but I have gotten myself resigned in the idea that that's a crap shoot based on whatever selection reader just happens to get my draft. I am lucky I have had a small career in film to prepare me for the ideas of rejection and helping with expevations vs ambitions.
One thing that John didn't mention talking about the streaming is that he has a pre established audience. If those techniques didn't work for him they certainly won't for you or me
Yea its a HUGE mathematical difference between 1,2 million people seeing a "John is Streaming" popup or literally noone because John just fucking started his channel. Having an audience to start with is ALL the diffence. Even giant contenct creators have small streaming audiences, its almost impossible to "crack the code" and get to their level while being the average Joe.
Yeah, if anything, that only makes his arguments stronger.
I think that's why it's really important that he gave the numbers from the week before, and ultimately concluded that the numbers don't really say anything.
@@gorimbaud well, one thing is fore certain is when you jump platform with established audience, you will get some followers on the new platform at first, but the time goes by the flow of old followers will dry
Yeah I thought the same. His numbers for either week would be hugely impressive for a normal person. Likely, the drop-off was just down to having a spike in the first week from people who were already fans.
This was an emotionally difficult watch, had to do it in parts as it's both uplifting (Eyepatch's encouragement and honesty) and so depressing (YT scammers). This is a video that needed to be made, thank you mate 💚
OSW! OSW!
really hope you guys can do a Collab at some point, get all the irish lads in the youtube boys stable for a review
My dad recently said to me, "These days, with the internet, no one has any excuse not to become a millionaire."
He's totally wrong, though.
Top excuse: JAIL TIME
Just hit him with the ol'reliable "what's stopping you then _DAD?"_
@@npc6817 Thats actually a good retort. Unless dad is already a millionaire??
My dad wants me to make "family vlog" style videos because they recently became popular in Egypt and i puked in my mouth a little bit
Ask him what his excuse is.
It’s actually insane how RUclips is designed to make you feel inadequate at all levels of popularity. There were multiple times were I felt great pressure to post weekly-sometimes even daily-only to stop and realize “This isn’t my job. I made no money doing this. No one is actually interested in these videos. Why am I so stressed about wether I upload or not?”
And they still pretend to care about creators despite all evidence to the contrary. As if a visible dislike bar is worse than shoving a video ranking system into people's faces that tells them how disappointed daddy RUclips is that they don't make record views on every new upload.
But yet, youtube will disable the dislike button, because it's damaging to the creator.... YT is ran by a bunch of assholes, who do nothing but lie, to even the biggest channels, because the dislike button makes Jimmy Fallon, or some movie trailer look terrible when it has 3x more dislikes than likes.
Bro it’s all about the grind! Grrrr! 🐯
@@ralphwilsin With a massive S for Sarcasm.... right?
@@imagominus i feel like the sarcasm is a given w the Grrr 🐯
I love it when I'm only 50 minutes into the video and Eyepatch Wolf has already had like three shouty breakdowns. Could watch your shit for hours on end, my guy.
This video is sincerely a masterpiece, S CLASS WORK all around, especially when you were interviewing people and the animation at the end.
ALL OF IT WAS MEGA RELATABLE, but thank you for making this cause it actually helped me with some mental blocks i been goin thru as well but this video straight up inspired me at the end so Im hyped to be makin stuff I wanna make again
Glad you're feeling better man, love your work.
christ jax youre everywhere man
Literally turned the concept of youtube into cosmic "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream"-esque horror. Amazing video, 10/10
There was no “turning into”. Meet a few aspiring/collapsed social media “influencers” or “creators” (especially as a psychiatrist) and the pain is like most other artists but frighteningly immediate and visceral. The Algorithm is a truly eldritch horror. But it gives me tasty entertainment. It’s like eating human soul bacon watching content now.
@@JamesDecker7 Thank you for "human soul bacon", it only gets funnier and more apt the deeper I think on it ❤
RUclips is fucked up, and is probably the best single argument for going back in time and convincing Tim Berners-Lee to hand the Internet to the Swedish government or something (because they're more trustworthy than the alternatives... which, to be honest, may have Boko Haram ahead of private industry).
What do you mean? RUclips has basically been AM for years
The ending made me realise something. I love writing and sharing silly fanfic ideas on Ao3 but I also like to write stories I have no intention of sharing. Those are for me and I don't regret a single one.
it's nice to know that it wasn't just me thinking about ao3 when watching this
yep. watching the end made me think of fanfic, fanart and mods specifically.
some things to share, some things to keep close to the chest, and none of it made in hopes of virality.
I was skeptical at first, but despite being a real live talking tiger he had a lot of good points to make
Check out John Bois if you're into tiger creators. It's a real niche but it's good to know tigers have representation online.
Just make sure he doesn't put a red bandana on. Twitter will hijack his entire character.
I'm late to the SEW party, but... I just want to say how profoundly helpful this has been. Reclaiming the joy of creation from the toxic grindset culture is a struggle, and this advice is real and wholesome. Thank you for it.
On the one hand I probably should NOT have started watching this video right as I was planning to head to bed, but on the other hand I'm VERY GLAD I didn't stop halfway through like I was originally planning to, especially considering how uncomfortably relatable many of the described scenarios were to my literal actual experience earlier in the day.
Fantastic video!! 💙💙
I know your RUclips I enjoyed uout part 4 FORTNITE JOJO ANIMATION
the thing is that this feeling of emptiness after becoming "successful" isn't reserved to just being a youtuber or becoming social media famous! that's just the thing with success in general! happiness from success is a fleeting little thing that you can't rely on lasting at all, the credits don't roll after you reach a cool milestone. you have to instead find joy in the process of making things rather than the result sharing it will (potentially) have. the unfortunate thing is that that's a lesson that you have to keep re-learning because it never really sticks, lol
Goddammit. Thanks for spelling it out so succinctly.
Dissatisfaction is a part of life. You can't live without some of it, and I'm not at all convinced you'd want to.
