How YouTube Changed My Life (with only 500 Subscribers)

YouTube changed my life with only 500 subscribers that may seem a bit dramatic but it's [Music] true I kept seeing videos like these and was wondering why they were getting so much engag engagement especially for small accounts like mine but after watching some and just diving into the comments I realized it's a lot of us have been on the fence about YouTube for a very long time we've all been posting on other social media platforms most likely Instagram maybe some people Tik Tok and if you're old enough like me it was Myspace and then it

became Facebook which believe it or not was actually enjoyable and the top social media platform at the time but there's one thing that's been there almost the longest it's remained one of the top Creator platforms ever since and that's YouTube pretend this chair is YouTube we've always been aware of it and we even use it often sometimes just for entertainment and other times to learn things but we never really thought about creating on it it just seemed like a platform to consume a lot has changed over the last few years people seem to Crave relatability

authenticity and honestly I think they just like hearing from real people after years and years of influencers and really polished professionals creating on the platform it just feels like there's more encouragement around just real people telling their story living their life just talking about the things that you're doing and this is all open the door for many just like you and me who've been waiting on the sidelines get it door's open anyway tomorrow morning I'm going to talk about how exactly YouTube has changed my life so far good morning okay so back to how YouTube

has changed my life so far honestly I do think number four is my favorite I probably should have put it at number one but I don't feel like rewriting all these so just at least get to number four and then you can leave and do whatever you want so after thinking about it there's four main ways the first for me is long form content versus short form content as I mentioned earlier I've been posting on Instagram for years and then over the last like three-ish years on Tik Tok as well I've just noticed that I've

become less and less interested in short form content and the main reason for this is the things that I'm interested in art painting film making acting all of this stuff that I do it can take up to weeks to do these things it can take weeks to do a painting it can take weeks to do a short film with short form content you have to condense everything to like a 10 to 30 second window if you really want people to see it it almost feels frustrating and insulting to the entire process and everything that goes

into creating these things to have to then condense it down I love story I love process I love a slow burn and so it just didn't really match what I wanted to do anymore everything that's on short form is based on Trends different trends for video Styles trending sounds all these things and if you're not playing that game if you're not using those things then your stuff is not really going to get pushed and we all know how hard it is even to get your own friends see your stuff anymore based on the algorithm changes

and so it just started to make less and less sense like why am I creating on these platforms then and another huge part of this is that I love shooting a landscape I've recently become interested in film making I've been an actor for years but I've realized I want to create stuff for myself and so I've been interested in color grading and cameras and just film making in general and outside of that even you know my paintings can take me weeks at a time or days or at minimum 5 hours so filming these things in

landscape and getting to share them on a platform where people are expecting to watch a you know 10-minute video or a minimum a 5-minute video it just makes more sense for me the second way that YouTube has sort of changed things for me is there is less pressure everybody knows how hard social media is especially on young people because it's built around instant gratification I'm going to post this thing and I'm hoping that I get x amount of likes and love and give me attention and give me engagement I'm wanting all this immediately and you

know if you post something and it doesn't really pop in like 2 hours tops it's not going to do very well within 24 to 48 hours almost nobody's going to see it anymore so things don't live on very well and that can be really hard on you psychologically it can feel like a disappointment a failure you can feel discouraged really easily kind of get down on yourself something that I absolutely love about YouTube in comparison is things live on like permanently on here and here's what I mean I've posted videos on here no lie that

in the beginning got maybe up to like 50 or 100 views tops which I was really happy with but it took like 5 6 months things will eventually find Their audience on here you know I've had multiple videos have that happen I still have a bunch that didn't really get a lot of views and still don't have a lot of views but I have several that have gotten into the 3,000 5,000 I think I have a couple now over 10,000 views but it took them many months but that's my absolute favorite part about it there's

less pressure to upload and get immediacy and get engagement and all this stuff right away it's more like just share these things and trust that they'll find Their audience the cool part about that is maybe you're talking about something that's pretty Niche and and not really trendy right now but maybe in 2 years from now that becomes a trend that video is there those people are going to go find that video it's going to reach the audience that you initially intended and I just love that that can happen over a multi-year period stuff I posted

