As some of my readers may know, and certainly virtually all of my close friends are aware, I produce content on my YouTube channel. YouTube Content Creation, or really, making videos of any kind, has been for the better part of a decade something I have always wanted to do, and in the past few years with my new channel, I have sought to create videos that would, like my blog, catch the attention of a certain type of person similar to me, or at the very least, those who would find such content interesting.
I’ve gained quite the following on YouTube, garnering about 150 subscribers, and uploading just shy of 200 videos. The other night, however, after having a hell of a time producing 2 separate videos, I realized as good a following as I have, for what I do, I just wasn’t enjoying myself. I was burnt out on video production.
Not the actual process, but more the lack of feedback. Some videos I might spend several hours on would only get a few views, and while I understand and expect such, over time, it adds up and becomes quite frustrating.
See, I have a few quirks in how I speak, and I tend to have more than a few memory lapses. I don’t like to edit around these issues, so I often find myself doing re shoot after re shoot of a scene, or retake after retake of audio. This adds quite a bit of time to the already slow production process of recording, editing, rendering, uploading, tagging and describing the video, then finally, publishing.
For all the time and energy (both literally in electricity and figuratively) I see very little in the way of feedback, be it views, likes, whatever.
Yes, I know I should do it for myself. I enjoy making videos, as I said earlier, but let’s face it – people, like me, upload content in the hopes of people watching and enjoying it. If no one is watching it, what’s the point?
YouTube Content Creation can be a great way to get an idea expressed, but oddly, I find this blog gets more day to day views than most of my normal YouTube videos combined. It takes far less effort for me to type these words out than it does to do the same in a video format, and I dare say I stand to reach more people.
This is why you have seen more articles being written this past week than any other time here on Xadara. Because, while I take a break from YouTube videos, I want to get my writing style, and timing, refined. I will still make videos, of course, but only where I feel they are need. My alternate plan is to make quick, simple videos on a subject and tell the broader idea here, on Xadara, and use the video to promote the site.
Who knows. I’ll just keep thinking about it. This is only part one, though, as there are many issues unrelated to personal burnout as to why I wish to limit video production. I’ll come to those in Part 2 of this article.
For now, here is my video on the actual burnout, recorded at about Midnight the night I realized I was frustrated, and generally tired of things.