Starting A YouTube Channel in 2020 During A Global Pandemic

As a young woman who is about to turn twenty here in November, I have been back on forth on how exactly I want to achieve the career path I want to go on. 

Then, of course, I see young girls and boys creating a set future for themselves in the blink of an eye. Everything I seem to do always seemed to be one step behind. I felt like my life was heading toward disaster. 

Then COVID struck! 

Now my life really did have no clear path. Then it hit me, I was prepared more than most for this quarantine period as I had nothing planned for my life anyway. Everything seemed to be a toss up and there was not definite path,

The answer came in the most peculiar way imaginable. I was seeing my favorite vloggers at the time say that this was the time to start a YouTube channel. There is never going to be a maximum amount of creators. 

So I took the plunge! 

I set up a channel and starting posting videos. It was a weird experience at first. Sitting in front of a camera and just talking, praying that even one person would like me enough to watch let alone subscribe. 

It started off as an experiment.

So many YouTubers have been posting what it is like and how long it took for them to become a monetized channel. This is where you get to 1,000 subscribers and 40 public watch hours, for those who may be confused as to the specific requirements. This goal is a lot easier said than done and can usually take on average a year or more.

My initial idea was to try all of the different types of videos that had become popular with viewers. They all pointed to comedic, entertaining, talented people.

Well. . .

My YouTube career ended before it even began! (Like that stopped me.)

One of the biggest things you learn early on is that your audience is perceptive and they can see when something is not working for you. Therefore you need to be self-aware and use that information to grow if you wish to be successful. I knew it wasn't for me.

So I needed to find another path.

It was hard to pinpoint a direction at first because everything seemed so new and fun. I went from trying to give advice on how to start a YouTube channel as someone who was starting a YouTube channel (why I thought that was a good idea I will never know), to vlogging (which was the same thing day after day), to mukbangs (which was not healthy for me).

I even tried dollar store challenges, grocery hauls, and amazon unboxings (that went unpublished for the moment for future reasons).

I did the YouTube gambit and came up short. Not in enthusiasm, but the knowledge of continuity and consistency on my channel was nonexistent.

So what now?

I sat down and just talked about my heartbreak for the world. I got passionate when I realized that children would not get a childhood like I had. That people were feeling as if their feelings did not matter to the creators that they personally backed. Watching the creators blame their own audience.

It was all so messed up in my mind. I tried to listen to both sides of the story. When I did the more that mindset and the toxicity just did not make sense.

I wondered what I had gotten myself into. I kept watching a world that disintegrated into fear and mistrust.

I poured my soul and people responded.

Wait, what?! They actually liked it?!

I started to show more of that and the occasional life vlog and people responded amazingly.

People were not only watching but connecting with me on a different level and it felt like a community. We had built our own space to share opinions respectfully and build each other up. My subscribers are the most loyal and encouraging support system I have ever come across and I am beyond grateful to find a platform where I can just be. 

This experience has been a means of growth and support. There is little that can prepare you for the process or the results and words are hard to form in order to coherently express the journey with others.

I am sorry that I am so ill-spoken in this.

I just wanted to try and document the journey just so I could have something to look back on and remember. It might also be a help and encouragement to those who want to start. (Maybe?)

Either way thank you so much for getting this far in the story! I hope you guys love what you have seen and maybe stick around for more installments.

Have a great rest of your day!

If you are interested to see how this experiment is going you can catch me here as well!