@@Paralellex oh yeah for sure! another thing i keep having to re-learn myself is that you should just let there be room for these kinds of feelings. allow yourself to feel sadness and dissatisfaction and so on rather than beating yourself up for it because you "have it better than others" or, i guess in this case, "are successful so you shouldn't ever feel bad" or whatever
Reminds me of the end of The Graduate, when they get on the bus, initially exuberant, and then it just slowly slides off their face.
for the first time in my life, i'm making a professional income, which by many people's definition is what 'success' is. or i was challengers in league of legends and 0.1% in 3 other video games which is a much bigger deal imo
the happiness i have felt from being able to provide for my family with my job? it's part of a bigger picture, but is definitely a massive positive contributor to the levels of happiness i am able to feel in life. for the first time I consider myself I happy person, I am 'happy' literally every single day, but what did I do? what's my secret? i won't sell you a course but it is a simple as this.
1. resolve several health issues
2. work for 4 months sending job applications, daily, tech assessments, etc
3. get hired making great money for the area
4. while doing steps 123, repairing every personal relationship in my life. righting the wrongs with others, including other family. every single person i care about, I have treated right.
5. get paid from job, use the money to ensure my mother doeesn't have to work in a warehouse at 60 if she doesn't want to, start paying all the bills, fixing the house, repairing the car, getting health insurance, ...
It wasn't easy, and I had to experience a large amount of suffering before I changed as a person from what I was before. I wasn't happy for 15 years, and now am consistently happy every day.
The part about the kids blaming themselves when it doesn't work out should not be underestimated; having been diagnosed with autism at age 5 and having undiagnosed ADHD, pretty much everyone has always expected me to be able to do the things that most people can do in order to live a "normal" life, but I simply can't, and until I realized I had ADHD at age 33 I kept blaming myself, actually believing that I was just a lazy good-for-nothing loser, despite my ability to dominate in academic settings...
"I can do it, and therefore YOU can do it!" is a powerful and extremely misguided gaslighting that does no one any good whatsoever, except for people like Jake Paul who cash in on it of course...
Thank you for writing this.
ADHD isn't real..I was diagnosed with it in the 90's.. it's a scam. nothing is wrong with you...get rid of the slave, victim mentality and escape the matrix..then you will be truly free! If I did anyone can..
@@zacharypayne4080 Well, it is real, but it is not what most people think it is...
It's interesting you used something like ADHD as a comparison, because I was recently thinking about how people with mental/developmental/learning disorders are always being put down for not having the same skills as neurotypical or chemically-balanced people, and being told they're 'weak' and whatnot. Looking at a pattern of human behaviour or action and deciding on a standard, then holding tightly onto that standard and refusing to accept any other metric is reallly unhealthy, and we do it all the time - you should be working x hours a day, or a week, you should have x amount of contact with others, you should react to x like this, and to y like that, because Jake Paul does it that way, and Ninja does it that way, and your parents did it that way. And this line of thinking rarely accounts for differences between people.
This could affect you as a content creator to a great extent; not so good at speaking? It'll be really hard to feel confident in your recorded voice, and you'll have to work harder than others to come up with your final draft for a video.
Camera-shy? You'll have to work harder than others to appear confident enough to 'prove' that you believe in what you're saying in your video.
Socially anxious and people-pleasing? You may focus so much on one or two hate comments that you'll get discouraged from making videos altogether.
And if you're young, and you look up to, say, Jake Paul, it may not occur to you to not think about numbers, because he boasts his all the time - it may not occur to you to make audio-only videos with footage of something else in the background, because he's always showing his face - it may not occur to you that it's normal not be confident while speaking, because he sounds so sure of everything he says.
A lot of us are comparing ourselves to people we just can't be like, and social media encourages this in countless ways.
@@cranberryrosebud Indeed...
Man...this hit way too close to home. I wanted for years to make this my job, but the passion started dying when the push for money began. Despite having what should be my dream job, I miss making art for the enjoyment of making it.
Heya, just wanted to tell you that your frozen vids have made me laugh til I cried. I don't know what your current state of passion is for the channel, but I liked what you did. Anyway, have a good one!
You really hit the nail on the head with how looking at past analytics pigeonholes you in content. Got sucked down that rabbit hole myself recently and all it did was tank my creativity and love of creating content. It wasn't until I took a hiatus from making stuff to work on other film projects that I was reminded why I got into this in the first place.
Everything you say here is 100% right and anyone who wants to make a channel should watch 10x over.
Good to hear that you are doing well. Really happy that you are finding back the love for video making. Hope new stuff will come from you. Been following you since forever, but really started to dig your stuff once you started going away from the gameplay videos.
Hope we get an update on you and your channels soon.
Love your vids
Lemme ask because I'm curious. What made you start calling your videos content? Is it because you like the term or because you feel it accurately represents your work? Is it just an unconscious choice from the amount of times you've heard others use it?
This video is almost 2 hour long and I still think it won’t be enough to cover the nightmare that is the concept of *INFLUENCERS* and social media but still will be an incredible video on its own right
Really happy how this channel has never stuck to one type of subject when it comes to video making as from anime to wrestling to fake martial arts to now this, just great variety all around
Some of us just assume that every video is about some anime we haven't seen, with surprisingly photorealistic visuals.
What’s wrong with influencers honestly? I love influencing! I wish everyone was an influencer!!!
@@ralphwilsin You have been trying so hard to troll in this comment section dude... Give it a rest.
I have fallen into that trap of losing sight of my original goal on RUclips, and that was creating animations that not only myself would enjoy but others as well. As I ascended to 10k, 20k and 30k the feelings of joy and ephoria were intoxicating; that feeling of so many people loving your content more than you expected.
When my subs began to purge and my average view count dropped it set me into a state of panic and I started trying to push content out trying to figure out what people liked and when that didn't work I stopped looking at RUclips for days to weeks until finally I stopped looking at the analytics, although I still saw the disheartening view counts it was nowhere near as painful as looking at the data in depth.
Now that I've lost 5kish subs and gone now to low numbers it allowed me to refocus back into what my original endeavors were, now I'm back to animating what I enjoy regardless of the reception. It was truly a humbling phase in my RUclips career.
