From a period around 2013 until maybe 2017 or 2018 at the latest, I tried my damnedest to have fun with a YouTube channel which focused on my various projects, interests, and the like, much like any other even remotely “geeky” person tends to do. For a while it was fun, but soon, thanks to the ever changing nature of YouTube itself and the kinds of people who, thanks to the way the service works, would actually see my content (read, not the people who should have seen it) I finally abandoned the effort. It wasn’t so much an “I quit” as it was a “this just isn’t worth it to focus any time and energy on” and I eventually took all content published on my channel and made it unlisted. Some have lamented this, and I feel bad that those who enjoyed my video work don’t get to see any more of it, and would have a hard (if not near impossible) time finding the unlisted videos to enjoy what I did produce over those years, but, as I explained in some detail in the entry “Goodbye YouTube” this was something I felt needed to be done — why should my efforts make Google wealthier, while I only deal with annoyances from the content even being visible? Better to cut it off and move on with my life, I’d say.
The key thing to take away from this, though, is that the problem was never the videos themselves — it was YouTube as a service. The kinds of behavior it, in effect, promotes by the way its used, the systems in place to show some users videos while hiding them from others, and the fact that there’s no actual incentive for someone like me, who isn’t going to make the “typical” content anyway, to publish things there. I get no reward, only strife at best, for being me — their original slogan of “Broadcast Yourself” is now an outright lie, as being yourself is the worst thing you can do there — at least, if you’re a person in the tech / gaming scene like I am. Maybe for other scenes it works out, but not for the group that, historically, has been the lifeblood of the internet.
Video production, however, has been something I’ve always loved. Hell, every day I have new ideas for a video knowing good and damn well I don’t want to make anything for YouTube. The good thing is, I don’t have to — contrary to what many think, YouTube isn’t the only service out there for hosting video content. Sure, nothing is as big as YouTube, but at this stage YouTube has become such a mess I’d happily use a good alternative so long as I know it will stay around. I was considering vid.me for a time before it met an untimely end — one that, had it been able to stick out just a few months longer, may not have had to happen at all given the changes YouTube made just a few months later with monetization. Still, others exist, in one form or another, but many are trying to just be another YouTube, which is the last thing we need.
In fact, this entire idea of centralization which has begun to dominate the internet in the past decade seriously rubs me the wrong way — there are many who think that the only viable video service that can or will ever exist on the internet is, and always will be, YouTube! They thing Google is the be-all-end-all, that Twitter and Facebook are the most important websites in existence, and think the idea of a personal site, in any form, is a joke — some outdated, obsolete notion. Clearly these are people who are probably a bit too young to remember a time before everyone went to the same 3 websites for everything. A time when Google was still just a search engine and not much more, when Amazon mostly just still sold books, and when everyone had their own webpage that you had to hunt for, but as a reward for that hunt and interaction through instant messaging you built valuable connections. Those old webring days were a real blast, and I can only imagine the kinds of groups which would form today were that concept still the backbone of hobbyist internet usage — imagine whole groups devoted to the content you love, but, and this is critical, isolated enough that only those who actually wanted to see that content would find them, and others wouldn’t likely run across it! Oh, how magic that sounds, right? That’s the way it used to be.
…But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Way ahead of myself.
As I titled this entry — I miss making videos, but I don’t miss YouTube. I love the idea of filming a project, of documenting my endeavors and sharing them with others who will enjoy them. I don’t like playing the metrics game, trying to fight against an script that will decide who it wants to potentially show my video to all based on what it thinks those people may want to see. To have to deal with people who would never appreciate the video to begin with seeing it suggested, clicking on it, then, because they aren’t the type of person its intended for, giving me shit over it as if suddenly I owe them something because they chose to watch my work. All this while the right people don’t even know I exist becuase, for whatever reason, the algorithm has decided to not even attempt to suggest my channel, because it isn’t popular enough…. because it isn’t shown to anyone. Real chicken / egg thing going on there, save for one video.. there’s always that one which gets videos, and no others. Go fucking figure.
The thing I’m getting at is that I genuinely enjoy the process of making videos, but don’t have a reasonable outlet to share them, thus meaning no real reason to make them. At least, that’s the way it’s been until the past day or two — I’m feeling an urge to create videos again, if only short ones at first, and “test the waters” so to speak, but not on YouTube, oh no no no — I’m not going there unless they separate from Google and go back to the old way of doing things, and even in that incredibly unlikely situation I’d still rather avoid that hell hole for a million and one reasons (not literally but, you get what I mean.)
So the quest really is see if making videos can be “fun” again in and of itself, then decide from there what to do — what service may be right, or so I strictly want to self host here on Xadara? I’m sure I’ll find an answer soon enough, I just have quite a bit to think about on the creative department and finding the right “home” for my works. Again, YouTube is NOT the only place on the internet for video content, and I’m hell bent on finding the right place for my own work.
YouTube can fuck off in any case, though, and in the end if I don’t find a service I like, I’d rather just not create anything than dare publish any more of my content on one of the worst social platforms to exist. Sure, that sounds like a strong opinion… because it is. I could, and probably will soon, expand upon just why YouTube is so terrible (as so many others have from their own perspectives) but for now my previous writings will stand as my statement on that topic.
So, over the weekend I’ll take a look at a few options and maybe, if I’m feeling up to it, give one a go. We’ll see what happens. More to come, as always.