The Couple's Table
The Couple’s Table is a weekly livestream podcast hosted by Heather Ramirez and Tom Buck. Join us, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall podcast and stuff!
The Couple's Table
Navigating YouTube Stress and Growth
Kicking off July with a bang, we couldn't be more excited to share our special live stream podcast with you! We'll take you behind the scenes of an upcoming live podcast event at the iconic B&H Photo in New York City, featuring some fantastic guests: Bandrew from Podcastage and Luria from Ecamm Live. This event, happening on July 21st, promises an interactive atmosphere and a detailed agenda that will leave you buzzing with excitement. Our previous spontaneous live stream at B&H was a hit, and we can't wait to reconnect with the event organizers and the incredible audience once more.
Ever wondered about the unique stressors and rewards of being a content creator? We've got you covered. This episode offers an honest look into the emotional rollercoaster of fluctuating metrics and the pressures that come with maintaining a successful YouTube channel. We'll share personal stories of experimenting with new ideas during periods of low engagement, and how working together as a couple brings its own set of challenges and joys. Whether you're a fellow creator or just curious about the behind-the-scenes life, you'll gain valuable insights into balancing creativity with mental health, especially during those tough seasonal slumps.
Finally, we'll reflect on the evolution of creator stress over time, from the early days of content creation to the pressures faced years down the line. With the ever-changing landscape of YouTube, expectations can shift dramatically, and we'll dive into the importance of loving the process amidst these changes. You'll also hear about our recent experiences with big events like VidCon, our thoughts on the evolving YouTube algorithm, and how collaborating with fellow creators can lead to unexpected and rewarding outcomes. So sit back, relax, and join us for an episode packed with heartfelt moments, valuable reflections, and a glimpse into the exciting future of our YouTube channel!
🟣 CONNECT WITH HEATHER —
My Vlog Channel: http://www.youtube.com/heatherjustcreate
My Tutorial Channel: http://www.youtube.com/heatherramirez
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/heatherjustc...
Website:
🟣 CONNECT WITH HEATHER —
My Vlog Channel: http://www.youtube.com/heatherjustcreate
My Tutorial Channel: http://www.youtube.com/heatherramirez
My Gaming Channel: http://www.youtube.com/heatherjustplay
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/heatherjustcreate
Website: http://www.heatherjustcreate.com
🟣 CONNECT WITH TOM —
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/tombuck
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/sodarntom
hello and welcome.
Speaker 1:My name is tom and I'm heather and you're sitting at the couple's table, the couple's table is a live stream podcast here on this channel.
Speaker 2:Join us for better or worse for richer or poorer in sickness and in health.
Speaker 1:Every friday, 1 pm Pacific Standard Time.
Speaker 2:Woo, Yay, Yay. Happy Friday everybody. Happy July 5th 2024.
Speaker 1:Let's check on our audio.
Speaker 2:Tom's doing the mic check.
Speaker 1:I think we're good, I think we're good, yay.
Speaker 2:Hello everybody. Kat Mulvihill in the house. What's up? Gil's here. Hey everyone. Homestick Mac. Hi everyone, homesick mac. Hi everyone. Happy friday. Andre is here. Hi, everyone, hope everyone is having a great friday so far. Level up mike is here. Hey everybody. Happy friday. Chip griffin is here. Hello, hasan, good to see you. Hey, hey, finally caught live. Woke up way too early. Call me cubby in the house. Hey y'all.
Speaker 1:Tom looks tired everybody says that when I'm in your studio.
Speaker 2:Really. Well it's because it's optimized for.
Speaker 1:Not me.
Speaker 2:A more tanned skin. An audio hotline is here. Hello, hello, well, but you start yawning when you come in here also. Maybe it's cozy for you, you know, maybe that's what it is.
Speaker 1:You see a bunch of pillows Over. There is the book. No for you.
Speaker 2:you know, maybe that's what it is. You see a bunch of pillows over. There is the book nook.
Speaker 1:So maybe, yeah, maybe, that's what it is I.
Speaker 2:I painted the book nook black, and so I think that's also like lulling oh, maybe, maybe that's what it is maybe you don't sound convinced. I'm not. Well, how are you feeling on this friday, tom?
Speaker 1:I have a link to drop in the chat. Drop the link, bro right now.
Speaker 2:Drop the link, melanie's here. Hello, happy friday. So good to see you.
Speaker 1:I don't think I can tom bh I can remove it, but I cannot pin it. I was gonna try to pin that one I can pin it, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pin it to win it, I'm going to pin it, to win it On.
Speaker 1:July 21st, which is a Sunday coming up in just about two weeks.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I will be live at B&H Photo in New York City with Bandrew from Podcastage for the inaugural episode of a B&H Create, a Roundtable series that they're doing. This should also be streamed on their YouTube channel. I think it's hopefully, you know, one of those things that has a lot of episodes to come, but this is the very first one. So they're doing like a live podcast recording in their store with a small audience, which is also, if you're in the New York area on July 21st, free to attend. Heather's going to be there too.
Speaker 2:I guess you can only pin, like your comment, you can't pin anybody I can't be well, anyway, that's fine.
Speaker 1:Maybe you can't do it on mobile. It's in the chat, so you go to the beginning of the chat and it's there. It's also on my instagram story from today as well, um, but I wanted. That's only two weeks from now, so I wanted to share that I know what the heck. Yeah when they're real fast, when they first asked about it, I was like, oh yeah, that's like a year from now, but it was like a couple weeks ago, yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's coming up quick, okay, hold on Pin. Sorry, pin, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:So you have to pin on desktop. We're learning, but that should be super fun. And it was funny when they asked, because of course I wanted to do it, but like going to new york is tough. And then bandrew sent me a message and was like, hey, did you get this invite? Do you think you're gonna go? And I was like, yeah, I'm thinking, but you know, part of me just wants to go because you're gonna go. Um, you know, or like that is a motivating factor, not because I don't want to go anyway. And he was like well, I want to go because you're gonna be there. So then we essentially that was our big motivation. We're both people who are maybe known for not traveling as much as the typical YouTuber does.
Speaker 1:And so to get us to pull us out of our environments is tough, but it's super cool that B&H is doing this. They've always been like super cool and supportive and they sent us to.
Speaker 2:NAB.
Speaker 1:They sent us to NAB which is awesome, and now they're bringing us out to their store.
Speaker 2:So you're recording in their store, in the store somewhere. Yeah, we did a couples table in their store. We did. It's like one of our most popular episodes, which is very strange.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was very impromptu.
Speaker 2:It was just on our phone against a green screen.
Speaker 1:They had a very cool setup and everything, but we had no way of getting the feed from that setup that like demo setup to your YouTube channel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so we just had to put your phone where it was. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But yeah, that should be really fun and they're super organized. So if you go to that link you can almost see like the breakdown of the different topics that are going to be discussed, and also Luria is going to be there.
Speaker 2:Luria.
Speaker 1:For like Ecamm Live.
Speaker 2:Stream, streaming pros and all that so, in addition to a bnh moderator to keep us all in line.
Speaker 1:Yes, the rowdiness yeah, and it's sponsored by road, just coincidentally, so it's all there, they're not gonna be there though probably not like they're, probably not, I think they just like helped it happen yeah, okay, that'd be cool though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right, so check it out, that'll be fun and it's live. Yeah, well, in person, but is it going to be live? I believe it's going to be live. Oh wonderful channel?
Speaker 1:I believe I hope so, and then I think it's a series, so there should be replays. I don't know if they're putting it up on like podcasting platforms as well.
Speaker 2:Great, awesome, sounds good. Well, shall we talk about the restress tom?
