Most people think being a "Youtuber" is easy.
But it's definitely not.
I mean, I'm sure it's easy for some of them if they're just doing quick news/politics commentary.
But I do tech videos, and I often struggle to release one a month.
I was doing 2 a month for a little while, but my day job sometimes makes it hard to come home and start recording.
I have multiple partial videos that aren't high priority, and the idea is that they're extra content I can use to pad my release cycle.
Other videos are more time-sensitive and I consider them "main" content.
Missed My November Video Deadline
Right now I'm trying to motivate myself to record a video about Ubuntu 22.10. It was released early November, but I didn't get to finish it before the end of the month.
Which means I have to plug in, turn on, and adjust all of my Philips Hue lights.
Start the sound server up, test the audio levels.
Open up OBS and adjust/test everything.
Boot up Ubuntu 22.10 in VMware, and then try to record & demonstrate all of the little things in an "interesting" way.
If I don't put effort into the way I act & talk I'll end up acting like a boring robot, and I'll get mean comments about it. Or I'll hate it so much while editing that I'll end up recording the entire thing over again.
I have a list of things to cover, and a bunch of enhancements I want demonstrate/test as well.
Recording a typical Linux distro video takes up about 2-4 hours all in all, and that's easily the part I struggle with the most.
Then there's all the editing which I don't mind as much. Editing could take a minimum of 3 hours, but could go 2 or 3 times that.
And finally, open up Inkscape/GIMP and figure out a good thumbnail design which takes another few hours usually, but there have been times where I spent days on the thumbnail alone.
All of that is after what I've already done which is writing out notes, and saving the links for specific things I'll need to reference. Plus there's some graphics I've already worked on that will be added in editing.
Am I Being Shadow-Banned Or Am I Just Bad At This?
My last video: "Gnome OS: The Future of Linux or Subtle Refinements?"
got 1200 views within the first day or two, and that was the most "viral" one of my videos has ever gone.
Then it slowed down, and now over 30 days later it's up to 2500 which isn't bad, but it seems odd that the views dropped off that much.
Also it's very difficult to figure out what people will watch. I used to make videos simply based on what I thought would be cool, and that was kind of hit or miss. Every Android video I did barely got views. Most of my hardware videos also got no views such as: GoPro Hero 8, Philips Hue Lights, and Rode Video-Micro microphone.
Sometimes I'll do a video that I don't expect to be popular, and it'll get well received. Other times it seems like a sure thing, and it just flopped.
There's seemingly no rhyme or reason to what people want to watch.
It seemed like when I did the Odysee video Youtube dramatically reduced views on that one. I made the thumbnail of the Odysee mascot pissing on the Youtube play button logo. The video did pretty well on Odysee itself, but that's not surprising.
Anyways, I'm done complaining.
You should check out my videos on Youtube, Odysee, or Rumble, and maybe subscribe if you're really cool.
Yes, making original or educational videos is much harder than writing a text or just expressing an opinion about an event. Because it requires more mental effort for the screenplay, editing, sound. That's why my video project has been postponed for now.
Yes, I ended up missing the month of November which was a sort of deadline as I try to have one video per month. And even then, one a month is less than optimal for Youtube's algorithm to promote a channel.
But these are the things we choose to make because they are what we are passionate about.
And how wonderful is it to be alive in a time where we can create things digitally & have them seen by people around the world?