When I started this blog, I had a lot of problems in my life and writing about my hobbies gave me something of an outlet. It may not have addressed my core issues, but it gave me a needed distraction and some relief from the depression and anxiety those issues brought. It was also an exercise, as I enjoyed writing and I saw it as a way to hone my skill, albeit in a vacuum largely devoid of feedback. But I am my own worst critic, and so in obsessing over the things I had written, I was generating my own feedback loop. If nothing else, I could grow my skill at expressing the feelings I was trying to convey.
When one of my hobbies turned into a YouTube channel, that became all I could do. I didn't have the time or the energy to devote to blog posts, and any other hobbies that didn't involve just simple collecting tended to go by the wayside. Without even the remotest idea of what I was doing, I naïvely set out to develop and conquer a new skill: Video production.
My last blog post before these two most recent ones is right about where things took a turn. I didn't know it, but my enthusiastic ramblings about building an old computer would sound the beginnings of a new hobby adventure. One that would swallow up most of my other hobbies, and at once take up most of my free-standing life, while also giving it new purpose.
With an old DSLR borrowed from my then-fiancé, and a growing handful of old computer parts acquired off eBay, I set out to merge my writing skill with videography, while simultaneously training myself on non-linear editing software. I never performed in front of a camera aside from some very small school projects as a youth, and with an echoing voice beckoning the need for a lavalier mic, I managed to produce three videos back-to-back. I intended to release them in reverse order, so the last one I made — presumably the better one should my ability improve — would be the first to be published. I wanted to put my best foot forward, naturally.
That was the launch of PixelPipes, a retro 3D acceleration enthusiast channel focused on the history of real-time 3D graphics rendering hardware for the consumer. Fresh off my blog, the writing carried over a somewhat pretentious tinge. The video quality was grainy, desaturated, and poorly lit. What there was of any lighting "tricks" were decidedly sophomoric, and the audio recording was similarly low-budget and at times overly processed. It was a humble beginning, but shockingly... some people were watching.
With the first three videos done, I quickly remedied the mic situation, switched to a smartphone camera which was actually a little sharper, and set up a crude garage lamp as my main fill light. I eased the tone of the writing to be more appropriate and familial, and as a result, the next videos were a massive improvement. I started getting the attention of the retro PC community, and even some big names started commenting. One of which was Phil of Phil's Computer Lab, the inspiration behind the whole thing. A fire had been lit, and my plans quickly grew.
As the ideas started flowing, I began doing sub-series of videos, including unboxings that I called 'PixelBOX', which started off simply as a show-and-tell of things I bought online before eventually evolving to just donations. I started a series of versus videos, pitting rival graphics cards from different companies, which I called 'Card Battles'. I set up an email for the channel, and as the views climbed, so did the offers for donations. Hard to believe my collecting and talking about old computer parts was actually compelling people to send me more!
Reaching 100 subscribers was exciting. (A new channel URL! Very prestigious!) Reaching 1,000 felt amazing. (Monetization!) Reaching 10,000 was more than I ever dreamed of. And if that were possible, what was next?
And that's where the mental mistakes began. You see, starting a YouTube channel isn't hard. Getting any kind of success with that channel, however, is a nightmare. If your channel stays humble and small, it may actually be better for you. It never goes to your head, you never dream the big silly dreams, and you're all the more content and level-headed for it. But as soon as the sense of momentum starts, that's when you start digging holes.
It's a perverse reward system. You get a high when you achieve milestones. You get a high when a video gets tons of views, and even more if it makes you a little bit of money. If you get a sudden burst of subscribers, you desperately want to keep it up. You over-analyze what you did right. You try to repeat the success. You fail. You get discouraged, and the cycle repeats.
It isn't a healthy place to be, mentally or emotionally. Throughout my journey as a content creator, I struggled against the human nature for greed and ambition. I told myself and others that the numbers don't matter. Just the content.. Just the subject matter. At first all those positive comments feel really good. The sting of negative comments hurts a lot initially, and you may (as I did) respond in a knee-jerk way that doesn't help. But eventually your skin (hopefully) thickens, and ultimately you realize that you are the master of your comments section. If comments get too spicy, you have the power to make them disappear.
Criticism didn't bother me much after a while. It's just part of the territory. More worrisome though was that the compliments also started to lose their charm. It was like once I had proven to myself that I could make videos, and people showed that they enjoyed them and were entertained by them, I didn't need their validation any more. The positive or the negative... Either way it didn't seem to matter.