I never recommend anyone to do RUclips as a career. It is far too unstable and stressful. RUclips is and will always be my past time hobby with passive income.
However I will say the silver lining to RUclips is that I got to connect with many other creators in my niche and become good friends with them and use their talents to create something I never could achieve on my own, and that's huge.
A true guide to cracking the youtube algorithm:
Step 1: Learn Computer Science
Step 2: Specialize in machine learning and AI
Step 3: Become LITERALLY one of the most brilliant people in the field
Step 4: Get hired by google (probably the easiest step in this list)
Step 5: Do something that not even your peers can by cracking the neural network in front of you bigger than anything you could visualize.
You see - it's possible. And it just takes 5 steps and probably 10-20 years. And you even get one of these cool prizes like a noble prize or something in the end.
Step 6: Give up because even though you are the best in your field, the RUclips algorithm is beyond your understanding
By the time you get to Step 5, the algorithm will become sentient and will possess godlike intelligence
@@Immadeus Step 7: Use all your skills to create Skynet from the Youtbe algorithm as revenge for your mistreatment, lol.
Sounds like a plan 💻
Long story short: for most people, youtube has to be a part time job. Not only is maintaining a channel stressful, but having to rely solely on a channel for your entire income can be corrosive to your mental health.
The way how some of these youtubers talk it's A LOT of work. Way more work than a regular 9-5. It's fun work or at least it should be anyway if you're making stuff you want instead of grinding and chasing trends.
@@maineman5757 This can be applied to any self-employed person.
In a 9-5 most of the times your performance only partially influences your income, if at all.
If you are self-employed everything you do lays its consequences on you: you are the one directly benefiting the same way you are the one directly damaged by your own doing.
This is not something strange that just creators face, every job comes with its perks, but also its hardships. It is fair stating that people should not romanticize the job to the degree it is right now, but it is what it is.
Being a athlete is also a lot of work, nonetheless has been a very desired career path in the past years. Internet creators are just the 'new athletes' to the eyes of the consumer.
Its equally fair to state that being a creator isn't the hardest job or the nightmare sometimes people try make it seem. If it was, nobody would be doing it.
Work its work, it will always be hard, you can only go so long doing something everyday and loving it to the fullest.
@@giulioceresini1435 man, youve put into words perfectly why i fear starting freelancing and get paid 5x as much instead of continuing my relaxed web dev job where i work effectively 4h and have minimal worries
once upon a time youtube was mostly just for fun. monetization wasn't a thing. I miss that. there's still a ton of small channels like that and I always seek them out.
One thing I have noticed is that almost all big content creators on youtube are from middle class origin. I think the reason for that is because schools especially at higher level just really teach the skills for content creators like creative thinking, setting up work flows and other such things.
I feel like a lot of people don't consider the amount of harassment that comes with online content creation when trying to get into it. When creators with young audiences who don't necessarily have the experience to conceptualize that harassment try to market becoming a famous content creator, I always worry about what that will end up producing down the line. So it was good to see someone talk about it with this kind of topic.
Lindsay Ellis
Any animation meme homies who might be watching probably will think of Birdie when reading this.
I think the truth is that internet content creation is outgrown the niche status that previously shielded it. It is not a significant part of the economy and society and so that means also all the evils that come with that.
Small youtuber here. Just celebrated one year on the platform and actually did a video on this topic of being an anomally (because I actually hit 1000). It means a lot to know that there are others willing to talk about the element of luck on this platform and how your should stay authentic to yourself and make art for you.
I'm really loving this new wave of anti-"content" sentiment. I feel like it's making the internet a lot better. Helping people understand the negative mental loops caused by viewing what they do as mere "content", and how "generating" it instead of carefully crafting something they have legitimate feelings about is affecting them and how they view themselves and what they do.
The irony is that something put out based on a checklist and designed to harvest views is often, like you said about the algorithm hack scenario, a bland and empty video that will ultimately get people to ignore you. One thing I noticed about how youtube serves videos, at least for me, is that it sends things to your home dashboard based on what you've already shown interest in, and things it thinks are related to those interests. If you watch a lot of Mario stuff, it will assume you like Sonic and Zelda too, for example, even if you've never watched any Sonic or Zelda videos. If you like a specific youtuber, it will suggest other youtubers "related" to them, usually people who have subscribers in common or who have collaborated together. It becomes even more fine-tuned if you click the three dots on a video on the home screen, and you tell it to stop sending you videos of a certain topic, or by a certain channel owner entirely.
If you ever happen to send the algorithm into a dead end and get the card that says "Discover something new?" and you click on it, it will flood your dash with all of those kinds of clickbaity, soulless videos that are trying to farm subs and views by those kinds of checklist methods, and you'll have to retrain your home screen again. So even when these people talk about "gaming the algorithm", I think the algorithm already knows what counts as soulless content. And even if it didn't the "Don't suggest this channel" tool shuts that kind of stuff out completely on a per user level. Checklisting content only works on people who will indiscriminately watch anything that exists to begin with, so it shouldn't be relied on.
this video hit SO close home... i didn't left my job for content creation, as i only do it for hobby and for fun...and for practising stuff. but yeah, the anxiety and unhealthiness is REAL
voce por aqui
>for hobby
>1m subs
damn bruh 💀
@@theMyRadiowasTaken just cause i got viral a couple of times lol
its beautiful to see someone who can relate sees this, i hope youre doing well
Grande Vii
It was an honour to appear in one of your videos, even for ten seconds! :) Very seriously, it was so helpful to chat with a big 'tuber and realise that you're struggling with largely the same feelings and insecurities us small channels do. It helped me realise that I was letting myself fall into the "once I hit x number of subs, I'll be happy and satisfied" delusion. We have to find a way to be happy now, or never. Your final words made me cry. Thanks again x
This is one of my favorite videos I’ve ever watched on RUclips. So poignant, yet oddly cathartic to my own thoughts on creative endeavors. Stumbled upon this from a münecat video and I am glad I watched it.
Also seeing Folding Ideas, among other larger creators, as well as the smaller creators being interviewed about RUclips was a great addition.
