The YouTuber Dream
Being a “YouTuber” is honestly extremely stressful. And I say “YouTuber” because I’ve only been at it for 10 months and have 550 subscribers. And for the most part, if I didn’t have a full-time job eating up all hours of my day, I think I’d be a lot less stressed and find this path to be much more enjoyable. But for the time being, as I build the community, learn how to productize my brand, and continue to make content, the path is STRESSFUL.
If making content were easy, everyone would be a content creator, and sometimes, when you go on any social media platform, it feels as if ANY one is a content creator. It makes you wonder why you don’t give it a go, or for me in my case, why I haven’t figured it out yet… but perhaps I am learning, I just need to give myself more time and need to practice patience.
But YouTube isn’t stressful because of the content I have to make, it’s everything else having to do with the technical side of things, for me at least. Let’s take a simple yoga class that I want to record outside and then voiceover later. Production timeline I have from start to finish for this video: 1 week.
Building the class is the best part. This is when I get to flow, get inspiration from other teachers (whether on YouTube or in-person), come up with fun transitions, and really sink into my own practice for what I like and want to teach to my viewers.
Then comes the recording. Just this past Saturday, I set up my shot in the backyard to record 3 videos for the coming weeks. Half way through the second video, the sun was too hot and my camera overheated. I hadn’t noticed until a few minutes later, half of the recording being lost because of this and then having to wait for it to cool down before re-recording the part again. When I went back to start recording for the rest of the class, a cloud came into view and changed the whole lighting situation… at least my camera didn’t overheat again. Weather is only one part of the situation with recording outdoors. Some days I don’t even get the chance to record because of rain or disruptive weather. I’ve gotten away from recording audio live when shooting outside because it’s simply too noisy.
Okay, so recording is complete. I go to my computer to upload the videos, but seemingly I’m out of storage. I need to spend time clearing my computer for the hundredth time and need to move files by uploading everything to my hard drive to make space. Finally, the videos from my camera are downloaded to my hard drive, then I upload those into iMovie then I delete the videos from my camera and now, we’re ready to get into editing.
Editing mode is always the most work, and this is where, if I was just a full-time creator, I don’t think I’d mind this part, but since I spend most of my whole day either on the phone, driving, or in front of my computer, to then come home and have to do the same thing for the editing portion (even though it’s for yoga which I absolutely love), it’s still pretty depressing to my body (which would much rather go hiking or hit the city or hang with friends or literally do anything in real life). And as much as I want to be a YouTuber for the time and location freedom, I know this is a part of it, which I’d enjoy doing if it was the ONLY work I was doing. Working my 9-5 drains me deep by the time I get to work on my YouTube channel…
So anyway, we get to start the voiceover. I do a rough edit of the video to cut out any mistakes or pauses, then I begin the voiceover. But I live in a duplex with 2 other people. Our air conditioning is loud. Our upstairs neighbor watches TV a lot…LOUDLY. We live right across the street from an intersection where motorcyclists love to REV. A train passes by. It’s stressing me out just thinking about it honestly. But you know when things are super quiet? In the middle of the day when everyone’s gone at work - just like me… Oh if I could just have the time of day back. I hate to sound like a desperate whiny little bitch, but this shit is fucking hard. I watch people on YouTube and TikTok and wonder how they did it? Like what am I doing wrong? Am I just not making enough? Not making the right stuff? Am I not cut out for this shit? These people probably really enjoy the creative aspect of editing their videos, since I don’t, should I just quit now? Am I just aiming myself down a road that I maybe won’t actually even enjoy?
The thing is, I think I WILL really enjoy it, if I could just get to the point where I could only focus on IT and IT alone. Focusing on making great, high-quality content for my peeps, host retreats and super dope in-person events, sell super sick eco-friendly merch with a good purpose. I don’t know man. Sometimes I question if the extra stress I'm putting on myself now, even worth it? Should I just resort to simply enjoying the life I’m living now and not worry about trying to be someone for everyone else? Should I just focus on being someone for myself alone?
Today, I’m exhausted of feeling motivated to keep making the content, but to be stalled by a loud upstairs neighbor or a sudden computer crash. Today I’m questioning if it’s even worth it. Today I’m highly unmotivated to keep at this grind…
Even though I want to have my own merch line, travel the world teaching yoga and meditation, visit incredible yoga studio, practice with some of the best teachers, live my life not worrying about money, creating and expressing myself to the 100% truest form, eating incredible ethnic foods, doing high-adrenaline activities, buy a house for stability, support my family in their dreams, inspire others that life can be fucking incredible if you work hard enough for it and do all the things you said you would without being a flake…
All for the YouTube dream…maybe it’s just a dream. Maybe I won’t actually ever be able to go full-time content creator, maybe it’ll fizzle out like every other hobby I’ve started. Or maybe I’ll hold onto it to my own demise. Unnecessarily stressing myself out to focus on something I shouldn’t even be focusing on… You know, sometimes I think maybe I’d just be content selling forklifts, making great money, and having yoga and massage just be something I GET TO DO, not something I HAVE to do in order to put food on the table, put clothes on my body…but it just sounds so SWEET for the passion of your life to be the reason for everything else in your life. I’m not one of those people that very easily separates the two.
And now, the dog is hungry and needs to go outside. Time to tend to my responsibilities.
