I Fail At YouTube

I’ve been dealing with an increasing sense of dissatisfaction about my interactions at YouTube. My videos are getting a fraction of the comments and views than they had been getting. My subscriber numbers have leveled off completely. Even my normally unquestioningly supportive core audience are noticing changes in my videos; an inability for me to actually bring myself to look at the camera while addressing it seems to be particularly topical.

More than that, I am disappointed in the kinds of videos I’ve been making. I am embarrassed and ashamed to admit I’ve been reduced to the status of vlogger. Oh, sure, I listened to all those people who assured me that vlogging was “where it was at.” I think I might’ve even started doing it as a kind of solidarity with some of my friends whom are much more engaging in the vlogging tradition.

I feel like I should just bow out graciously, hang up my tripod and handycam. Walk away before I am reduced to an even more unfortunate parody of myself. But the truth is I don’t want to. I would miss the website and its people too much. But I don’t want to continue to make the videos I have been. I don’t want to make videos just because it’s been a week since I last made one, or because I miss receiving comments. I want to feel inspired enough to make something of genuine quality and merit.

I’m trying to make a conscious decision to resign myself to the fact that I yield little control over things like subscriber numbers and comments and views, and to focus more on the process and the final product. I just want to be proud of the things I produce. I worry I’ve been motivated by the wrong triggers. It is a time to reconnect with that elusive magical quality that inspired the process in the first place. Loz encouraged me to go back to what it was that got me excited about it in the first place. The truth though is I don’t remember what that was. The YouTube landscape was very different then. Some of my favourite people have succumbed to apathy, or have been driven away from the site itself. I think YouTube probably yields less novelty that it did once. And a more insecure element of my being worries that the novelty people felt for JohnOfJordan may have outlived its life expectancy as well.

I am in the process of a creative recovery of sorts and I don’t wish to elaborate on that any further. I just want to reconnect to that piece of me that took chances and expressed itself in new and interesting ways. I find myself being drawn back towards music for the first time in a long while. I guess it was helped when I realised that next year will signal ten years since the first personally significant musical project of my life, Metallic Scream. I attempted to write about this over the weekend, but it didn’t work out. Part of me wants to share it with the world. Not because it is brilliant. Indeed, it is rather ordinary; what is truly impressive is what it represents. A desire for experimentation. An ability to take action in an area of my life I had been constantly criticised for. It was the album nobody expected. A collection of music from a non-musician, indeed from a computer programmer. It exists as a contradiction of expectation.

I listened to it for the first time in years a couple of days ago. And a realisation dawned on me. I know so much more about music than I did nine years ago. I have access to more impressive equipment and technology. Unfortunately, though, I have less inclination to put myself out in new creative areas than ever before. I miss that. I think it might be responsible for the lacklustre feeling my life has taken on lately.

I confess I’m scared. But I’m also excited. This is the beginning of something truly magical. I can feel it. I am optimistic and hopeful.

Tagged as: features, JohnOfJordan, YouTube