The ending lines you finished with are perfect. Cheers and thank you.
As a self published author, that last line struck a chord with me as a human that writes books that nobody reads
Well most Oscar winners make movies no one sees.
Whats the books you have?
@@jinchuriki7022 aw thanks for asking! My recent book is called Mercuryville on Amazon (and my two other books are under my author profile) :)
I tried googling for it, then tried searching amazon directly. I tried mercuryville, and then tried Mercury ville.
It took searching for Tara summerville to find the author profile, and thus the books.
Amazon is absolutely awful. 😔
That said your books have some very mysterious summaries and I think the hunt was worthwhile. But just so anyone else following after knows, author name and profile is going to be the best way to find them.
@@FFKonoko thanks so much!:) that’s incredibly frustrating about Amazon. I mean, I don’t expect my little nobody books to be on the front page, but I’d at least hope they’d show up when you’re looking for them!!
In the German RUclips community we have a word for this obsession with analytics. We call it "Zahlenkrankheit" wich translates directly to Numbersickness and its so true because it is a sickness
German is such a cool language in this way, thank you for sharing this!
Ok I'm using that now.
Man I love German. Something new comes up and y'all just jam a bunch of words together to make a new thing. Awesome.
@@wanderinghistorian that kinda exist in every language...
@@tomgu2285 Well of course it exists in every language, Germany is just especially known for its borderline comedic compound words
I immediately respect a youtuber more when they blur the kids in family vlog footage. Good on you, man.
And even the kids chasing Jake Paul's promises. Class act.
My god, this video ending made me cry so much. I spent all my life seeking validation from people who wholeheartedly rejected me and what i enjoyed, but now i understand. I'll even take the advice i got given. Im writing this comment knowing fully well that probably no one will see it, but it doesn't matter. Keep doing what you like, even against all the pushback, cuz ull never achieve in the shadow of expectations and dissatisfaction.
I saw it.
Me too
You have been seen.
As someone who had to deal with rejection from early on: Maybe you want to take a look at the videos of "Einzelgänger" , he has a strong focus on finding value/happiness being an outcast/non-conforming.
When our life is over, none of that stuff matters, so make the most of what makes YOU happy 🙂
I…feel this. The isolation feeling in specific so much man.
You’ve definitely been seen :) thank you for the reassurance
I originally wanted to make weird, short films. This around the rise of streaming. They did so bad I decided to try and become a variety streamer. It was miserable. This made me realize I need to stop trying to play the game. I'm going to just make the stuff I want to make.
Well said.
That's what I do when I stream, I never once went into it expecting to make it big so it's just a fun little hangout for me and my friends. Honestly, I kinda like it like that.
If you just keep doing it, you might get it.. heck, just going outside everyday for a month might happen a 1 in a million chance event, tho success is prob atleast 500 million
Actually no, perhaps 100 million
I hope you go back to making weird, short films. I would love to watch those
You know, I gotta be honest-a lot of these “courses” really feel like Pyramid Schemes/MLMs. Not in the way that they are about getting multiple people into the course, but more about the idea that doing what these courses say completely will lead you to huge success.
To put it into perspective: when I started my current job, I was very stressed and eventually was convinced by a couple to join Amway (a really famous MLM) and during my time there, the higher-ups often made very similar claims (higher education is bad, trusting in Amway will lead to financial freedom, etc.) and in at least a couple of the meetings, the higher-ups constantly tried to present their lives as being these grandiose, uber-rich fairytales-when in reality, from what I’ve heard from other ex-Amway members, is that that success is not only incredibly rare, but that often those successful people will put themselves into debt to *look* rich as opposed to actually *being* rich.
It’s really uncomfortable to see some content creators do the same thing.
This is DEFINITELY the same thing as Instagram influencers and how a VERY large chunk of them are merely 'playing' at being, renting expensive cars, paying to spend a day shooting at a mansion they don't own whilst claiming they do. Hell thanks to being the 'location scout' for student films for a while I've seen a number of very expensive looking mansions that offered daily shooting rates being used by these people and I can't help but chuckle because I know they don't 'own' these houses, I know who owns those houses, I've talked to their agents, their location managers, tried to get student discounts on shooting there.
Pay me as a replacement for love so I will tell you how to get people to love you with money by telling them how to get people to money show they love them.
No kinda about it
Just going to throw out there one of my favorite failed RUclips Channels, The Pilot Is Dead. It was a channel about covering tv pilots, the history behind them, and why they didn’t work, as well as a healthy dose of cheesy humor. The dude was pumping out well edited and crafted content that he clearly made with love and spent hours and hours on, only to never really get traction. He never officially shut it down, it just stopped one day after a livestream of one of those shitty cool cat films (which is a bold move considering how litigious the cool cat people are, but it was just me and a few others in the livestream anyway).
I dearly miss that guy, but I hope whatever he’s doing now has brought him some happiness and success.
I remember thinking that when I finish my physics degree with highest honors then I will be happy and successful. It came and I felt nothing. All this suffering I did was for nothing and nobody clapped. It was just me. This video really reminded me of the lesson I learned. Do something that you enjoy and find fulfilling in itself and not for some external end goal you have seen other people get. Be the person who does cool stuff and the rest will just happen on its own.
I feel you, man. It wasn’t a physics degree with highest honors for me, but the feelings you describe are too real. It’s some fuckin Ozymandias shit.
As someone who actually left engineering because I just didn't feel personal validation from the work it required me to do, this was super good for me to read after watching this video.
i've feelt this
This approach doesn't work at all if your goal is monetary, for example, early retirement. More often than not, people are forced to make compromises. You suck up doing things that you hate, you slave away years after years, so that you can finally enjoy the heaven that is life devoid of stress (yes, I hold the unpopular opinion that with wise use of money, all things can be fixed).
Everytime I see videos such as the one above, no matter the verbiage, it always boils down to that green devil. Unsuccessful content creators quit because of lack of money. The dread of your quality of life plummeting is looming over everyone, not only content creators, all because we've created societies that encourage unrealistic, exponential growth. The powerful have learnt to manipulate human nature to the point that the outlook for change seems, in my opinion, grim.
