As of today I am quitting YouTube. It's very sad for me to say this, because YouTube is more than people posting cat videos; it's a community. It's a community that I've been honored to be a part of for the past 2 years. I've grown a lot since I started making YouTube videos in 2011. My skills in video making have improved tremendously but I've also grown as a person.
When I posted my first video I honestly thought it would get 1M views in a couple days or a month at the least. I think it had around 40 views the last time I checked. I thought I was going to become "YouTube famous" within a couple weeks or months, a year at the latest. Two years later, barely 115 subscribers and almost 25K total video views. But even with that few amount of subscribers and views it allowed me to interact with my viewers and other smaller YouTuber's like myself. I really felt apart of something.
However, YouTube is not for me. I do like make videos but believe it or not, it can take a lot out of you. I am taking 3 college classes right now along with 1 high school class and it's demanding. I also have a girlfriend who I want to spend as much time as possible with, as well as my other friends. As you can see, my time is very limited these days.
YouTube for me was never about making money, it was doing something that I really liked to do. And good thing it wasn't about the money...I've only made $12.90 from my YouTube videos. That's no where near enough to support myself, pay for college, etc.
Where from here? I posted a couple weeks ago about my "perfect" life, I don't know what I was thinking when I posted that. My life will never be 100% how I want it to be and it will never be perfect, so who cares! You have to roll with the punches of life and go with the flow. But in real life I am planning on now majoring in Computer Science and I hope to attend DevBootcamp in place of college or after college. I want to be a full time web developer. I know writing code sounds like an extremely boring thing to do as a job, but I love it. I truly love it and want to make a living from doing it. I want to create apps and programs to not only make life easier and more fun but to enhance it. I have a lot of ideas that I want to make so I want to get started off working for a company as one of their developers then eventually start my own company.
No more videos then? Of course not! I don't want to completely quit YouTube, but it won't be my main priority anymore. So I guess I'm not technically "quitting" YouTube but whateva! ;) I do want to post maybe an "update" video on what I'm doing and working on every once and a while because again, YouTube is more than just a spot to post videos; it's a community!
In closing, thank you to all of you who have supported me these past years. Philip Defranco gave me my first big boost of subscribers by featuring my video in one of his movie club things, so a big thanks to him. Thanks to Featureman for all the support lately. A huge shout out to my friends Tyler and Brenden who were in some of my videos and they have their own skating channels so check them out and subscribe! Also thanks to everyone over at Elite Collabers, you guys were great and I had a fun time making videos with you! Lastly thank you to all my subscribers and anyone else who I'm forgetting to mention, you guys rock!
Until we meet again, thanks and keep on, keeping on!
-Eli
Good luck, Eli. I think YouTube for you is what Facebook or Twitter is for me. I am there but I am not known. I did make some OK money at YouTube before I lost my Google account about September of 2011. The money was not important for me. I do enjoy making videos.
ReplyDeleteIn my lifetime I have had several very pleasant surprises, often with some income as part of the surprise. Often anyone around me could have had the opportunity, but they did not see it. My radar is pretty good.
You are very excellent at speaking and you look great on camera. I wish you great success in the computer programming arena.
If you lived next door I would have you in all my videos.
I have been having fun for many decades. I wish you a fun filled and prosperous future.
Tom Willett aka Featureman