low point today. i was watching back my most recent videos, and thinking about why they just weren't performing (what a detestable word)
and one thing jumped out at me : my current content is not how i want my content to feel like. it feels like a performance actually (oh, a performance not performing). when I want i really want my content to feel like is EXCITING.
but as soon as it's about writing an article or a video script, i tense up and it's not fun anymore. especially when it comes to video. it's all about other people understanding (and often about not getting misunderstood), about making the self so little it doesn't get in the way of the education, and i HATE that.
this whole statement doesn't include this blog, which I'm very proud of and actually is doing a lot to reassure me that another way is possible
when I watch myself reading off my script on video, trying hard to only show the advantageous profile, and fiddling with the light settings of my mac... there's no space for excitement left
and indeed, even the PREPPING is telling : I need it to be the right time of the day so the light is alright, but also it cannot be too hot or they will hear the fan, and the neighbor needs to be quiet and my face needs to be done and my hair needs to behave... i'm exhausted by the time I hit record.
no wonder it doesn't inspire anything in others
and so in moments of despair-problem-solving, when I frenetically click on the worst sort of YouTube and articles promising to teach me the secret with a well-oiled formula of slop - i make it worse. this is one of the advantages of getting older i think, i realise much quicker that i'm grossed out. my whole chubby body is repulsed by the idea of fitting myself into the mental equivalent of a low-rise skinny jeans of the 2000.
when the whole reason why I believe in content and in sharing stuff online is because I get all jolly inside when I get to do something I thought was impossible before, when I see i've made some progress, made something actually concrete I wasn't able to do before, when I solve an issue I had for a while, when I discover some hidden secret passage to an easier life.
I want THAT BIT to transpire.
this whole blog started with fuck format, maybe i just need to walk my talk a bit more seriously. to let go even more of the idea of engagement and education that the early creator economy instilled in me. to let it all me messy and scrappy and ugly.
Ok, new alternatives to 'how to make tons of views on youtube' :
- record when excited (don't wait until the conditions are right) - stuff can be edited afterwards
- do more of what I've done for the Zara Zhang presentation (in zara zhang on code as a medium) - analyse the content I like and what makes me like it
- focus on sharing EXCITEMENT