The problems in the video above are just a symptom of a much wider, societal problem. People are losing empathy. They depend on each other less and less. Everyone's expected to be an unerring lone wolf. Instant gratification is becoming our true overlord. In other words, capitalism's many boons have long became a curse, which erodes mental health in favour of dopaminergic relief. Either you get lucky and succeed and gain a glimpse of true freedom, or you die shackled and downtrodden.
@@thecolorgreen9022 The one thing I can say to this is test it out somehow before commiting 20 years of life to this approach. You want to retire early right and live atress free. Do it now with your savings for 1 year. Not 1 month, not 6 months, those are vacations, 1 year. Yes, absolutely it will set you back financially but you will learn whether that is the life you truly want. A youtube comment will not change your mind. But from your comment it seemed like you are an extremely hard working person. After 6 months of sleeping, anime watching and ehatever, after that initial honeymoon period, lets see whether it actually makes you happy.
And if you do not have funds to take a year off by now (unless you are very young) then I am afraid you will never be able to take 40 years off for retirement.
There's a part of me that feels bad when i don't watch a video right away when one of my favorite creators uploads it because i know how much that early engagement means for a video. Which is a bit insane, because I know I only have so much time in my day and I might not necessarily be in the mood to watch that particular kind of video, which is why the whole analytics system can be so cruel.
You'll never know just by looking at the analytics how much a given person actually enjoyed a video. How much it made someone laugh, how enthralled they were by it, how much it made them cry, how much they learned from it, how it changed their perspective on a subject or even on life as a whole.
It really sucks that our brains tend to focus in on the negative responses instead of the positive ones. How one hateful comment sticks out in a pile of "great video!" messages.
Super eye patch wolfs "villain speeches" about how hes gonna infiltrate the youtubers courses, get to the top and destroy them from the inside out. Just perfect. 10/10.
I once saw a creator get asked a question about making money on youtube and his response was pretty much “don’t do it for money, do it because you want to tell a story”. Money may come or may not, but don’t do it for money.
Easy to say if you're already a millionaire lol. You shouldn't do RUclips for money because to even get to being able to make a living (around 50,000 subs roughly) you need to be insanely lucky. As this video shows less than .1% of RUclips channels ever get 100,000 subscribers
@@lovablesnowman Indeed. That, and you have to put a hell of a lot of consistent work into it.
I'm very, very fortunate to be in the position I'm in currently.
@@HenrythePaleoGuy yeah mate every job requires effort and work. However I'd take sitting in a nice office making RUclips over working in a construction site anyday.
The RUclips life is attractive for good reason. The only problem is its ridiculously rare to actually achieve success and its almost entirely luck based
Whenever I think about my lack of social media participation, I remember the anxieties all the creators I follow talk about and the ever great quote from Bo Burnham: "If you can live your life without an audience you should do it"
that's a really great quote indeed! thanks ;)
God that ending, just everything about this video is so raw and personal and inspiring. Thank you for the time and energy you spent putting this video together. Can't appreciate it enough.
As an artist who joined Instagram and realized the dangers of fame obsession not too long ago, thank you for reaffirming this.
Thank you so so much, John.
Best of luck Matthew ❤️
Omg the art community on Instagram is absolutely horrible for your mental health, I remember back in high school there was a point in time where I was just constantly refreshing the “likes” page, hoping somebody else would see my work
It took me a super long time to retrain my brain to not do that, and be okay with having a smaller following
There was a lot in this video that left me nauseous, but that clip of the mom filming her crying son, heartbroken over his dead dog, left me truly sick to my stomach. I have so many other thoughts about this absolutely brilliant video essay, from the editing to the skits to respecting the sheer amount of work this took, but I can mostly summarize it as "I loved this, I somehow feel like a better person after watching it, and I'm looking forward to your next video."
What made me sick was the “I know, but keep looking at the camera.” If you’re distant to the point that saying “I know” is such a habit for you when talking to your own kids, you should take a step back.
@@PhippsJonah does anyone know if shes facing any like, consecuences for this. is anyone checking on her children.
@@quemira1207 Honestly I know people with narcissistic parents... The kid is most likely fine.
But this problem is hundreds of thousand parents deep. You are just seeing someone with a hot mic.
I hope the kid doesn't see this in ten years. Or if they did, they see it at their therapists visit.
@@Giganfan2k1 yeah i hope the kid is fine later on
*"Art."*
That's a word I don't see used enough for RUclips videos anymore. Everybody always says "content" nowadays. I've grown to hate the word "content" because I think it just reduces any sense of passion or dedication creators put into making their videos. "Art" just feels more passionate, more personal. And that's what making videos should be all about. Thank you so much for saying this.
I agree. The term "content creator" doesn't actually say anything. It's impersonal and cold, much like a lot of "content" out there on the Internet.
Most all mainstream media has grown to be Mass Production stuff done for an easy buck, rather than for passion or heart.
Fuckin stinks.
Well most youtube videos are not art. Even the creators would fully admit that and never say its art.
Mr. Beast's videos where he buys out almost an entire grocet store to give the food to a food bank and the video where Jake Paul creates a giant jenga tower in order to play a giant game of jenga are both similar in that they're not really art, they're just people posting content videos of interesting things they did.
The obsession with analytic goals, checking numbers, and the lack of satisfaction when reaching numerical goals overlaps with my experience with weight loss and eating disordered behaviours. Very well done, and thank you for the realistic protrayal of being a content creator towards the end. I think it ties into other obssessions, and the people who promote potentially positive things (creating videos, losing excess weight, exercise, eating well, etc.) in a way that makes them obssessive, ritualistic, and potentially harmful to your mental/physical health.
I don't think I've ever seen the experience of becoming a RUclipsr expressed so accurately. That was amazing.
