The Question of the Day is a way to facilitate community discussion to help members ponder the unanswered questions of the world that are somehow relating to the hobby. Questions are many times open ended and up to interpretation. Feel free to post your thoughts in as much or as little detail as you’d like.
Helpful Considerations may or may not help some people focus their answer, these are blurred to not bother those who have their own ideas.
Today’s Question: QotD: For those that make content, does it get exhausting?
Helpful Considerations: Yes but you cant admit it because the brand has to be positive? Burnt out a long time ago and already stopped? Its fun but with the understanding its a lot more work than many see?
I have put up youtube videos of various things since 2010. When I did something more consistent “seriously” if you will, one thing I found was just how much time is spent on production. Pre-production, gathering materials to use alongside the main meat of the video. Music, images and scripting. Then the post-production of editing the thing together. Of course redoing takes due to flubs are a part of it too. Since what I did had spoken word in it. So the “fun” part of recording it was actually only a fraction of the time spent. Not what I expected. So, when I lost interest, I stopped. You’ll never know it was me. Not pokemon related and I think my best video just barely crested 100 views. I had fun, but the ratio of fun part to slog editing part no longer became worth it when I had less time for it.
I used to make YouTube videos for CS:GO for fun, but never monetized it, The goal was never gaining subscribers / views etc, i was just having fun. I used to be in a semi-pro ESL team for CS:S but the youtube was more about trading weapon skins in CS:GO.
I made my Pokemon Blog the same way, no trackers, no ads, i don’t make any money from it. I just do it because i enjoy it, That way it never gets exhausting. I’m excited to update it whenever i do!
I imagine if i did ever monetize those things at the time i’d feel more obligated and stressed to keep up with the content, so it would get exhausting.
Yes, public videos were easily the most stressful. Not actually making them, but the awful things people did or said. Basically the cost of exposure. Patreon is the opposite (controlled exposure), it’s amazing how $30 eliminates all the nonsense. If the general public were as kind, thoughtful, and mature as patreon I would still be doing public videos.
It can get tough for sure. Actually there’s a few tough parts.
Coming up with new ideas is actually hard.
When you first start you’re all wide eyed and bushy tailed because you’ve never done this, so then you make a few videos because you think they’d be good ideas. But then you realize after uploading it that actually no one cares about the ideas. So then you take some time and come up with an idea that might actually be good, then when it does well you realize that doing that again feels like trying to catch lightning in a bottle.
Doing 40 hours+ of editing for no views is hard
I love editing videos. It’s my favorite part of the process. However, it takes a long time. So when you’ve put probably 40 hours of work not just editing, but script writing, story boarding, and filming, it get really sad when either no one watches it or like @smpratte said people are just really mean for no reason.
Success is a vice
I recently uploaded my best video to date. I got like 5k views, and I doubled my subscribers because of it. 5k doesn’t sound like a lot, but now I’m terrified to upload another video because the thought of losing subscribers (which is something I’ve worked really hard to gain) is paralyzing to me.
Otherwise it’s fun though and I would strongly recommend people give it a shot!
Ive always been curious on how making thumbnails and title with editing goes in todays time. Alot of people these days NEED the clickbait, and as someone a bit older its kind of offputting to me. Is there ever a “I cant beleive I have to subject myself to this for views” kind of thing going on, or is it tunnel vision for the subscribers/money where anything goes?
I mean, you’ll do whatever it takes to get views. Reason being is that you could have the best video ever created but if no one clicks on it then it doesn’t matter. So you basically have to play the game to win. I personally think it’s a bummer but I haven’t found any other way to do it.
It gets tough when you make something that works and get a lot of subscribers from it. Then yes, you’re kind of bound to a brand at that point. Because then YouTube knows who to send your videos to, and there’s a better chance that a lot of people from one niche will like your video rather than a few people from a lot of different niches. Many popular channels make second channels because of this, so they can make whatever videos they want without the fear of losing subscribers from their main niche.
As far as tunnel vision, if this gets to be how you might provide for a family, you’ll basically put out anything to get views to provide for them. So you don’t really have the luxury at that point to play the game differently.
And especially having a pokemon channel, that’s why you’ll see a lot of people having mystery packs or whatever else so they can make other forms of income that aren’t connected to views.
Really long winded answer but it’s something that i really enjoy so there you have it haha
I’ve recorded a few videos with the intent to post them but never have. Mostly due to my insecurity. I have a lot of respect for people who are able to put themselves out there. My soon to be brother in law is a video editor for a large Youtube channel and is sometimes featured in the content. I’ll never forget the first time someone interrupted a conversation to ask for a picture.
To sum up, whether you are on the bottom of the food chain of content creation or the top, it HAS to be exhausting. #respect
I can’t speak for those who make videos. In a lot of ways, I feel like they put out a lot of time and work into making one each day/week/month with writing a script and editing along with other little factors that add up and that alone already sounds exhausting!
But I will say that as someone who posts their art online, it’s extremely so. Like on one hand, it’s fun to draw and share, but on the other, there’s definitely this underlying pressure that comes from needing to develop a following and grow numbers whether for validation or to sell stuff.
And then comes this really draining notion of consistency where you need to post often or daily just to bump yourself up. It’s even worse now with how social media works and with how the algorithm just never seems to favor you regardless of skill or passion. Sometimes it gets to a point where we feel the need to draw something for the sake of posting or for others/a trend rather than for ourselves. Burnout and (sometimes) insecurity especially towards other artists do not help this at all but it happens to me way too often on top of it!
Even when we do it for the love of creating, it’s easy to fall into the trap of feeling like one isn’t good enough when the numbers don’t back up your posts when the truth is that the numbers…never really mattered. (Or at least, it shouldn’t).
I love what I do, but I hate the way things are done now and I think I’m not alone in feeling this way as a creative.
maintaining my brand is a lot of work but worth it for all the adoring fans 
and the MONEY