Speaker 1:you know, traveling kind of brings some stresses.
Speaker 2:Well, how stressful is being a creator.
Speaker 1:It varies from not at all to immensely. Sometimes in the same day, same hour it can be very, very tricky. We've talked about stress, creator stress a little bit, but this sort of seemed like a good time because, typically speaking, generally the summer months are a time when things kind of dip in the world of YouTube.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:There can obviously still be very successful, very popular videos. Channels can still grow all that stuff. But in general if you kind of look at, like anyone I know, including myself, you look at our channel's statistics every year, you can see kind of from June, july-ish to September-ish there's a big dip and every time it happens it's a little alarming and scary because you tend to think last year was just the normal summer dip, this year is different. Like this year, I'll never recover.
Speaker 2:You've done this seven times yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:You know that. That. What I'm trying to tell myself this year, yeah, is that I've done this seven times. Yeah, so just go with it, and it's also it can be a great time to experiment yes and take that stress and anxiety and try new things, because if you already know that, like sort of the bar is low and things might not be getting the reach or the attention of the eyeballs that they normally do, well cool, try something new and sort of work out some new things here. What are you doing?
Speaker 2:He's going to go up there. Oh my goodness Hop. There he goes oh he farted on his way up.
Speaker 1:Did he A little booster?
Speaker 2:So Finley like jumps onto the book nook, nook, which is, you know, it's like a regular chair height. Yeah, we always show him sleeping over there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but when he like jumps, sometimes he needs a boost, a little propulsion sorry, I didn't mean to announce that to the world now he's looking at me guilt tripping me, but he's. He feels no guilt, he's pride. If anything, that's the look of satisfaction yeah, he is not stressed.
Speaker 2:Well, he was stressed last night because the freaking fireworks for july 4th, but anyway so uh, you are you stressed as a creator no I mean like okay, I don't know, I came up with this idea Because I was scrolling through YouTube and I just felt like I saw a lot of thumbnails. That were kind of alluding to.
Speaker 1:It's the sad face, it's the burnout face Creators being yeah. Literally people in hospitals, hospital gowns, it's like a.
Speaker 2:You know, I just felt like there was a lot of. It doesn't look fun, you know, youtube just scrolling through my page, so I don't know, maybe that says something about me. But, uh, if people ask me, like, whether I think being a creator is stressful yes, but I don't think it's uniquely stressful, like I feel like every job is stressful. And if you're only going off of you know, if the only experience that you know is your own, then you know it's like all these people can say it's stressful and it can make it feel more stressful, but really it's like I don't know it's different for everybody, but really it's like I don't know it's different for everybody.
Speaker 2:And I'll always go back to when I actually had jobs that I showed up at. It was so, it was like so it was stressful in different ways because a lot of the things that were stressful, well, same with being a creator, it's like the stuff that you don't have control over, right, um, so, like, at my last job, it was such a toxic workplace but I loved everything that I did. I, I like, loved most my co-workers. I worked at a school, so the you know, just the uh energy of the kids kind of rubs off on you and, like you know, we we ran our own youtube channel, basically, you know, and um, it was so much fun, but it was like a toxic workplace, so that was like I mean it drove me crazy like I had to go to a doctor and stuff.
Speaker 2:Um, I think the I think we're lucky because we work together, we're business partners, partners, and that makes it fun, yes, in a very unique way. Um, but yeah, like, is it more stressful than being a restaurant owner? I don't know, that shit looks.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry yeah, that looks real stressful to me, like I can't even imagine dealing with, like other people's schedules and hr and like well, customer like yeah, actual customers and needing to it, I guess, so yeah, yelp, you know like I don't know it's, it's just like.
Speaker 2:So I feel like there's a lot of things that um are rewarding. I think about being a creator and I think, like, for me, obviously, like I've someone I'm someone who's taken many breaks because I have been stressed like from being a content creator, but, um, I also think it's par for the course of any person who's running their own business yeah, that's true, that's very true so I don't know that.
Speaker 1:That's my two cents yeah, what's everybody else saying in here then? Checking in truth mike said true, struggling with peace of mind during the dip in views from last month yeah see, and that's why I think it's a good thing to talk about it too, to be like oh, it's happening to me, it's happening like okay it's not you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if everyone else is like, it's not, not uniquely your channel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a normal thing, this time of year it's summer, and that's just what there are a lot of people.
Speaker 2:It's travel time, the holiday time.
Speaker 1:I know, I guess in parts of the world it's winter, but these months I guess I should say the Northern Hemisphere summer months tend to be the lowest of the year in a lot of ways yeah andre says, bnh store is insane.
Speaker 1:Bought my first sigma lens there in 2014. I always try to buy something there as like a souvenir, because I don't want to just get like a useless souvenir. So it's like, yeah, let's buy a lens or a battery or a field monitor or something. So that way it's like every time I use it then I that's my bnh souvenir I don't know if I bought anything.
Speaker 2:I feel like I, I feel like you told me to, so that because of this story, yeah but I honestly I mean, I've done it every now.
Speaker 1:I've been there multiple times, but this will be a very quick trip. So, um, not a lot of like other other new york stuff happening. Bailey says I feel like it depends how heavily heavily on how your channel operates, if you're a solo or a small team. It's different for someone like linus with over 100 employees, all who have families, yeah, which is why it's insane to me that like we're all in the same, we're lumped in the same thing, you know, like yeah, because things are just so different they're different, yeah numbers are different yeah, melanie says restaurant industry stresses me out just thinking about it.
Speaker 2:Same um audio hotline says I'm definitely dealing with a dip in views. It's a struggle. I do think mine is a little bit about missing an extended period of time for health issues, plus this time of year I mean that just exacerbates if it's going down anyway and then also there's a like you're not able to make it.
Speaker 1:It's hard not to think that it's your fault.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, totally. Uh bailey says if it's just you, if you're having a rough month, you can account for that beforehand. But with a full legal private company there are legal requirements, insurance, tax, leave etc yeah, that's why I never want to hire that's why we're not doing that.
Speaker 1:Zero desire to hire.
Speaker 2:That is a choice, you know, and that is something we are not choosing. Uh, bronson, you need that time self-care. But you came out swinging fellow filmmakers here saying, hey, being a creator, stressful for sure, especially in the dips, I know. I felt it lately every year around the summer I enjoyed your cat chats earlier.
Speaker 1:What heather did a live stream earlier today? Oh great hanging with the cat oh so everyone's feeling the dip, yeah, which is good, so just saying, I think maybe saying that alleviates some stress, right, because it's not you it's not you it's, it's just the cycle yeah just is what it is, and you, you know, going into the holidays, things are gonna, things are gonna liven up quite a bit.
Speaker 1:Something I feel like fall well, kind of a cool gauge. Uh, which also makes me feel better is recently. Earlier this year, amazon started doing um bonuses for affiliate programs yeah it's at different levels depending on what you normally do.
Speaker 1:So essentially, if you're someone who uses amazon affiliate links, you know someone clicks on the links, buy something, you get a cut of revenue. It was either late last year or early this year. They started doing a thing where it's like if you hit a certain threshold of revenue from shipped items like you brought X number of dollars to the Amazon platform you get a bonus like a flat rate commission, and they usually have like three or four levels. So if you hit this, you get this. If you go further, then you get more and more and more and it varies Like I learned that it's actually based on your specific performance. So some people have posted their screenshots where it's like their bonus is 30 extra dollars. Other people have posted theirs and it's like 6,000 extra dollars. So it it varies wildly. But what you can see is Amazon sort of does it in three month chunks, so like at the beginning of the year, in january, they're like, hey, upcoming bonus thing, do you?