"This guy used to pick on me in highschool and last Thursday I had his daughter killed!!" That was the single most terrifying and hilarious quote I've ever heard from Super Eyepatch Wolf 💀
Even though this video is made over a year ago it completely made my entire day. Watching it from beginning to end after just feeling overwhelmed change my entire perspective in a positive way. Thank you for spending all the time to make this video because I think it's something that needed to be said and done for all of us small channels that want to understand how yo overcome our own mental struggles. The end was amazing and inspirational.
Just found you. Never considered being a RUclipsr, but on this journey I went through all the emotions with you. But finished film school with debilitating panic attacks, hating everything I made after my initial attempts. Tried to get everything right and failed miserably. A blank page gives me anxiety now. And that’s WITHOUT the analytics. I’d just perish if I had to obey the algorithm. This last bit you said about making art for ME… thank you for that, really.
Just do what you like..it's the jurney not the distanation.. and I have a hot girl friend..so I know what I'm talking about..why have anxiety? Just choose not to have it..yes it's that easy if you put in the mental work..hard work..why live life like that?
@@zacharypayne4080 Exactly, just decide to be successful, it's that easy!
@@zacharypayne4080it seems fascinating that people like you, who can barely tie their shoelaces, can use social media to radiate your low-iq presence
My mom bought one of these courses recently and was scammed out of a ton of money. Unsure if I'll be able to get her money back, but I appreciate you bringing this scam to light in the mean time. These people have absolutely no morals.
Also unrelated but I started reading Berserk after your last vid and it's the one thing keeping me sane rn thx for making like 500 videos about it
i started reading it too :) seriously great series!
@@gotenks5633 It honestly started okay, but the end of the first arc with that panel of teary eyed guts? Goddamn, that was so good. That's what hooked me lol
@@skyty0 I'm at the part now where schierke just met that herald girl and they fought the pirates and I just cant wait to see how much further it goes...
There a 21 hour berserk video out there it's pretty good
"Passion is only as valuable as the opportunity it's paired with." My god... this hit me like a truck. It's so true, and it's such a brilliant and utterly sobering statement. For me, what I love the most about your videos is that they're grounded in reality, and speak about things that a lot of people would otherwise not give a second thought to.
it's kind of the same as "anyone can win the lottery, but not everbody will"
just because some random dude became famous is basically completely out of their control, which makes a "system" to do it, nonsense
I'm a father of a 1 year old now. I've never been interested at all in chasing fame or becoming a social media influencer. But I saw the same statistics that the number 1 desired job is social media influencer. So I appriciate this as a resource for things I should be steering him away from. Not art or anything, but watching and attempting to emulate many of these influencers. And who knows, maybe when he's old enough to care about what these people say, we'll be on to the next thing.
I had some decent success really early in youtube and twitch, I started streaming for fun twitch was Justin. I had 100k youtube subs when that was considered a lot, I was there on the journey when twitch introduced the first sub button and had been following the person who got it's content for years. I got mine when twitch negotiated terms with you and and there was a contract involved, it was a big deal to get one. Never got rich or famous thankfully, but paid the bills for a few years and had some good times doing it. Hell I still have a screenshot where my channel had the most views of any channel streaming on twitch at the time (only ever happened once, but it's cool still.) although I have no idea where it's stored these days heh.
I wasn't able to be fake, or hollow and turn that start into something else. I wasn't built to keep churning out content mentally so it burnt me to a husk and I had pull the plug. Now, more than ever I'm happy I never made it big after seeing where all the social media and new media platforms are going. The absolutely miniscule tiny amount of people that both have the talent and drive to be success on these platforms combined with the luck to pull it off is so low. The far scarier number is how many of people are earning their living off RUclips are suffering and doing incredible amount of mental damage to themselves that will never heal. The amount negativity and hate out there now is crazy, it's the worst time to be famous for anything imo. Pro athletes get abused by millions of idiots who think they know better, their families get harassed because they made a mistake. Any influencer is at risk of their life being instantly destroyed because of something they said in a time when their brain wasn't fully developed and the world believed in mistakes, learning and personal growth.
RUclips and content creations got some awesome niches that sometimes you can and carve out your slice in if you're talented, make quality things and get lucky. It's one thing to approach a hobby and strive to put out the absolute best stuff can. It's incredibly damaging to a LOT of people that don't have the talent to succeed throwing their souls away and losing their friends, family and finances in their best years. You don't recover from that, and in a few years there's going to be a lot of really depressing stories out there of people did just that and are now 40 or 50 with nothing around them.
Used to be if you didn't look good enough you knew you couldn't be a model. If you weren't a star athlete at your school and in your region, you knew weren't going to try to go pro anyway. Sure some people went to LA and lost everything to be actors and actresses but even the number of people that happened is tiny compared to the problem we have now.
Platforms are so accessible, everyone and anyone can essentially do the same things their heroes and idols do but they have no idea how much better at those things their heroes are. The Dunning-Kruger effect is going to kill an entire generation of peoples lives because we've removed all the checks on society for outside forces helping out.
"Don't say bigoted shit for attention" is a lesson I hope many parents are imparting on their kids.
I think people are so entrenched in their bubbles they can't see the larger societal shifts happening in front of us. Less jobs, more robots, more ai, more content creators, less attention spans, more mental health and adhd, inflation higher, resources getting tighter, people are more specialised less generally intelligent or critical, social media has warped all industries it has touched. Seems we are on a speeding train to becoming the fat people from wall e.
Even this video is someone pointing out the bad people while being a bad person. Life is insane now days. More for those that can see it.
In other words:”I want my son to be just like me and not let him make his own decisions”. L. No wonder parents are shit these days.
@Fidelio In other words, "Don't actually parent kids. Let them be influenced by anything and everyone who will do the parenting for you."
Thanks for your middleschool opinion. Come talk when you have any degree of maturity.
I had a major realization watching this that feels obvious in hindsight: most kids that think they want to be RUclipsrs when they grow up really just want to be wealthy and famous for no reason. Which is a very normal desire for a kid to have, but has almost nothing to do with making videos for a living.
I mean, looking at the world we live in, this is an understandable desire for any person in the society. But that's politics.
