Blogging is dead. I know this and yet….
The written word is my forte. I am at my best when I can take my time and put some thought into what I’m saying. It’s why I prefer email to texting as well. I like the asynchronous nature of the medium and if I need to be more immediate in my communication, then there’s messaging and the phone for that. I hate texting and refuse to do it for the most part, by the way.
I’ve been talking to my brother about making videos. He does it for his realtor business and he’s been urging me to do cooking videos. He’s willing to help me out. When I mentioned that if I were going to do videos, I’d want to do something I liked doing rather than hated doing. Yes, it would be funny for me to do cooking in the dark or something like that, but if it got popular, then I would have to continue cooking. I have thought about doing a cooking channel based on me finding delicious and simple gf/df recipes, but….
Some background. I have watched many cooking videos. 90% of the ones I’ve seen are women. They start out with an interminably long story about how they went to Target with their kids and bought more than they thought they would. I. Don’t. Care. This happens on cooking websites as well. A ten-paragraph long intro to the recipe. I know why they do on websites (because they want to keep you there), but I hate it. I also don’t like it on YouTube when they give their spiel (“like, share, and subscribe!”) at the beginning rather than at the end.
I do understand that they’re trying to create a community and make connections. I know that on YouTube, it’s about personality. And that is where my problem lies. I hate all that crap. I don’t mind a bit of sharing, but ten minutes upfront is way too much. I don’t care about your kids; I really don’t. My brother really liked My Drunk Kitchen and urged me to watch. I didn’t find it funny at all. Then again, I’m very anti-drinking, so there’s that.
Side Note: I hate most comedies–sitcoms, romcoms, etc. I’m much more for conversational humor than pratfalls, gags, and actual jokes. I also hate shouting and exaggerated reactions, which cuts out three-fourths of YouTube. One prime example of someone I hate is jacksepticeye, an Irish guy, who does games. I thought, “Oh, I like British people. I like games. This will be cool.”
Friends, let me tell you, it wasn’t cool. He screams at the top of his lungs all the time in a very grating voice. Putting aside the screaming, I just don’t trust anyone who is at that level of agitation all the time. It’s not real and he’s doing it for the clicks. I mean, that’s why everyone on YouTube does what they do, but there’s a way to do it authentically that doesn’t blow out my eardrums or make me roll my eyes.
Here is quite possibly one of my favorite food YouTubers. Jun’s Kitchen. He’s Japanese and really good with his knife skills. He’s one with nature and animals as is obvious by his interactions with his cats. He doesn’t talk much during his videos and while, yes, he does do that slice of life thing, it seems integrated with the videos–not just an addendum because it’ll get clicks. He only posts a video every month or so, but he has a large fan base.
If I could do something like this, then I would be all for it. But, as I mentioned, I hate cooking. I’m very low-energy and have a hard time making me do things I want to do, let alone don’t. On the other hand, once I make a decision to do something, I just go ahead and do it. I will say that the idea of doing a searching for simple gf/df recipes and inviting viewers to help me tweak the recipes is appealing because I want to eat better. The thought of setting it all up, however, is one thing stopping me.
Another thing is that I don’t like the idea of doing one thing over and over again–or rather, the idea of getting locked into doing one thing over and over again. I don’t want to do a cooking video every day. I don’t want to do book reviews every day. The only thing I could imagine doing every day is taiji weaponry. But, I’m unsure about that, too.
Here’s the deeper problem–I would like to do a channel in which I just did whatever I wanted. If I wanted to make a vegan grilled cheese sandwich one day, I would! If I wanted to read a book at the camera another day, hell to the yes! If I wanted to do a free-dance Double Sabre Form, that’s what I would do.
What’s wrong with that? It won’t work on the YouTube. You have to have a niche and fill it admirably. If you do want to do different things, then you have to have different channels. There is the Try Guys, but that’s their shtick–dabbling in everything. A varsity channel, if you will. (By the way, they really went downhill after leaving Buzzfeed. I’m pro-Eugene, but the rest….They need someone to rein them in.)
However, I would want to do the following: read a book on the couch with my cat somewhere near me. Drinking tea while reading said book. Maybe humming to myself. Vlogging about a variety of topics such as politics, Covid, and sex. I’d love to do me doing my weapons, but I don’t feel comfortable with that yet. Maybe taiji in the dark…naked….in the snow. Ha!
Even as I say this, I know some of this is better suited to Twitch–which I hate. But me lolling on the couch? That’s a Twitch stream.
I’ll still give it a thought, but it seems like too much effort with no reward. I have no illusions that anything I do would get any traction so it would just be for me. That’s not enough of an incentive to do it.