And then there are the video ideas that didn't pan out. Dreaming big, means you fall big if those dreams don't materialize. At one point I spent way too much money trying to repeat the success of a video by making a HUGE video on the same topic, and watched it bomb. I found an extremely rare, holy grail graphics card for an affordable price, unboxed it and... It didn't work. A similar story with other rare parts. The high of finding them, imagining the videos I could make with them, and the emotional slump when they didn't work out. Yeah, sometimes I was lucky enough to get working replacements for the bad parts, but not in most cases.
All the while the videos were getting more and more complex. I was investing more into the equipment, improving the processes behind production, and while it was getting easier in some ways, those energy savings were then transferred into more effort elsewhere. And YouTube being YouTube, that effort rarely translated into broader appeal.
And it's hard not looking over the other guy's shoulder. You might see a similar channel and think you're doing pretty well compared to them, growing at a faster rate and getting more views, but then you turn around and realize the opposite is just as often true. And you may feel that your effort isn't being rewarded if someone's simpler video does so much better than your high-effort ones. Or even find your own simpler videos doing better.
Again, it's a battle against human nature. This isn't a race, and none of it should matter. The world isn't fair and no one ever told you it was, and yet somehow, you still judge yourself based on loss and success. Terms probably more relevant in the age of the hunter-gatherer. You seek emotional highs, looking for the next buzz, and sometimes you get it. More likely though, you come crashing down.
When the work becomes too discouraging, especially when it's just a hobby, the most common advice you'll probably hear is to take a step back for a while. Take a break, look for inspiration again, and recharge your batteries.
After working hard every spare minute of my life for two years, I did just that.
In May 2019, I stopped work on a video that I was waist-deep into because I just wasn't feeling it anymore. All I really needed was some b-roll footage and other pick-up shots, but my small motorized dolly that had once made camera pans so much easier started malfunctioning, and I was left to do all those shots the old way: with steady hands and a lot of patience. And I just didn't have it in me to do that.
I don't know how long I intended to stop. Maybe a few months? But the time flew by and before I knew it, it had been just shy of a year. Some people, I gathered, wondered where I went. Some were even worried for my well-being. I never truly went anywhere. I was still on social media, and still active in our Discord server. But I wasn't sure when the channel would come back, until a little thing called a global pandemic took hold of the entire human population.
In March of 2020, my job informed its employees they would no longer be scheduled to work. We were initially told this was only for a couple of weeks. Then as the pandemic grew worse, this became a month. Then longer. We were supposed to be 'furloughed' which was a new term to many, but other similar companies started laying off large amounts of people. We began to get worried, and the messages we exchanged with each other on Facebook became more and more frantic.
But even with mounting anxiety, there was still tons of free time to be had. And when I had exhausted all the major to-dos, one of the few things left was this little loose thread hanging around my channel. Footage, audio recordings, benchmark graphs. Almost all of it was there for one last video. I had no excuse. Manual camera work and all, I figured I might as well finish it. At least then I'd feel like I fulfilled something.
With lots of time at my disposal, I put in extra effort adding in lots of little touches. I invested more into the quality of the editing, trying new tricks. I got way more shots than I needed, and invested in a paid music library service to spruce up the presentation even more. When I was satisfied, I had without a doubt the best-produced video to that point.
Of course, I didn't think much about all the millions of other people stuck at home with nothing to do but sit in front of their screens and watch videos.
It exploded. The views climbed faster than I had ever seen before. It got picked up on Reddit and forums and shared all over the internet. The praise poured in. My truncated furlough salary was bolstered with ad revenue, more than any video in the past. Now what started as a much-needed distraction from the troubles in the world became an intoxicating success story.
My job continued to extend the closure, and still buzzing from the glowing reception, I plunged head-first to keep the momentum going. I released three more videos with a fourth well underway before the workplace resumed. And all that time I realized... I was actually having fun. It felt like I got to experience, for a couple months anyway, what it felt like to be a full-time content creator. Setting my own schedule, planning the work for each day, the faster pace of production, the greater focus, and the higher quality results...
For all the turmoil outside my walls, and the uncertainty of the future, I was able to enjoy myself despite it all. Looking back, I think that's when my channel peaked. I continued making videos but with only a couple days off a week to devote to them (and sometimes not even that) production slowed back down to a crawl. Going back to my job was tough, as it was for many people, and post COVID fatigue started to set in.