I think there is an extra struggle specific to it because the difficulty isn't apparent. When kids grow up saying they want to be an astronaut, difficultly is clear to them, it is observable through merely gravity. A doctor is someone they can listen to and watch using tools, the difficultly is present, and they're aware their desire to be cool and popular comes from a lot of hard work.
Being a content creator is a lot of hard work, but it looks effortless online and even worse when certain "wealthy and famous" say how easy it is. They are setting children up to believe a fairy tale is a reality and it's easier than school or chores.
Most kids also get over that.
I abandoned my pursuit of becoming a youtuber a long time ago, but this video still made me emotional with how much it resonated with me and all I expect from the RUclipsrs I watch. I genuinely would't love this platform as much as I do if it wasn't for the people that do what they enjoy from the bottom of their hearts. I don't want to see my favourite creators fall down a pit only because the numbers are getting low. I just want them to be happy and do what they most sincerely want to.
This was a great video and I truly hope it becomes a beacon of hope for those thousands of small creators seeking advice or simply suffering from this wicked platform (and world we live in). Keep doing what you love, no matter if I'm here to see it or not, just stay happy. Thank you.
You are *destined* to not make it, by non other than yourself. IM gonna make it!. Simply cause i would rather *die* than not to.
@@davidnighten5553 chill out, man
Life is not an anime
@@Mapachotgun DONT TELL ME TO. CHILL OUT AAAAAHHHHHHHH
@@davidnighten5553 man, it seems you didn't even saw the video smh
@@davidnighten5553
R.I.P.
1:28:30 yeah, i REALLY feel for this guy. I am going through the exact same thing right now. I love animating, but the animation industry is scary and I’m just not skilled enough for it. I’ve had videos go “viral” I had a video get 8 MILLION views, and i thought i was set, but no one sticks around. Now I struggle to hit 200 views, it feels BAD…
I feel like there's a societal pressure to become someone big. When I was a kid, I was constantly told that I could become a superstar & make all of my wildest dreams come true, as long as I worked hard enough, but nobody ever told me I could just be average. To be honest, I've dreamt of becoming a game developer or a writer. But recently, I've realized how exhausting those careers can be. I took a game design class, & I absolutely despised creating games after I finished the class. I've written goofy over-the-top fanfiction before, but it took me a tremendous & stress-inducing amount of time to think of any ideas & write them into satisfying sentences.
Who knows, maybe I will become a professional writer someday, but the idea that I won't almost scares me. The idea that I'll just become another pebble by the wayside is haunting. & when I tell people about this, they don't tell me being average is perfectly fine; they tell me that I'll definitely become a superstar. & what if I don't? What if I get a regular desk job? Am I just worthless at that point? I know myself better than anyone; I've never bothered with going above & beyond. That's not my style. I'm not that special. But when I tell people that, they say, "No, you are special. Just work harder." Well, maybe I don't want to. What's so wrong with that? It's like people aren't allowed to live simple lives anymore. Otherwise, you're just a loser, & that's extremely depressing.
Fucking feel this. Have a regular job rn and just feel it isn’t enough. Wonder if I’m just been coerced in not setting
I've thought about that, not everyone can be an inventor, but some people can improve other people's inventions.
You should be able to find comfort in supporting good causes silently, not necessarily right under the spotlights.
At least you'll know that you're not complicit in the tragic fall of a free, civilized society or something like that.
This sentiment of feeling like I need to be somebody despite my innate desires not necessitating the need for such a goal is something that I’m currently struggling with. My goal in life at this point is to be able to freely put out the comics I want to create stress free. The issue with that is how broad of a goal it’s been, which ultimately has led me to wanting to be a freelance art so that I can have as much freedom as possible. The ironic thing is that in order to obtain this dream I need publicity, which means becoming a slave to the algorithm and the idea that I need to be special in order to make it in life and have value. Basically, I can relate to what you’re talking about
Here's the thing: it's okay to be a pebble. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. You don't have to achieve massive success to be successful. If you want to write something, you can write. Making a ton of money off that does not have to be same thing as doing it professionally. And even if you fail, there's the next thing - you tried. Which means a hell of a lot. It's a chance to learn, and to grow. Maybe you realize you don't actually like writing professionally - that's a valid lesson. Maybe you realize you do like it... and you learned some of the mistakes you made. Learning to grow, allowing yourself to grow, understanding that you can grow is a vital lesson.
Your definition of happiness and success is NOT the same as someone else's. Let's reiterate: success is not binary. There is a vast swath between being a 'loser' and being 'one in a generation maker of thing'. The people saying 'just work harder'? Yeah, they're doing a shitty job of supporting you. They're not listening to you. In my career, I've meet people that are absolutely happy to NOT be the top dog (whatever that might mean). They LOVE being in the trenches; they're not superstars in the "face of the thing" way... but they are exceptional in their chosen craft. And here's a thing: they weren't born superstars either. They became superstars because of their ability to grown and learn and practice.
That also means that you've got advantages and disadvantages all your own. This is different than being special (in the way those people are talking about). There are things you are good at... the question and choice is whether it's something you want to engage with. And no is an acceptable answer to that.
For context, I am a professional game developer. Have been for 10 years. Probably worked on games you've heard of. Games are not made by super stars. But what I've learned is that everyone contributes in their own unique way. Sure, some are great at leadership roles... but they are no more important to the project than roles like technical designers and gameplay programmers and producers. The game directors might be the face of the project... but no project is made in a vacuum. And great game directors bend over backwards to acknowledge that. And roles like technical designers and producers? Their jobs are to support the rest of the team. They're never going to be superstars to non-game devs... but they are absolutely superstars to their peers.
Here's the other part about my career. It has not progressed in the way I thought. I have a degree in 3d animation. I went to school for level design (and have a natural aptitude towards that); it's what I imagined I would be doing. One of my proudest moments was when a lead gameplay engineer told a meeting room of people that he trusted my technical decisions. But you know what I do? I'm a gameplay designer.
That conflict between what I'm good at (technical aptitude, level design) versus what I want to do has been a constant question in my career. I don't have an answer still; but it has lead me to strive in ways that I probably wouldn't have.