on Instagram unless somebody goes digging and Scrolls all the way back to you know two years ago on a post nobody's going to see those posts anymore they're they're gone so I just love that there's less pressure to create things that get this instant gratification and there's more encouragement to just create stuff that you love and enjoy and eventually just trust that it'll find its audience and my third is sharing for yourself versus sharing for others now let me explain and kind of to continue on the previous one because there's less pressure to create and

get instant gratification on this plat platform I found that the type of videos that I'm doing the things I'm talking about I'm creating cuz I enjoy them and creating for myself and I'm exploring things and I'm posting long videos on process I'm posting thoughts opinions just sharing things that I wouldn't have ever shared on social media you know even if it is a tip or something for other people I'm creating it because I want to I've noticed that I got into a really unhealthy habit on Instagram or Tik Tok where I would get videos with

a lot of views I have multiple with like the hundreds of thousands but the problem with that was those videos were created for the sole purpose of like I want these to do well you know what I mean I want this video to go viral I want this video to hit and I understand the importance and the benefit of that happening but I was never really creating things that I was interested in I was just following you know I saw something pop off that somebody did for a different subject let me create my version of

that goes back to kind of the trend thing but the big problem with this is if you're an artist or Creator or you want to be original or you want to be known for your brand or who you are as a person you're going to have to be original and create things that everybody else isn't creating that's what makes people stand out that's what makes people get known for their thing whatever their thing is so if you're just copying everybody else and you're just creating things that you think other people will like and following Trends

then there's nothing original about what you're doing and so I found myself kind of going down this Rabbit Hole of I haven't created anything original for myself in months I haven't painted anything in months because I'm spending so much time just trying to create videos and reals and Tik toks that I think will do well and it just got in a really negative head space where that was kind of my focal point and a perfect example of that you've probably seen over the last few years there's there's a lot of creators that got famous for

following Trends or doing things or what have you I'm not trying to knock anybody but I'm saying it's pretty obvious who's able to just do things on their own and who depends on copying and duplicating and just following Trends and stuff like that just found that I love this platform because it does feel like there's a bigger emphasis on authenticity and you know trying to create stuff your own way and I think that's the beauty of it that's a good thing not a bad thing okay and then lastly this is the one that I was

not expecting when I started doing this and when I really thought about how this has gone for me over the last year most important and that is growth well hold on that doesn't really explain it well let me tell you what I mean if you go right now and you spend 3 hours on Tik Tok or Instagram and you spend 3 hours on YouTube which one of those do you think is going to be more positive and beneficial my time spent on YouTube is always beneficial you don't come away from that platform feeling any negativity

when I'm on Tik Tok or Instagram too long you know I may laugh I may be entertained for a while all that kind of stuff but ultimately I end up feeling not great there's a bunch of negativity on there's a lot of the comparison game going on there there's a lot of flexing going on there and it ends up making you feel not so great if you spent a lot of time on them and it's something that it's taken me a long time to realize that I need to limit the amount of time I'm on

certain of those apps unfortunately because you can go through so many things at once you're going to end up with some mixed weird things or negativity or all that kind of stuff compare that to 3 hours spent on YouTube you probably learned how to do something you probably got motiv motivated somehow I have literally completely learned how to paint from scratch entirely on YouTube back in 2020 that's when I started painting I learned everything that I know strictly from YouTube I learned everything that I know about film making about color grading about cameras about anything

from YouTube I've notice that I spend a lot of time on this app it's nothing but growth I'm usually learning a skill or watching something that's very inspiring for some reason the comparison game happens more on Instagram Tik Tok and those kind of platforms than it does on YouTube because I can watch large creators on YouTube and not have this feeling of like Envy jealousy comparison you know I usually end up just trying to take things from them like oh that's cool they did that oh that thing that they said that really resonated with me

and so I've just found an immense amount of growth that comes from being on YouTube more being on the platform more uh it's just full of positivity for the most part it's not you know it's not perfect it's made me a better filmmaker artist Creator in general it's inspired me to create inspired me to things that I wasn't getting from the other platforms so it was by far the most unexpected thing and I think if you start creating on it as well and just spending more time on it you'll know exactly what I mean I'm

