For the past year, I've been a youtube posting fiend. I've posted pretty much weekly for the past year and am at 1,333 subscribers and 93 public videos as of 4/26/2020. Excluding videos I've since made private, excluding videos coming soon ;). It's been a big time investment, but it's also been a constant in my life.
It wasn't until about 2 weeks ago that my channel qualified to be monetized, and last I checked, (this morning..), I had made a whopping $9.99. Honestly, I was sure I had passed the $10 mark by now. I guess not. But, despite the slow and steady growth of this channel over the past year, and the fact that I'm just beginning to get any return, however small, I still post every week, and invest a decent amount of my time into filming and editing the videos. Recently, I realized it had been over a year since I started posting consistently, and I realized that while I don't view youtube as a big part of my life, it honestly has been. When people ask me about myself, I talk about life at MIT, trying to get back into figure skating, or how much I love studying at coffee shops. "I make youtube videos" or "I'm a youtuber" has never crossed my mind as important enough to make that list, even though honestly, it really should. Sure, I don't have the numbers and channel stats that would wow a person when they found my channel, but the amount of consistent time and dedication that I've poured into it weekly tells another story. Every week, finals or travel, happy or sad, I have a video ready to post by Saturday. Sometimes it feels like a chore and other-times, I'm sitting there going through clips when a pile of homework and studying lays in the back of my mind for "after editing". Absolutely, addicted. Sometimes I have videos lined up for the next month. Other-times, Youtube feels like a job and I'm running behind on a deadline. It's funny, because I've made so many life choices like "I'm going to start this workout challenge" or "I'm going to go keto for 2 weeks" partially to make a fun video. I don't always love it. Sometimes, I have to remind myself and be more cognizant of choices I'm making for the sake of a video over wanted to actually do something. Most of the time, I love it 110%. But, it's also changed who I am, a lot more than I realized. I cope with a lot by sitting in front of my phone and recording a video that ultimately gets deleted before anyone ever sees it. Sometimes it's 2 am, and I'm recording a video for my future self telling her about something I regret and "not to make the same mistake again." Other-times, I'm really excited about something so I make a self TED Talk that probably really isn't TED talk worthy, but still. I play around with what I'm comfortable with showing the internet and how much I'm willing to share. Always, I remember that Youtube is another form of social media. For me, the hardest part of Youtube has been being able to look back with so much detail. Vlogs capture past states and although they are edited and the clips carefully selected, I can see myself and remember who that person was. #memories, but also #whydon'tIlooklikethatanymore. It's really frustrating to look back, especially when I'm at a local minimum in life, and think "I used to be so much skinnier", " I used to___" and it makes looking and editing current clips even harder. Personally, it's a really unexpected "negative" to posting on social media because it's self-critique. I've been really lucky to get a lot of positivity from comments and the harshest viewer of my videos is probably, honestly, myself. But in the end, May 10, 2020 I posted my first sponsored video, and I'm at 1456 subscribers. Onwards and upwards. XOXO, Sarah
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