Speaker 1:want to participate, yeah, and you click yes or no and it's like cool, here's january, february, march and then before april they go hey, we're doing the next three months, do you want to participate? And when they give you those three months, you can see the the shipped revenue targets and you can see like around the holidays the targets are very high and the bonus commissions are also very high. In the summer you can see that they're that they're lower and the commissions are lower as well.
Speaker 1:So you can see that the platform is expecting like fewer people buy things right now and more people, but like you can see businesses adjusting to the cycle throughout the year and obviously, like the holiday season, is more for ads and shopping and stuff which translates in one way or another to more views and more viewership and more channel growth, even if those aren't the areas that you're focusing on right, just because there's. I think there has to be something to like if more companies are paying to put ads on videos. Youtube needs to push out more videos to people like they gotta put this ad somewhere yeah, yeah, it's just.
Speaker 2:I feel like summer is a weird time where everyone is like checked out, but then fall comes back around and that's where I feel like that's when everyone is more open to like picking up new hobbies and trying new things, of course. And then, of course, new year tons of new product releases too at the end of the year.
Speaker 1:So if you're in the youtube world, if you're in any, not even just for like tech, but for every industry kind of like. Their next model year thing comes out at the end of the previous calendar year, so it's yeah.
Speaker 2:Bailey says. I also feel like it's been forever since I've been here or any streams, so it's great to be back. I miss the community. We've missed you too.
Speaker 1:Bailey, we are happy to have you.
Speaker 2:Andre says, speaking as a freelancer doing websites and consulting for 20 years now, if I don't work on a project or land projects on a weekly, monthly basis, I don't make money. A full-time creator on YouTube will have some residual income from ads and older videos, links affiliated, et cetera, et cetera, which makes it slightly more flexible. True.
Speaker 1:It depends, I think, for some people. I think, if you look, I think it very much depends because, kind of like Bronson was saying, if you suddenly were to stop uploading, but Because kind of like Bronson was saying, if you suddenly were to stop uploading, but you still have a catalog of hundreds of videos, those will still earn ad revenue, those will still earn affiliate things. But it will dip a lot and it depends on your channel, your niche, all that other stuff.
Speaker 2:You should still get something, but it could end up being 15% 15 of what you would normally. I mean I can speak to that because I've had client like. Most of my income for the past eight years has been from clients, and then I also get from adsense, affiliates links, stuff like that. So, um, for me, since I have been client focused, the money from clients is so much like bigger, always has been but there's totally residual income from like affiliate links, um, from videos in my videos I made like four years ago, yeah, so that's nice. Yeah, um, and I I there was on my tutorial channel, um, when I made those videos.
Speaker 2:I set it up knowing that, and so I considered it kind of like investments. You know, like these little guys will be on the shelf forever until I take them down. And you know, if you focus on stuff that is not Evergreen and you know if you focus on stuff that is not, um, evergreen, yeah, like, if you focus on like non-evergreen stuff, obviously the evergreen, like my most popular videos are evergreen, which is why they're still, that's why they're popular, right, um, and they happen to be affiliate link videos. So, so that's nice, um, but it's, it's like it doesn't the client money is like so much more. So it kind of feels like. You know, I don't count on the affiliate stuff, it's a bonus. Oh my god, I'm so hot right now you're hot, hot all the time.
Speaker 2:I put the AC at 75 degrees, but do you know how hot it is here?
Speaker 1:in the desert. The high temperature is 121 degrees Fahrenheit 121 degrees. If you step outside, you just light on fire 121 degrees Fahrenheit in Celsius, so that is 49 degrees Celsius. If you're not in the united states, um? So that'll be the high today 121. Currently it's 117, uh, so we haven't even hit that peak yet, yeah, I can't.
Speaker 2:So there's a ceiling fan. I never turn it on, though, because I feel like you can see oh, yeah, and just create more once you notice that you can't like unsee it Right. So I'm going to strategically place my hand right here.
Speaker 1:You just have to not move the whole time here. Gil says the stress is everywhere. This season Company we rely on got hit with ransomware and can't deliver parts, causing high stress at work.
Speaker 2:Oh, my Oof.
Speaker 1:Kat says she's only posted two videos this year and still gets YouTube AdSense. It's less but not a huge drop from when I was regularly uploading Fellow filmmaker. Ad revenue is not enough to live on most times, so most full-time creators have to keep making videos that perform well and make connections for income elsewhere. And then Andre was asking hey, what type of client work.
Speaker 2:Making videos for other people.
Speaker 1:Making vids.
Speaker 2:Making vids for people's YouTube channels. So, like my biggest client was mighty networks, if you go to mighty's um youtube channel, I'm sure you'll still see lots of my videos there, um yeah, I helped you out with some of those.
Speaker 1:And earlier today someone sent me a link, um, worried that someone had stolen one of my videos and put it on a different channel, uh, and I was like, no, no, no, don't worry. Like I actually made that video on purpose for them. Yeah, that's nice, it's? It made me glad that they actually thought that. It made me glad that the video I had put together for a client felt like one of my videos yeah, see that's cool that's great yeah, and bailey did a super chat, which you don't have to do just because we're talking about adsense and things.
Speaker 1:But he says just to thank you for everything you guys have done and having conversations despite not always being the easiest. Keep it up. Thanks, bailey. Hassan says it's 34, peak winter, and I have the heaters. Oh yeah, it's peak winter, so you're in a different oh my gosh 34, 34 Fahrenheit. It's essentially freezing.
Speaker 2:I was like what are you talking about? What degree?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was like 34 Celsius. 34 to 49 Celsius, isn't that big of a? Shouldn't be freezing.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, 34. Yeah, it's cold. Okay, so here's what Tom and I did recently. Did we tell the story?
Speaker 1:I don't even know what story you, which is a hundred negative 150 degrees fahrenheit.
Speaker 2:What is that in celsius? Go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 1:Look that up what is a negative 150 degrees fahrenheit in celsius?
Speaker 2:it broke negative 66 that sounds about right right yeah, yeah. So, um, you're not allowed to be in there for more than two and a half minutes, but it was at this like wellness center that um, our hockey team that we're obsessed with uh goes to for recovery in between games and stuff. They have like um compression stuff and massages and all this other stuff, but they have a, specifically a cryo chamber. I don't understand the science, but it's something about shocking your system so that it starts to freak out?
Speaker 2:yeah and so and then it starts, I think it like zaps it into heel, like over time I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I'm a little soft. I read a pamphlet.
Speaker 2:It was fun, it was scary and then fun but tom and I went in there at the same time and, oh my god, it was cold yeah well it was, I felt. I haven't felt time slow in in any way like that before yeah, like I was like oh, my god, there's 30 seconds left.
Speaker 1:How the hell yeah, it's pretty intense it was crazy. Anyway, I want to go in there, right now, because I'm so hot I don't think I ever want to go in there again uh, that was stressful.
Speaker 2:For comparison, we've got 53 fahrenheit outdoors now 68 to 77 for a couple weeks before that I miss the us sometimes that sounds perfect the high for today is only 18 celsius. I absolutely hate winter I'm a winter boy uh, hey, kathy. What's up, kathy? Greeting southern tom. Happy friday. How's the challenge going? 18 is a beautiful temperature for winter in canada. That's a nice day. What is 18, 18? It's 50 oh, okay, I was. I was in Sydney weather. They're so much better. Not a fan of Canberra winters.
Speaker 1:Australia is harsh Because we have, you know, we have our world cams on that we've talked about. Now they've been on for almost a year straight at this point, I know the. Youtube channel we watch where they just cycle through and it's fun because, like all of the northern hemisphere ski resorts that popped in, that we saw them like melt and now they're all green or closed or they're like summer things. But then in the Southern Hemisphere, you see, now everybody's skiing and like snowboarding and stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it just changes.