Now I'm not trying to say that it's been easy. That's important to recognize. Whatever success you want is not going to be easy. You don't have to go bonkers making games or writing stories 24/7. But you do have to at least take little steps and put in some amount of work. And that can be super hard because it means making yourself vulnerable. It means putting yourself out there. It means risking failure. One of the challenges is that we often only see the end result of this process. We see successful individuals... but we don't often see the work they put into it or the amount of time they put into it. We don't see the dozens more behind them that are still working on that particular path. Anyone that says being successful is easy and quick is lying.
If that's something you're not ready for, that's absolutely fine too. Playing it safe may be the best choice for you at the given time based on your situation.
Those choices and decisions can change over time; dreams and aspirations change. That's normal and natural.
You feeling lost and scared and anxious is normal and nature.
Towards that, asking for help is one of the best things you can do to succeed. Seek therapy and professional help to help process these emotions and experiences and feelings.
@@PhotonBeast Thank you. That was very informational. If you don't mind me asking, what's a game you've worked on?
Any creator that makes a course on "Becoming an Influencer" is immediately discredited for life. I never take them serious after that.
I think the best advice I've seen is to not start YT or Twitch or whatever else with a long term career in mind. Do it because you want to do it for fun as a hobby, the chances of blowing up are abysmally small, you can grind everyday for years and only get a few viewers. If a career happens from your passion of content creation, great. But chances are its not gonna happen.
I’m not a fan of the term “influencer.” It implies that their primary job is influencing their audience and not providing entertainment/information.
I agree, the best versions of anything similar are the ones that make it clear that they aren’t tutorials on how to make a SUCCESSFUL RUclips channel, but just how to make a RUclips channel at all.
Like, Mandaloregaming made a good one, and not only did he upload it for free on his channel, (and not put it through a paywall) he did it because his subscribers and supporters ASKED him to.
And in that video he says that he doesn’t expect any of his tips to help a person go viral, and that he doesn’t even consider RUclips to be a remotely viable means of monetary gain, (to this day, I believe he’s still only a part-time RUclips creator, and the bulk of his income comes from freelance work).
Not to mention, most of his tips are things like “only make content about stuff you really wanna talk about” and “prioritize audio over video quality, because people like to put videos on in the background”.
True as an inspiring influencer myself I can tell you it’s tough!
@@calebmarmon1310 Well it's the truth isn't it? I think "content-creator" is a bit of a euphemism as far as a job description goes since their income comes from influencing people, whether it's by getting paid to shill products to their audience, or trying to manipulate them into giving them money. IMO "influencer" is the appropriate title in most cases and the only people who deserve to use the term "content-creator" to describe their job are the people who are paid mostly through willing donations on something like patreon, from people who pay solely to help support the creator's work.
@@calebmarmon1310 There are two types of internet content creators in my opinion,
1) "Influencers" - Those who shill to their big audience to make money. These are all the soulless rich boys on youtube trying to sell you shit all the time.
2) Artists - These are people who create some form of art and use the internet as the place to share it, they usually support themselves through donations.
I feel like this applies to any kind of art that you want to turn into a career. I love writing and tried to make it as a writer. I went through the whole process, years of hard work, and then some people in the industry and the beta readers said that i could sell it better if I followed certain trends. Suddenly the passion project i worked on for several years wasn't good enough. I started rewriting it, scrapped the whole thing and reworked the story until it no longer resembled the original story and characters.
But I hated it. Sure, it was more marketable, but it wasn't mine anymore. Now I just write for me. I might self publish someday, but for now I'm fine with my day to day job and having my head in the clouds and scribbling stories at my leisure.
I wanna read this legendary writing you speak of, I bet its super cool and original :O
@@PilferpupCartoons Honestly, not really. A book came out when I was almost done with the first draft that had an almost identical concept. 🤣 There are no "new ideas" in writing anymore, supposedly. I still had fun with it though and whenever I need a good cringe, I scroll through a chapter or two. (My writing has definitely improved over the years, along with my avoidance of writing about angsty teens.)
@@reizak8966 i mean, you could say that abuot anything, but your voice/version/flavor is a different Fettaccini Alfredo than Olive Gardens, and it just so happens i LOVE fettaccini alfredo; so if you had an option for it, of course i'd want it
Also if you want to get analytical and make your life that way there already is a way: Stocks.
Really stock trading is exactly that with analyzing companies and weighing risk vs reward. Though with stocks you get money from it and money is permanent unlike views which are fleeting.
Do self-publishing on sites like royalroad, on a chapter basis. A friend of mine did that, and he got quite popular, to the point a publisher came to him, not the other way around. And it's a niche, weird meta story that no mainline publisher would have picked up without massive edits if he just submitted it to them.
And besides, every time people try to claim that these publisher agents know what it takes to write a successful novel, I always point it out to them, that Harry Potter was tossed back as unmarketable by two publishers before a third one accepted it...
Thank you for making this video. it's really sickening how youtube analytics conditions you to feel addicted to checking how your videos are performing.
When the guy told the story about putting a dunk tank in front of Jake Paul's mansion and the other guy said, and I quote, "Anyone can do it," I had to pause the video and laugh out loud for a solid minute. My husband shouted, "WHAT?!" several times and looked up the cost of dunk tank rentals (roughly $240 for 4 hours). This is insanity.
Also, phenomenal video, as always. You go deep into the horror, you stared into the abyss, and it smashed that like button.
As a small content creator myself who legitimately became addicted to looking at analytics, this video was eye opening to me and almost made me cry. Thanks for the wake-up call. This is damn near life-changing.
same! I feel like learned a lot from this video.
i’ve never looked at my own numbers and never will. analytics horrify me-the rote segmentation/separation/subsequent value assignment based on the attention of other people for what never will be my day job, has always freaked me out. i want to get back to making content but i want to get back to it in a headspace where i know i can keep up that ethos
"I have 4 wives and 17 husbands. None of them even know about each other!"
Sounds like the plot of some soap opera or a trashy reality tv show.
Or an ill-conceived comedy anime.
@@nicholaspeters9919 that would most likely be in the isekai genre.