rambling a lot let me wrap this up for you before I jump into some tips uh let me explain why the 500 Mark was meaningful for me and maybe you've been in a similar position started the channel a few years ago I think it was 2020 I announced it and then I had like 20 30 Subs it was all I think all friends I was excited about it but I did what most people do when they create a channel is uh I didn't do much I posted a few videos none of them them really did

well I think I got like 30 or 40 views was like the highest um and because I came from a land of instant gratification I felt discouraged and that was it stopped posting so I did this another time where I started kind of creating again got a little bit more following but my mindset was still too much on short form content I wasn't thinking YouTube first I was thinking other platforms first and so the outcome wasn't great I kind of got to the point like I mentioned earlier where I was just really frustrated with short

form where things were trending the algorithm changes and once I really started deciding that I wanted to start giving myself opportunities for acting and film making that I was going to create my own stuff I knew that I had to go all in on YouTube I posted this video here where I'm going to upload one YouTube video every week for the next year really really Force the hand and really commit and that was when everything sort of started changing before that had took me like 2 years to get up to like 200 subs and once

I made that video and once I started posting weekly like quickly got up to 500 and I'm at where I am at now which is not a very big following by the way feel very proud and grateful of what I've been in the last like 8 months but something about that 500 Mark just really clicked for me when I hit 500 it was like okay I'm actually doing something with this I'm dedicating myself to this first I'm doing everything YouTube first long form first and it's working so I just need to keep going with that

so first and foremost the biggest thing that I recommend that's going to make this easy for you is create a channel if you haven't already but think of it this way if somebody landed on your channel what should they expect from you what are you going to be talking about you have to have have some kind of direction or some general thing that you're doing it doesn't have to be super specific so in my case I cover a lot of stuff because I'm into art and I'm into film making it's very clear when coming to

my page that those are the two things that you should be expecting so figure out what that is say that thing is you are a guitar player just as an example now you know that that's kind of what your general channel is going to be the next thing you're going to do and I would highly recommend doing this is come up with 20 different video topics just start making videos and uploading them so if you're a guitar player your first video can be an intro hi everyone my name is such and such this is going

to be a Channel about guitars my passion for guitars me trying to become a better guitar player would love to connect with other people in the community y yada you know blah blah blah what guitar do you play and why how did you get your starter what inspired you to become a guitar player there's two and three what are your favorite brands of guitars there's another one what are your favorite resources for learning how to play guitar there's another one tips for firsttime guitar purchase you know there's another video best resources for learning how to

play the guitar and then you know those style are are they're always going to do well because those are things that people are going to search like think of things you go to YouTube for if you're a guitar player and you go to YouTube what do you search make those videos like to talk about those things they're obviously interesting to you it's simpler than you think it is talk about the stuff that you would go looking for on YouTube I promise you that you will find an audience whether small or large you will find an

audience and you can have more fun with it and you could post yourself just doing a jam session you can post yourself learning a song you can post yourself doing a cover and just have fun but what's going to happen is all those things I just mentioned that's already like a dozen just post like 20 and what you may find is certain ones do better than the others maybe there are certain ones that you have more fun doing than others but the point is you just need to start uploading start creating start getting your mind

thinking about how YouTube Works compared to all of the stuff that you're used to and I think what you'll find is that you enjoy it more I think you'll find that you don't feel that weird pressure of like I hit upload you know is is all my friends judging me or all these people judging me you know this is stuff that uh you don't really feel here compared to short form stuff and then start making videos about stuff that you would go to YouTube looking for that's it I promise you it's not rocket science the

biggest thing here is do not have a large expectation of anything your first many videos probably won't get a lot of views I've seen some channels pop off immediately I'm jealous that's amazing what you need to do at this point is just get in the habit of creating anyway I I just wanted to talk about this I think this is such an interesting thing you know for me being in still inside of my first real Year trying to build my new home here on YouTube so I just wanted to share sort of my thoughts and

opinion because I I promise you I never thought I was going to create on YouTube I never thought it was going to be an interest of mine and I'm so glad that I experimented with it so I hope this is helpful to any of you uh cheers to growth cheers to experimentation and uh creating on new platforms and I wish you all the best if you have any questions comments anything like that just let me know in the comments and and I'll give you my opinion or try to get back to you h at me

my face does that look like it's me idiot all right good night