Speaker 2:All right, Take that flat earthers. Okay, let's keep talking about stress.
Speaker 1:Okay, what about it? Which parts?
Speaker 2:I don't know. Let speak. Speak on our experience. What do you think is the most stressful?
Speaker 1:thing right now, aside from dips um well, how about this?
Speaker 2:what was really stressful, like towards the beginning of being a youtube creator versus having been like in your eighth year? Eighth year, seventh year?
Speaker 1:yeah, um. So I talked to peter yesterday for a bit and we were kind of talking about this. We were sort of talking about, um, it's almost like expectations. So like when you're just starting out, you you've never made a video, or maybe you have you never made like a youtube video, maybe you've never been in front of the camera, and all that stuff is sort of stressful, like just learning to talk to a camera, putting yourself out there, getting your first negative comments, like all that stuff can be quite stressful.
Speaker 1:You know, wanting your channel to grow and it's probably growing super slow, especially at the beginning, and a lot of times, though, when it comes to the videos you're making, you're sort of you've never made them before and you're sort of posting them without expectations. Like the achievement is that you made the video and it gets to go out, and then you might have some videos that, see, get a lot of attention, right, they? They get a number of views, a lot, they. They do well, as which I, I know I would never like saying do well, because I don't like the idea that a video is bad if it doesn't do well, because you can make an amazing video and it's like, just because some algorithm didn't push it doesn't mean you did a bad video.
Speaker 1:But we all know what we're saying. We're saying a video does well.
Speaker 2:Performs well.
Speaker 1:Performs well on the platform and then if that starts happening consistently like I remember a time where if I could post a video that got 50 views in the first day, I was like what a I could post a video that got 50 views in the first day.
Speaker 2:I was like what a win.
Speaker 1:Yeah, time to go full time. Um, and now, I mean now like I would probably have a panic attack if that happened. Yeah, uh, and so you know then well, you're fast approaching 150,000 subscribers approaching. I don't know about fast approaching, but you're, you know like. So here's. Here's a great example, actually. So, as of today, today is the first time in maybe the last four years that my channel has gotten fewer than a thousand subscribers in a month okay which, for the past, the biggest month ever.
Speaker 1:I remember I think it was october it was October 2019,. I got 8,600 subscribers in a month, which is insane, I don't know what happened or why, but that happened or maybe it was 2020. I don't know. Some October, Pretty much. Since then it's been about 1,800 to 2,200 a month has been like really consistent Okay. And now, as of today, it dipped down to 900.
Speaker 2:Okay. So that's less than half, yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, which is scary. Even in the previous summer lulls it's never gone down that low. Yeah, it took me six months to get my first 100 subscribers no, I know numbers are weird. Yeah, so that's what I mean when you're talking about expectations, like your stuff changes, and so the idea of getting you know 900 in a month at one point would have been like are you insane?
Speaker 2:versus now, it's like sweating because before it was like potential, now it's a sign of like you know what I mean like danger, right, right, yeah, yeah really quick filmmaker super chat. Here is to our shared stress over Dave's finances, endurance and trying to have fun in life. Hang in there. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:I know, at the end of the day, I just want to like, make videos, have fun, share stuff.
Speaker 2:That's the goal, right because I I feel like you'd have to be insane to not find joy in the actual creation part, Like go get a job. It's like so much easier.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you don't actually like making videos, filming something, editing something, sharing something, why would you do this? I hate using tools, but I'm going to be a carpenter there has to be some kind of enjoyment.
Speaker 2:Um, out of it it's.
Speaker 1:It's like enjoyment of the process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm just like, I'm trying to think also, I don't know. It's hard because for me it's so dependent on my mood. Like today I'm feeling great, tomorrow I can feel real crappy. Nothing's changed, except for physiologically I don't know something's happening here. It changed my entire like mindset on how I feel about it. Um, but yeah, anyway, I forgot what I was saying.
Speaker 1:I mean that's, we're just talking about expectations and dips and trying to have fun and all that kind of stuff. Um so here here's something that was a little bit stressful for me in the past week.
Speaker 2:I only told you about this this morning, I think. Okay, my birthday was on tuesday. That wasn't stressful. I knew that. You didn't tell me that, um, but this year I decided to do a shared birthday celebration with a friend whose birthday is two weeks before mine. So naturally we picked the weekend in between our birthdays to to have the actual party. Right, that was also the same weekend as vidcon and I had it in the calendar. I totally wanted to go. It was my intention to go, especially after nab. I wanted to go just because, like you know, in terms of creator programming, I'm wearing a vidcon shirt right now in terms of creative programming.
Speaker 2:I think everyone here knows, uh, how we felt about it. It left something to be desired, uh, but that's why I wanted to go to vidcon in terms of programming, but as an event it was a creator programming creator programming.
Speaker 1:As an event it was phenomenal Creator programming.
Speaker 2:Creator programming oh yes, nab was life-changing, but in terms of creator programming, I did not like it at all. But that's why I wanted to go to VidCon, because I was just kind of like, well, youtube being a title sponsor, is this the place that I can actually get some answers in terms of the state of the creator economy in 2024 and in the foreseeable future? What are the issues? What does YouTube think the issues are? I wanted to go but I couldn't go, and then when I was checking my stories and stuff, there were so much VidCon content Vid content Vid content.
Speaker 2:And it was very cool checking my stories and stuff. There were so much vidcon content, vid content, vid content and it was very cool. I felt insane, fomo and I felt really like I haven't felt like this in a while. Um, but I definitely felt like I was doing something wrong, like I was looking at all these people who are doing the same thing I am. I don't look anything like them, I'm not doing it like them right it.
Speaker 2:You know and I know it's vidcon, so it's very glamorous and um bright and vibrant and fun it leans.
Speaker 1:It does also lean more towards like I would call it, like the in the stereotype influencer side of things okay, I'm full transparency.
Speaker 2:I have anxiety, so I always I always look at everything through the lens of like I'm doing something wrong and then I have to like backpedal right. But I definitely, like I had a lot of gut feeling or like gut reactions and gut feelings of, uh, the youtube creator account or maybe it was a vidcon, somebody, one of these like business accounts posted about a girl who hit a hundred thousand subscribers and like that's very exciting and she was like you know, she had a reel where she was like sleeping with the plaque in her bed and stuff and like you know, it's this whole thing. Um, I kind of was just wondering why, why that was like not worth celebrating, but almost like, but what about someone like you who, like didn't get that at a hundred thousand? Mind you, it was during covid, but or was it?
Speaker 1:what? When you hit, when you crossed 100 000?
Speaker 2:no, it's 2022, so light, covid but I, I just like, I was like this is someone who crossed 100 000 from doing shorts, you know, and I was just like it was just that thing of like, the like what youtube is celebrating is still different, so I don't know. Um, yeah, I had feelings seeing all this stuff. Uh, eden, who we saw at nab, who works for the garden of no, uh, I forgot.
Speaker 2:Maybe cat can tell me because she's here. But um, she went to vidcon. She was also nab and she said that the programming was a lot more aligned. She actually vidcon better, have better programming right well, like it was relevant, it was, uh, like it seemed like she was glad that she went yeah well, I mean, they've been doing it so long.
Speaker 2:This was NAB's first time, so but I've been to VidCon and I felt like it got real fan-focused, you know. So to know that a colleague, a creator, went and actually got something out of it is like I don't know. I'm glad that the VidCon experience wasn't. I thought they were just going to be like to hell with the creator stuff. Let's lean into the fandom.
