It's amazing how much something can change in a year. In January this year, I was in my prime: I was enjoying the whole process of video-making, the ideas were flowing, it was great. Now I feel almost stagnant. If I can avoid talking to the camera, I do. I don't feel comfortable talking to the lens (which is ironic, given how comfortable I've become with myself), and all the ideas I have don't feel original or genuine.
I know I didn't say enough about why I'm leaving YouTube in my bye-bye video, so I thought I'd attempt to expand here.
First and foremost, I don't enjoy making videos anymore. If I'm being completely honest, I haven't for at least six months. If you've been with me for a while, you know that I'm very much 'do things because you enjoy it.' So, when this first started, I thought I'd just take a step back. Eventually, I assumed that I would get my mojo back and all would be ok. It didn't. It still hasn't, really. And so, I guess in my head, it made sense to me that I should just stop entirely.
Pressure was (and is) another thing. I don't deal with pressure (or stress) very well. That's why you'll find a lot of to-do lists near me. It's also why you'll find I'm super organised with my schoolwork. So unsurprisingly, I haven't dealt with this pressure well either. It's stunted me. Instead of working to the best of my ability with editing and video-ing, I'd find that I'd become slack. Every time I thought I was happy with how something had turned out, I realised I wasn't.
Basically, as the number of subscribers rose, my channel become more about effectively putting up a video every week. It wasn't focused on things that I wanted to talk about, or if it was, it wasn't to the standard I like to hold myself to. And I'm a perfectionist, so. You know. It didn't work well. It was like some sort of never-ending cycle.
I would be lying if I said that YouTube itself didn't affect my feelings. I've become increasingly frustrated by its attempts at stopping any maintaining of community. For a while now, YouTube hasn't been sending people's videos to all their subscribers. The video's are only sent to a portion of them. As someone who is/was a creator, it's incredibly disheartening when you find that out. YouTube has also been going through the rounds and changing things (like the commenting system). I'm so entirely over it. Not because I don't deal with change well - I do. In fact, I think it should be encouraged. It just annoys me because YouTube doesn't appear to be caring for its users; rather, it's focusing on the monetary aspects.
So there you have it. These are the main reasons I've stopped with the videos. It's weird that this is finally happening. I've had this mindset since September or October and now it's finally here. It's finally out in the digital world. I've been a little hesitant about this. Perhaps its problems with commitment, but the permanency I feel now is a little disconcerting.
I think I'll be happy with this though. More free. For so many months, I've felt like I have been in this between-world where I couldn't post too many blogs because I was still technically a vlogger, but that's all I wanted to do. It wasn't leaving me with the best mentality. I feel like that sounds really silly, but it's true.
Even though I said above that there was this feeling of permanency, I just want to say that it doesn't mean I'll never make videos again. I might. Who knows what the future holds? Honestly though? It'll just probably be in association with something on the blog. But it might not. Let's see what happens.
So yea. I hope this clears things up. If it doesn't, just comment below or social media or something. You know the drill. More importantly, I hope you guys understand. And I hope you enjoy this blog!
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