A PARADIGM SHIFT
I started my YouTube nearly a year ago in 2024, and I honestly thought I’d fly straight out the gate into plenty of subscribers, but my story was a lot slower than that. I’d been posting one video every like couple of months, completely haphazardly, zero consistency. And the subscriber count mirrored that.
As has been the case in a lot of my early career work, slow climb is the theme. My learning curve is always steep and sort of like in the story of the tortoise and the hare, but only, I’m the snail.
You only ever see someone’s highlight reel, only know of the rip roaring success. But what about the journey? What about the man hours put into it or the solitude you get comfortable with? Why is it so DAMN SLOW.
Patience Ain’t my Virtue
I’ve always been told to be more patient. As a kid it was drummed into me to be more patient. I know why parents or elders would tell me that, as I would break down in tears the moment I sensed things weren’t going to be easy for me. Nothing has ever been easy, don’t you ever wish they were?
That life were a smooth sail, rather than the choppy waters of a turner painting.
Bloody waters are so choppy we’re getting sea sick. Nobody chats about how slow a process it is, and maybe that’s just my experience of YouTubing, I am a slow learner. My process is to make every possible mistake twice, maybe even three times, in hopes that I never make mistakes again.
And then get upset when I inevitably make another mistake. Guess I better learn to accept that slow growth is part of my tale.
My Favourite Excuse
When the next upload receives another ten views, and I start to question whether I should quit or keep pushing — when I think about quitting I think about how there are people that pay for views. There are people that pay for advertising on their videos, there are people who game the system.
There are other people with teams out here and money.
So while I may have “just” 10 views, they are my ten views. Ten people I didn’t hassle, ten people I didn’t pay or know. Ten people that appreciated what I did enough to view. I have 40+ people who decided to subscribe to the silliness I made.
I keep reminding myself that I’m starting from nothing, in every sense really. Sure I have experience doing content writing which is neat. But I’m beginning YouTube fairly fresh.
Each time someone slides into my DMs to tell me how insignificant I am, only to then offer to sell me a marketing-service-dressed scam for bot views — I sit on my high horse and tell them to flip off as I sip my morning brew.
I’ll stick my middle finger up and everything (bloody rebel).
Despite Lacking patience, Beneath is Steady
Even so I complain, throw in the towel, re-pick the towel, curse the skies, cry uncontrollably, workout like I’m preparing for war… beneath all that I feel steady. Like I’m heading towards something I always knew was on its way. I don’t know if I’d call it fate, but rather a return.
Each day like a samurai sharpening his blade, I make a rediculous edit that has me laughing. Or a zoom into an expression that I do that makes me realise how wild my face is lol. So nothing like a samurai but everything like a person putting one foot in front of the other. Step by step. Reaching a known unknown.
Why Bother? Why Start in The First PLace?
I decided to for a mixture of things that’s hard to describe. I felt like something revealed itself to me unexpectedly, like.. I hadn’t noticed this whole time that YouTube was where I was spending 99.9% of my time. It’s what I turned to to relax, to have fun, to learn, and to watch my favourite creators. I’m not really a social media person but YouTube has changed my life in so many ways, and inspired me in my darkest moments.
So it just seemed obvious to start making videos really. While I grappled with feelings of what can I possibly bring that others haven’t already? And in many cases still do, I felt that I was missing content for broke arse misfits like me. All my favourite creators were all grown, some moving onto other platforms, gained their abundance, and I wondered if there were any others like me.
The Spuds that felt behind, lonely, or as though they were reaching for something that seemed to continuously slip away. Spuds that had tried many things but perhaps not hit the peak of their capabilities yet — or found that moment where everything fits together yet.
My motivation is for them to feel less alone, laugh, or at the very least smile.