Speaker 1:I mean, granted, when I went with you to VidCon it was 2019, pre-covid I felt that the stuff that was upstairs the programming was pretty, was great and pretty in-depth for creator stuff it was the downstairs part where it was like, if you think you're going like pull an nab and walk the show floor with other creators and stuff, like no, absolutely not, it's just gonna be a bunch of girls mayhem for yeah like a bunch of middle schoolers screaming for whoever the most popular channel is like dave dobrik was still big that was yeah yeah, that was the big camo, that's the one.
Speaker 2:Thank you, jeremy what about camo? That's who eden works with. What are you doing?
Speaker 1:okay, they. They announced the fireburns head coached, but one of our friends just sent me a picture of a man I don't, don't know and I was like why is this happening?
Speaker 2:yeah, so anyway, I felt a little bit stressed there, I think, like I think a lot of my stress is always like comparison that's what I was.
Speaker 1:That's. The other thing I was talking about today was comparison, because I.
Speaker 2:I'm not at the point. I was gonna say never, but let's not say never. I'm not at the point where the like I don't feel the dips with numbers right, so it's not as stressful because it just doesn't happen oh but for me it's like um man 2018, that a big one.
Speaker 2:I've talked about that many times. But like we, Cody Wanner, had a what is it? A no Small Creator meetup and I just felt like I was doing everything wrong because I didn't have a fancy DSLR camera and like didn't do the coffee B-roll and like wasn't a dude, Like you know. I felt like I just was doing it right, wrong.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you know, I feel that all the time, and so I kind of felt that with, like seeing all the vidcon stuff, I was just kind of like, oh, what was I talking about again? Like, what was I doing again? And I know this is just this. They're just feelings, okay, they're passing through, but that's a lot where my stress comes from. Yeah, comparison is rough.
Speaker 1:Like that's the lot where my stress comes from yeah, comparison is rough, like that's the I always maybe once a day think of. The comparison is a thief of joy quote, because it is like you can be so happy with what you have and then as soon, as you actually.
Speaker 2:That's what you said that to me last night, yeah I was like, oh, that'd be.
Speaker 1:That is where a lot of stress comes from, because you can, you can be happy with what you have, and then you can see. Maybe you see what someone else is doing, or someone else tells you what they're doing, and now you can feel like wait, I'm doing something wrong, like I'm almost dumb for being happy about this because I'm wrong and like I should be doing it this other way. I shouldn't be happy with this, which I know is not it's hard.
Speaker 2:It's hard because, like, everyone's youtube journey is so different right, everybody is so different.
Speaker 1:I think we've used it on here, but the analogy analogy that Peter and I talked about this yesterday, so I think I told him for the first time was like if you go to Disneyland and you go on Space Mountain or any amusement park, you're on the ride, you're with a whole bunch of other people, you're all on the same ride at the same moment, but the things that led you to be there at that time are entirely different for everybody. Some people are, you know, season ticket holders that drove 10 minutes and other people flew from the planet.
Speaker 2:OK, nab, right, Like Tom and I, we were staying at the same hotel. That we, like I confessed my feelings to him, like we held hands for the first time in this hotel lobby. We were celebrating, doing this full time. You know, it was like a huge milestone.
Speaker 1:All these years later to be back.
Speaker 2:Yes, it was like a huge milestone all these years later to be back. Yes, it was like a full circle moment and like for me, I was reflecting like, oh my god, if I never give myself a chance to try to make a youtube channel, I would not be here, I would have met you. All those things for a lot of people at nab. They were going because of work. You- know, like they're an employee.
Speaker 2:They gotta work the booth you know like probably not a life changing experience, but but that's why I like it can be different for everyone.
Speaker 1:Everything, yeah, everybody's experience can be.
Speaker 2:OK, go get a job Also. Hey y'all, happy Friday. Let's see. Melanie says I think I lost the enjoyment of the process when I was expecting it to financially produce.
Speaker 1:I realize I'm so much happier creating without putting that pressure expectations yeah, of course that's always going to be the best time creativity does best, when there's not that kind of like you know, doesn't have to put food on the table kind of situation I know it's so hard um.
Speaker 2:Andre says the dip in monthly subs like tom is describing. Could this be the result of youtube pushing smaller creators in much larger weight on users, so less exposure for established channels? I don't think so, because you've done this enough where it's, every summer it's every summer.
Speaker 1:There is a thing, though, I didn't notice. Last week youtube changed, like the interface a lot, or like, oh, they like some ui design changes or whatever. But then I also noticed, just like that was really when it was like, oh, instead of getting I don't know 200 subscribers a day, you're getting three. Instead of getting, you know, I don't know 90 comments a day, you're getting one. Like when they change their interface, that was like, it's almost like a. You can see it correlates directly with that.
Speaker 1:So it makes me think I don't know if something changed on the not just the visual side, but on the back side which, like you, can't control, that I don't know.
Speaker 2:I mean, if YouTube viewership is down as a whole, then this is probably the best time to start changing it up on their end. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, is it down on the whole?
Speaker 1:I thought it was up, but who knows? Well, everyone, I know it goes down creator wise? Yeah, I, I think creator wise it does, but I don't know if platform wise, because youtube, youtube doesn't care if 100 people watch me and 100 people watch you or 200 people watch me, they just want 200 people watching. They don't care how many creators are watching, they just want people watching.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I feel like if our sample says that we're all getting dips, I feel like that's because viewers are on vacation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which I mean, I think? That's what I think, but I mean also it's also the thing of like you're a publicly traded company and you need to infinitely grow every quarter forever which is not possible. Also, like, my sample is very specific like we're all well, as I say we're all north americans.
Speaker 2:We're not, we're global here, yeah, but we all have a similar approach, I think, yeah uh, mike says I just canceled my live stream podcast tonight because my studio is not pulling off high 80s in my studio with ac on, stress of balancing live streams of video workload is stressful too.
Speaker 2:Yes, comparison sucks, says gill sure he says, seems like the answer is less to worry about things and just enjoy the simple things one likes, which is so easy to say and so difficult to do yeah, so somewhere I heard the quote that simple isn't easy yeah, sounds like that yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:It's true like it sounds very simple, but so how do you deal with comparison?
Speaker 1:um, poorly, I try. I try very hard to like I feel like I've gained enough confidence in my way of doing things that I'm a little more like yeah, this is what I do, but it's very hard. It is just incredibly difficult to not be affected by that and not feel like you're doing something wrong and not feel like you know like there are people we I saw I saw a little vidcon stuff too. I saw people who who started channels way after us, who have way huger channels than us, who are doing the glitzy like, essentially like the red carpet experience yeah, yeah which is great for them, but I'm like, uh, okay, see this is how I felt.
Speaker 2:I was like god, we're doing it all wrong yeah, but it's like that's just the gut reaction, though I don't actually feel my impulse is like.
Speaker 1:I also don't want that right.
Speaker 2:It feels like I don't actually want this, oh my God. Yeah, luckily this was the birthday celebration. We have people sleeping over, so I was like huh, distracted, sad, and then like let's drink a beer.
Speaker 1:The best way to deal with sadness.
Speaker 2:Oh no, coffee says I can't see my channel is dipping. It's getting more watch time and more views each month. That's great.
Speaker 1:And that's what I mean. There's a lot of like I would say they're the bigger channels I watch, like the commentary entertainment channels. They're still post a video, get two million views in a day, like clearly it's not.
Speaker 2:Well, it obviously varies on each as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Because, like, if you're an entertainment channel, like you're like someone's favorite show.
Speaker 1:Maybe now is even maybe the time where like people are off and on vacation is the time that you grow.