Then I got a brilliant idea: What if I started an event centered around GPUs and got other channels involved? It was something others were doing with DOScember and SepTANDY, so why not? I'd call it GPJUne! No wait that's trying too hard. GPU June is fine. GPU June it is! The fire was lit again.
I stepped out of the comfort zone of my channel and into the role of an event host. I found what publicly available contact info I could for every channel I could find, and also spread the word to my followers. I even got some bigger channels onboard, such as Phil's Computer Lab, Budget Builds Official, Captains Workspace, and Retrospector78. The reaction to the idea was universally positive!
My head grew big with ambition. At the same time I announced the event, I also launched a plan that would increase revenue from my channel. My pipedream (no pun intended) was to turn it into a part-time job, so maybe this was my chance! I created merchandise for the channel, and while I didn't like the idea of Patreon, YouTube recently made a built-in alternative that sounded good, so I launched that too with a promise of putting out a heavy-production video, plus a simpler video — called a 'Fragment' video — every month. Maybe I'd get enough to rent a real studio!
And once again I invested extra time and energy into my own top-notch video contribution to the event. It took a little while longer, which means I was one of the last channels to release one, but it was worth it. It's still the video I'm most proud of. Of course, the views and numbers didn't reflect that, but I didn't care. Well, that's what I tell myself, anyway.
After that, my energy was spent. My wife and I moved to a new place, and where once I was working in organized chaos, I was surrounded by just plain chaos. Moving is never fun, and while getting settled back down, video production wasn't the first thing on my mind. On top of that, merchandise sales, while initially promising, didn't maintain, and my monthly supporter idea didn't go anywhere. The dream of a studio or a new part-time career fizzled out, and I was back to reality.
Several months went by. Another hiatus.
Throughout the course of my channel, I've repeatedly run into moments where I felt like quitting. But after much introspection, the result would usually be to actually double-down. Whatever was frustrating me about the production work, or whatever felt like it took too long or was too hard, I tried to think of ways to make it easier. I'd maybe change my process, or buy new gadgets, or consider simplifying the scope of my videos. They'd help me make the next video or two, but I'd quickly lose energy again.
When you've invested so much time and energy in something, you start to run into a sort of sunken cost fallacy. That it's not worth it to turn back now because you've done so much, that it's helped you meet new friends, build up a community, learn things about the hobby, about the craft, and about yourself. I kept telling myself that if it started to feel like a job, like I was trudging the mud to get something done, that wasn't a hobby anymore. If it wasn't fun, it wasn't worth it.
But at the same time, it's been a creative outlet. I have a small following of fans, even if they haven't grown much lately in number. They wonder where I've gone — if I'll ever be back. I've already given them all I have, and yet ironically, I still feel like I owe them more.
And unfortunately I haven't found anything to replace that creative outlet. Another year (almost) has passed since my last serious video. Another GPU June event came and went, in which I poured even more into (although it wasn't nearly as big the second time). And now it's June again. I decided I wouldn't host a third GPU June, and it almost didn't happen until someone else finally stepped up at the last second. I'd like to make a video for that event, at least, since so many others made videos when I hosted it.
Of course, the blogging has mysteriously started again. Writing was always my favorite part of making videos. I always hated the filming, though. I used to love the testing, but as old hardware tends to do, more and more of it has been failing on me. I love the editing but it takes so much work to get to that final step. And I love the finished product. But the steps in between to getting to that finished product are what's tough, and the approval of strangers doesn't do it for me anymore.
I wrote this without knowing a conclusion. Part of me felt like if I wrote this all out, maybe one would come to me. Maybe I'd regain inspiration again. Reconnect with where it all started. YouTube is a game rigged against you. It will tease and toy with you, getting your hopes up and then dashing them, and you may never know why. It doesn't reward effort, so don't expect it to. It doesn't care for your aspirations. Turning a hobby into a video channel is perhaps the best way to kill the joy of it.
I feel obliged to end on a more positive note, however. The fact is I did accomplish a lot. A lack of growth and faltering motivation doesn't change that. I'm still having a hard time calling it quits, and still find myself investing in more things to make it easier. I have video ideas (paired down quite a bit) that I still want to do. And when they're done, then we'll revisit this. Maybe then I'll feel like I'm finally done.
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