Starting Out on YouTube

So, Markiplier and MatPat were playing PowerWash Simulator and talked about the differences between YouTube today and YouTube when they were starting out over 10 years ago. The video is below:

Now, this is an almost 2 hour video, so the section I'm talking about is between the 16-20 minutes marks.

In the video, MatPat said that the way he uploaded at the beginning of his career would not work for someone starting their YouTube career today. He would post a video once a month, because the research, scripting, filming, editing, etc., would be over 100 hours for many videos. Today, though, to have a successful career on YouTube, most creators have to start streaming or posting videos at least once a day. So 100 hours in a month becomes 100 hours a week, which would be a little over 14 hours a day for all that work.

For someone who has the financial support and skills to do all the work, that is fine. However, many YouTubers today that are starting out are not able to devote all that time or have the money for everything, because they have a job to financially support them while they start their channel. Some of them are even full time at their job or have multiple jobs. So, by the time they are able to work on their channel, most of the day is gone. Then, they have to work either late into the night and sacrifice sleep or do a little bit at a time. And they are not just working on one video. They are working on multiple videos at the same time, in most cases. The reason for that is because their audience can't wait a month in between videos. So, for success, lots of time is devoted and a lot of sleep is lost.

Now, successful and established YouTubers have a little more flexibility with their uploads, but they built up their audience years ago, when the landscape of YouTube was different. For one, YouTube was not as big as it is now, and there were not so many creators. That's another difficulty: there are so many creators on YouTube, even with the different content available on YouTube. So, the new creators have to set themselves apart while not copying the blueprint that another creator has. Even then, most likely, someone is going to be accused of copying because it is nearly impossible to keep up with everyone in their focused content area.

Now, even if you put in all the work, success is not guaranteed. Part of this is because of what is considered trendy. Take gaming, for example. A creator is recording themselves playing the most popular game that day. Say it takes them a week to record several videos. By the time they upload, another game will be the most popular game and the old game will be old news. Now, you have to rely on the hope that enough people are still interested in the game to view and comment and subscribe to you. All in all, it's so exhausting to chase success on YouTube.

After listening to MatPat and Markiplier's conversation, I realized two things: one, this is part of the reason I am not uploading my work by certain dates. My work will not stand up with the work of others on the site. Two, I had to change my plans with how I was going to upload. A while ago, I changed how I was going to be working on my projects (I am working on multiple projects at the same time). Now, I have to changes how I upload my projects. I was going to do maybe once a week, but now it may have to be at least once every other day.

So, with that, my work is still in process but I am more focused on getting better at my work than creating right now. If I don't, I won't do very well or go very far in my content fields.

I've rambled enough. See you next time!