Speaker 2:I don't know exactly yeah, uh, where was I? Youtube have done two major things lately. Home feed is pushing much more smaller creators related topics. I watch like every fourth video for the last four to five weeks, which is a a big change.
Speaker 1:That's a good. That's a good thing, though I like that.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, I've noticed that too. I'm actually okay with it as long as it's relevant to what I watch. You watch all kinds of size. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Cause I watch for the content, not the like yeah. Yeah, and depending on what you're looking for, sometimes it's like you kind of prefer the smaller channel, like which I I know is sort of dangerous to say for me. But it's like you're looking for a product review. Maybe you want the person with a million or two million subscribers, maybe you want the guy with 75, who's like yeah, like there was no incentive to make this, aside from sharing the info?
Speaker 2:yeah uh, let's see.
Speaker 1:I just wish my home feed would actually show me more diversity instead of rehashing the same type oh my god, I'm scared because I looked up, uh, like a you gotta take it out of my car earlier today and I'm only gonna get rav4 videos for the next week now kombucha says, but a lot of what they've been pushing is not up my alley and I'm tired of clicking not interested.
Speaker 2:Yes, I, I'm very. I'm a frequent user of the not interested.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to see what's popping up. What's what I've noticed for me is um, lately it's been like this it's youtube really wants me to watch the same like five videos and every time I refresh my feed they're just there. It doesn't like do the thing where like watch this video, watch this video, and if you don't watch it, stop suggesting it.
Speaker 2:It's like this is going to be the first video we show you until you watch it. Uh, homesick mac, I'm actually in the phase of. It's just great. Finally, releasing videos and stats are way better than when only live stream yay, plus you're in the middle of a move.
Speaker 1:I'm excited to know how that's going.
Speaker 2:Yeah andre says the other is putting all the info, titles, subscribe button, comments, etc. To the right of the video when watching on desktop, making the subscribe button much harder to find, not rolled out for all.
Speaker 1:That's true it is. The interface is very weird and it's all like flat and gray, so it's like nothing really stands out, everything. It's just that same thing of like all user design has to be flat and boring. No, yeah.
Speaker 2:Which I do not like Mike says, niche is huge. Movie reviewers are thriving, gear reviewers are lagging, yeah yeah. Kat says the search results are also more limited. It used to keep scrolling, but now they show a handful in a new section of videos.
Speaker 1:I can't even tell you Like that was. I was going to bring that up. If I search for I don't know, let's search for a corgi. Okay, I'm going to get. First thing that pops up is four shorts.
Speaker 2:Like the above, the fold is just shorts on mobile.
Speaker 1:Actually that's maybe too broad. Let's see, like, how to fix faucet leak. Okay, okay, two videos, two videos, but it usually goes to that one section. Maybe this is too, specific.
Speaker 1:This is actually on brand. There's the shorts. Usually what I've been getting now it's all shorts, oh yeah. And then then I get this video switcher, like how to fix your toilet, do you want? Like, oh, what I've been getting is like here's some search results, here's a bunch of shorts. You might also like something kind of related to a video you watched a month ago. But you're like no, I'm, I'm looking for the thing I searched for.
Speaker 1:I'm not looking for the video I watched a month ago that's how they get you I was listening to some, I was listening to a podcast or someone said on instagram they had found, found a post. And you know what happens when your Instagram feed refreshes and the post disappears. Yeah, then you can never find it again, and so they went to search for the post, but instead, because Instagram is the AI thing now, it generated a new AI image of the post. Instead of creating a new thing from scratch. Can you just find the thing I'm searching for? A new thing from scratch? Can you just find the thing I'm?
Speaker 2:searching for uh. Andre says the push of smaller creators is great. What I see is all relevant, but that space used for smaller creators have to mean bigger creators get less exposure I mean, I probably that's logical.
Speaker 1:I would say as long as it's relevant, that's good like. I would say as long as it's relevant, that's good Like.
Speaker 2:I would as long as the most. I'm curious like what's the growth of new viewers on YouTube? Because, like, if it's like you know one billion people and that is the number that never changes, then yeah, you're taking like someone's view is being taken.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, there's only so many humans. Yeah, if, like, people are constantly signing up for YouTube, then what is that?
Speaker 2:I don't know man Like a bubble, Like stuff. I don't like it. I got attacked by a cicada yesterday.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Now there's bubbles. That was not I don't know what that was. Got attacked by a cicada yesterday.
Speaker 1:Now there's bubbles. I don't know what that was. There was a bee in the house yesterday Well then Tom got attacked by.
Speaker 2:Well, here's what happened last night.
Speaker 1:I know this is kind of weird. What happened?
Speaker 2:So I went to the bathroom at like five in the morning and I looked at the toilet paper and half the toilet paper had been ripped several rotations look because you only got one half and the other half was still stuck because it was a new roll. So he just, you just ripped, there was like four layers of.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing with Kirkland Costco brand toilet paper is and I just laugh because I know exactly what happened. When you start the new roll, it doesn't come undone, it's like glued on there. And so I get stuck with the thing of like, do I just keep pulling it until it finally, like, gets through enough layers, or is that too wasteful, and I leave, like these shredded layers, and I didn't want to be wasteful.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry that was so funny. Okay, oh, he moved. Yay, kat. Youtube scrolling viewing is becoming stressful too. God, we're all just stressed man look at hasan.
Speaker 1:I created a second youtube channel in the same google account just so I can search for one-off videos without ruining my that's what I do you're very good at you.
Speaker 2:Just remove them from your history oh yeah, no, I am relentless with that the watch history and the search history. And then I have two different youtube accounts. So my tutorial channel is very, um, lots of like creator focused ones and then, like, this channel is like japanese, like learning japanese and anime and games and stuff, like it's a totally different feed. Um, I've moved and my entire studio is still in boxes. All guitars at mother-in-law's place. This is going to be the building weekend.
Speaker 2:That sounds fun jeremy says he just had a commercial okay, so I forgot to mention that going off of last week's yeah, so last week we had turned on mid-roll ads on the couple's table for like the first time ever, but we did it where it said we, we can insert them, and so we went to the dashboard of the live stream and inserted an ad and got very confusing results, because no one who had premium got an ad right yeah, of course but people who didn't have premium.
Speaker 2:Some people saw an ad, some people didn't. And then I'm still confused as to like do you just miss 15 seconds of the stream?
Speaker 1:It seems like that's the only way it's possible is that you miss the stream, because especially if people aren't saying it because YouTube even says viewers may not see ads at the same time- yeah, I don't know how it works.
Speaker 2:And then so today I was like well, instead the ad, let's have youtube decide when to put the ad in. So I set it as automatic balanced interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, interesting. I should have mentioned that at the beginning.
Speaker 2:I forgot, so you guys got interrupted but thank you for letting us know, jeremy. Um, that sounds like fun. Just search for fixed leaky faucets and 10 videos down in the search results. I get the couple's table of suggestion. Yeah, so randall says remove your sharing videos on your youtube channel. Also faucets, and 10 videos down in the search results. I get the couples table suggestion. Yeah, randall says remove your sharing videos on your YouTube channel. Also, for privacy, remove your sharing videos on your YouTube channel. What's that?
Speaker 1:When you post a video allowing people to share it, or because there's the option to embed a video, but wouldn't you want that? I think depends.
Speaker 2:I think some people do, some people don't I don't know if that's what we're talking about, though I'm not 100 sure yeah yeah, I mean I want youtube to like get. I want it to be smart and serve me what it thinks I want to see. What I don't want is I search one thing that I'm never going to search again, and then my whole feed is that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if I've never searched up Leaky Faucet in seven years, and I search it up now.
Speaker 2:Like, literally, I'll screenshot because that's like my reminder, but I don't want to interact with the video Like I get scared of the autoplay, so I'm just like screenshot and swipe. What is the screenshot for?
Speaker 1:because I want to watch it, oh, but I don't want it to like now, the feed is gonna, like you know, adjust based on oh, I see, I see I'm watching this thing for 20 seconds.
Speaker 2:Uh, andre says about search on mobile. When results are shown, you can pull down and get some filters to to choose just videos, unwatched videos, etc. For the result yes I do this often um when I'm trying to find channels that's cool. I like that because I search like someone's channel name, and then it's a nice little feature of videos it's just recommending us to me now.
Speaker 1:You might be interested in. You are in when I log into my second channel, since I don't do much on that account other than post every like four months.
Speaker 2:Is it just a mess?
Speaker 1:No, it just recommends, like me, like my main channel videos. You might really like this guy. Yes.
Speaker 2:You know it's funny because I think you told me that you saw a video about how a dude signed up for like a new TikTok account and, just like within four hours went into like inappropriate content, Like the algorithm just eventually went there. I'm curious on YouTube, like what if you knew browser, private browsing, whatever knew like not logged in, where would YouTube take you? Where would YouTube take you?
Speaker 1:Well, this is the as far as I know, unless this is now just like an urban legend, this is the advent of the modern algorithm is because of this.
Speaker 2:Because 12 years ago I think it's about 12 years ago the modern algorithm, my goodness 12 years ago.
Speaker 1:It was just sort of suggested. It was like a dumb, like how Google results.
Speaker 2:It's just like we're going just like here's the most popular yeah whatever you could keyword stuff things and whatever.
Speaker 1:Apparently there was a problem where, if you just let things autoplay I forget how much time it took, but after X number of hours everything would end up on Gangnam Style, Like everything would just go there, Because, if you remember, I think was that the first video that hit a billion views on the platform.
Speaker 1:Maybe Maybe it was like one of the most viewed things ever. Everything just led there and that was where they were like okay, we need to fix this, because obviously everyone doesn't want to go there. Right, let's make things that are a little more personal. And there, even before that, back in the day, like the YouTube homepage, was a youtube employee going like this video should be here. Let's put this video here and like, changing it every day versus now, it's different for each of us every time we load it, and but I believe, if I'm not mistaken and it isn't just an urban legend, which I don't think it is, because I've heard it enough the the big kickoff for like the way the algorithm works now started with that problem happening of like everything just ends up on Gangnam style.
Speaker 2:That's funny.
Speaker 1:How interesting.
Speaker 2:Randall says someone shows a video of an individual as a share may be inappropriate. Click on your YouTube channel and review your shared and if it is okay, then keep it. But I didn't know that it was.
Speaker 1:Oh, interesting.
Speaker 2:Someone shows a video of an individual as a share.
Speaker 1:Interesting Like was. Oh, interesting, someone shows a video of an individual as a share. Interesting like. So if someone were to make like a post of your, video.
Speaker 2:What is this? Um wait, what sorry someone were to make a post of your video oh, like where people are sharing your video too. You could kind of see, yeah I see well, do you have any tips for handling?
Speaker 1:creator stress tom nope, I really don't. I mean other than like the platitudes of, like, trust your gut and and find your passion and stick to what you believe in, and all those kind of things, which are all true. I'm not, I'm not.
Speaker 2:I will say from last year to this year, I feel like you're significantly less stress.
Speaker 1:I would agree yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And part of that did come from which we've talked about a bunch. I didn't want to go into it too much, but like rediscovering why I was doing things the way I was doing them, which made me more comfortable, kind of sticking to my guns about like this is how I need to operate, now that there's never room for change, but like the way you're doing it, even though somebody else is doing it a different way yeah, I know I can tell you now if I tried to do it that way.
Speaker 1:It would be very bad for me and so that makes me feel a little more comfortable sticking to my way of doing things yeah still trying to find ways to, you know, play with it and have fun with it, but yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think one of the things that is making um the content creation process less stressful for both of us is we've been trying to approach it more as a team oh yeah, and that's been fun.
Speaker 1:Very, very nice. It definitely is. It's nice to I mean, I don't know, I don't know, not everyone can be married to another content creator I know. But yeah, I'm trying to think of like a good example or how someone could approach that, like if you just have, you know, friends or a spouse who does things unrelated, or whatever, but it is, it isn't, I don't know. That is really nice yeah many hands make light work kind of a.
Speaker 2:Thing well, because then it focuses on the fun, like that's the difference. So if I'm in here and I'm trying to make a video, I'm, it's purely, it's driven by performance. You know like I feel like that's my default, because that's what I know how to do, uh, but when we work together, I'm just like, like your ai commercial it's a perfect example of like yeah, it's just, it's a like we, our iteration of ideas is just something that we couldn't, couldn't necessarily come up with by ourselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that, and it's fun you know, yeah, and that I think, at least for me, that obviously took a long time to learn how to do, because I don't know how to describe it, but it's like I had, you know, my ideas of how to do things, how the channel needs to be, should be, for so long. And it's not that I wasn't open to other ideas, but it's like I almost didn't know how to evolve another idea so if I had my idea and then you were like, hey, this idea I was like scared to give him ideas
Speaker 2:yeah because he was so particular about his way and his method and his like I'm 100 creative control and not in a bad way, but just like yeah, what I had to learn.
Speaker 1:What I had to learn was that when you're suggesting an idea, it's not saying I'm doing my way wrong or I was doing things wrong.
Speaker 1:Just here's an idea, and this also isn't necessarily the idea. Here's an idea, and then it isn't necessarily the idea. Here's an idea and then it's like, oh okay, well, what about this, this, this? And then it kind of iterates. But you know, and that the hard thing there is, as someone who does get like we talked, we talked about it before like the, the guy who's like, hey, I'm quitting my channel, turns out I had an editor the whole time and it wasn't what you thought it was like or whatever. Um, you know, like I'm very aware of those kinds of things yeah, and like, like someone asked me during a live stream yesterday.
Speaker 1:They were like, did you edit your first video? And I'm like I've edited every video on my channel, but every single one yeah, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Speaker 1:So you know, like I'm aware of those kinds of things where it's you know I don't like it when it seems like one thing and it turns out it's another, but which is why the the easy solution for me is to just like I constantly include you in the video. So even though, like you know, this is on your channel but we're both in it videos that we're in together on my channel, but you're in it, you're mentioned all the time.
Speaker 2:You're like you pop up all right, there's no like yeah, if someone else is holding the camera, it's not like oh tom, like hired a camera operator, it's like no heather's there, you know like it's just me yeah and that that works really well.
Speaker 1:And then it's yeah and it's clear too there's. There's a track record of like the number of times your ideas have made videos objectively better, like the mic review we did last summer, where it's like the 25 mics that was fun, yeah because I was like we need to do male, female voice on a bunch of different microphones, okay, and you were the one who was like, well, okay, then the stuff we're talking about on the microphones, instead of being kind of boring, it could be fun.
Speaker 2:It could be fun and you'd put a whole thing together yeah, and it, like I mean, it really was something that people participated in in the comments, which was super to this day it still happens, I mean.
Speaker 1:and the same thing with the ai art list thing, where it's like I remember telling you about it, my impulse was I don't think I should do this. Because it's like I remember telling you about it and my impulse was I don't think I should do this because it doesn't necessarily make sense. And then we talked about it. We're like, well, there's a lot of ways that actually does fit in with what you do. And then it's like, okay, cool, but I never want to just be a salesperson. You're like well, why don't you have the, you know the voice explain the thing? And I was like, yeah, that's a good idea. Then I was like, well, why don't I have a bunch of voices talking to each other? You know like, which is that was? You know, when I was teaching and I was doing broadcasts, those were the best episodes where it wasn't just like we need to read announcements or whatever.
Speaker 1:It's like, okay, well, we need to do this. Well, if we're going to do that, why don't we do this?
Speaker 2:And then we. That's how I feel like we've been approaching it.
Speaker 1:It's just like that is the best stuff comes from that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like just how do we make this more fun?
Speaker 1:and then you just keep iterating until and obviously it's great to do when you have a teammate, but it's also is something you can do by yourself, because even broadcasts, those are things where it's like I can remember, like driving home from work at night, going like oh, tomorrow we could do this, and like later in the night like but yeah, but then what about this?
Speaker 2:and like then pitching it to you know the whole class the next day and that's kind of fun uh randall says sharing a video to facebook to peter greg's live from youtube or anything else is using the built-in youtube share oh I see, got it, got it uh, andre says, youtube follow-up is a great de-stressor. Apart from that, looking at the last six to 12 months versus past six to 12 months often get a better picture of how things are going, rather than the last two weeks.
Speaker 1:Right, you need the bigger timeline Zoom out, yeah, and find a community.
Speaker 2:I feel like it's helpful Because, yeah, not everyone can be married.
Speaker 1:Some creators fake relationships to get engagement, oh, in every sense of the word, with their viewers, with other people, with people that it seems like they're like. It'd be like if it turns out we are not actually married.
Speaker 2:This is a big studio. What a horrible thought no, it is a horrible thought or hey, hi guys, any suggestions for someone wanting to transition from a full-time, regular job to a full-time income from content creation?
Speaker 1:that is different for everybody. Well, yeah, we did it.
Speaker 2:The complete polar opposite way where, when I quit, I had nothing, my channel was at zero, um and I had six months savings and I was just like I'm gonna make this work yeah, like you quit and started your channel pretty much. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I put in my resignation and then created my channel you mine was a different approach.
Speaker 1:Mine was um, I wanted to make sure that the channel, all the different ways that the channel earns revenue, could meet or exceed what I was making my full-time job, not just once or twice. It's not like oh, we did it this month, we're good, but like can this be done consistently?
Speaker 2:I will say tom would not have quit if not for COVID, though.
Speaker 1:No, probably not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it would not have been good enough for Tom. Like it wouldn't have been. You wanted like.
Speaker 1:I had a benchmark for where things needed to be, and we are still not there A few years later.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were not going to get there, yeah.
Speaker 1:But COVID also took also took, like the one, the main part of my job. That brought joy away and left everything else, which made it worse what I was spending most of my time on and it kind of really exemplified like okay, wow, um, you know, without that it would have been easy to like well, I need to stay just one more year, one, you know?
Speaker 2:one more thing, one more thing versus like oh, totally, because it's not that bad. It wasn't that bad. That's the thing you keep talking yourself into it because it's not like I mean it was killing me in a lot of ways. But in a lot of ways it was great, definitive like I am out yeah, it wasn't.
Speaker 1:It wasn't those situations. I've had jobs where definitive like I am out. Yeah, it wasn't those situations. I've had jobs where it's like okay, I am quitting today. I wasn't expecting to, but I'm out. This was not that at all.
Speaker 2:So suggestions, the thing, so the reason why I don't think I could do that now, like just quit and figure it out when I was 30 depends on what stage of life you're in as well yeah, exactly like you know, obviously, if you have kids who are depending on you for freaking survival, um, I did not at the time and I think like, uh, I was very aware.
Speaker 2:Hmm, like, as I was starting my YouTube channel, trying to figure out my business, I also was ramping up my resume, my LinkedIn profile, like reaching out to my contacts. I'd made over my career, just in case you know. So it was like I'm fielding job opportunities and clients while also building my YouTube channel and I knew I could do that. So, if you, I feel like making that hard, like quit and then figure it out, I wouldn't, I wouldn't recommend that to anybody. It's the way I did it. But I'm crazy when we talk about stress, that was insanely stressful. And then also it's like, yeah, I was starting from zero, but I wasn't. I had clients like right away.
Speaker 2:You know I had already built that over my career right so like that's why I can say that I have been doing this full-time since the beginning, even though that money didn't come directly from youtube. It's like people saw my youtube channel and then, like, we became client. We, you know, we built a client relationship off platform, but it was because I was creating content. Yeah, right, yeah, and that's yeah.
Speaker 1:I think what we did when I was leaving a thing was kind of like I said like can you earn an equal income from this? And then for the last few months the thing that I did was act as if, where it was like okay, I might still be getting a paycheck for my normal job, but I'm actually not touching that, like that is just going to savings and I'm only actually going to be paying the bills, as if that didn't exist and it's just this money coming in, like how does that actually look? How does that work? Does it work? And it did. And then the thing I lucked out with, which is just sort of like the career field I was in was a teacher only gets paid 10 months out of the year, not 12. And I have an English degree, so I'm not the greatest at math, sometimes forgetting that YouTube pays 12 months out of the year.
Speaker 1:So even if my like monthly things were like at or just kind of squeaking by, you were getting paid, I was gonna be two extra months out of the year, so it was already like a pretty significant raise even if I thought it was equal.
Speaker 2:I was like oops the other thing I would say, uh, is probably making a full-time income. I mean, you know, obviously it depends where you're at, but probably making a full-time income off of just content creation alone, I feel like is hard. So what I would do, like if I were starting over today, I would see what skills that you can hire out. You know, like do what I did and like make YouTube videos for other people, make thumbnails. Youtube channel management was something I did for a. Youtube videos for other people, make thumbnails. Youtube channel management was something I did for a while. I did YouTube consulting. There's an aspect of this space that people don't want to do. You could be an editor, you can set a podcast for people. You could still be in the content, content creation space, which if you're doing, if you're uh working in the content creation space, that's only going to help your um, your own journey.
Speaker 2:You know, like gil does this right yeah, you have a studio and you um help people produce their podcasts and stuff, while also creating your own content. That's what I would do.
Speaker 1:I feel like that's the that's a very reasonable way to do it.
Speaker 2:Then maybe, as time goes on, you can, if you want to, you can cut some of that out there's always going to be people who do not want to be involved in the production process, which is, you know, most of being a content creator. They just want to show up and talk, be on camera, right, you know, whatever. Uh, so that means there's always going to be room for people who can produce. You know, like, do do the everything else absolutely uh, let's see.
Speaker 2:I too dream of leaving this life of crime to be a full-time creator. Uh, I do not have much stress, just a lot of questions and then doing another video. I have a lot of questions.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 2:I like that questions are good yeah, there will always be new questions. A new thing? Yep, yeah, how are you feeling? Are you stressed?
Speaker 1:is that your question. I was saying my question is the time to clear the table. Um, yeah, I'm definitely stressed, but I'm enjoying my youtube I feel like you're having the most fun. You've had this, yeah, the whole time, and we've come up with some really fun ideas too, to like big picture ideas to keep working stay tuned for tom's evolution of the channel.
Speaker 2:Like I'm so excited we should talk about this boom on pranks, bro.
Speaker 1:It's just the 3 am prank challenge.
Speaker 2:I feel like it's a good evolution.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's going to be some exciting stuff to look forward to. Anyway, that being said, time to clear the table.
Speaker 1:It's time to clear the table. Thanks for watching.
Speaker 2:Hope you have a safe, happy, healthy, fun rest of your week and weekend and we'll see you next time. Bye.