For those of you who have followed my work on YouTube, you’ve seen my home for almost four years. You see how I live. You may have noticed I don’t have flooring except for the sub-floors that are painted. You’ll see that I don’t have a traditional kitchen. There’s no stove. There’s a mini-fridge instead of a full sized refrigerator. Although I’m working on getting upgrades, it’s a slow-going process to make big purchases. This is my life. It’s not where I thought I’d land in life, but it’s where I’m at.
I try to make the best out of every situation I deal with. If I had more options, I would prefer to live in a home with a real foundation and crawl space, maybe even a basement. Although I was not able to achieve it, I did instead get my Trailer which was more affordable. But I still have to pay monthly bills like everyone else. There’s no shortcuts in life. I work very hard on my Channel which brings me to today’s topic: Abuse through Content Creation.
Many different people watch content. People that are kind, unkind, rich, broke … lots of diversity of personality styles. Since the beginning, I’ve dealt with learning how to block certain words so when people cuss me out in the comments, it does not appear. The obvious insults are the ones that anyone of us could spot. There’s the “B-word” and the “C-word”. But what about the passive-aggressive insults that pop up?
With PA insults, those are more thought out. They are a bit more clever. And they still come up. In the meantime, I have a content creation schedule to keep up with to stay on task to get my work done. I’m not special. Just about every Content Creator has to learn to deal with this. It will either eat you up and derail you from doing your best work or it becomes just a regular part of the job.
What’s the impact of long-term abusive comments for online creators? I don’t know the answer but I do wonder as anything over a period of time creates an impact in your life. I recently managed an in-person PA insult that someone issued towards me in a public setting. It was a person that looked at me and said “pale skin is ugly”. My reaction was to smile and just continue to be myself. That’s the key. When someone insults you, but carries the plausible deniability to back out of it as if you were not the intended recipient, that’s how you spot PA behavior.
I could go into what the individual looked like, how they presented. But it does not really matter. The overall tone was they utilized a friendly conversation to insult a stranger. That’s a spiritual problem. I used to think people with this nature had personality issues. As it seems we are living in the most disturbing times in modern history, I think it’s rooted more honestly in spiritual dysfunction.
I don’t talk a lot about God on my Channel. And I would like to. The trouble with the algorithm is if you talk about something that could be categorized as offensive then it can push your video to the bottom. On the other hand, if you are totally offensive about a hot topic issue you can be rewarded through the algorithm. It’s all in how the algorithm chooses to promote your video or keep it down. There are people who do great work but get very little views or attention on YouTube. But then you could see a video getting pushed out that is something highly negative and it’s rewarded. Doing this work might have to end. It’s just not worth it financially to invest in the making and editing of each video and average out the income produced against the time invested just to earn how much? Well often it’s less than minimum wage.
On occasion I receive accusations of being YouTube rich. What a joke. A 10 minute video that receives 10,000 views might earn $100 plus or minus. It’s not guaranteed. It’s very sad to put everything you can into a video and earn less than minimum wage. It’s actually quite depressing. I make a decision each year of whether to pursue paid sponsorships or not. I have avoided it. But as the changes to the platform are impacting pay (for the worse) and the videos are not getting pushed out, I may have to do sponsorships. It’s not what I intended to do. Kind of like living in a Trailer. It’s not where I thought I’d land. But it turned out to be a Blessing. Maybe if I’m forced into sponsorships, it will become a Blessing, too.
Between the abusive comments and the low pay, I wonder why I should keep trying. It’s like being in a bad relationship. After awhile you look around and say what’s the point.
Hi Sarah, look at the sponsorships as a blessing. If you enjoy making vlogs and it is a means of income/supplement, then go for it. Those who want to see you suceed, won’t judge. Perhaps God is pointing you in the right direction.
You could be right. There are just too many changes and updates on the platform. Since they introduced AI into the platform and the back office side, it’s been a mess. I’ve tried to work with it and figure out a way to grow the Channel. But have not figured it out. And other Channels don’t really want to help that have figured it out. There’s a whole “high school” vibe amongst the ones who know. It’s truly been trial and error for me to have achieved what I have so far.
Can you do other work?
Do you want to do other work?
Take sponsorships. You can try the item. Give your honest opinion. Raffle it off afterwords, sell or give it to a viewer if you can not use it. Some of the items may be helpful to you. Such as solar panels for electricity. Vitamins, plants/vertical gardens, home wears such as washable rugs. You never know what you could be offered. You could do a segment weekly, monthly on new items. It could be a lot of fun and it could be great content. Maybe add a book a month to the channel. Give people a couple book choices to read with you and then do a live book discussion on the time that everyone could meet. That would be fun. It could be on gardening, decorating, comedy, art. Sky is the limit.
You have good ideas, thank you so much. I go through times where I just need a break. Like making a 15 minute video might look easy. But I’ve got hours into it. Maybe producing “high effort” content is not the right way. I thought it would help the Channel grow. It’s important to edit. But making 100’s of cuts in a short video, it’s just a lot of work and it’s the kind of effort that has led to burn out. But then if I take time off, the income for the month can drop 25% or more. And that’s if I release 1 video a week, for 1 or 2 weeks straight. I think I understand why other Channels do fast-forwarding techniques. It’s a way to edit and look like you’re getting lots done in the video but it’s not high-effort edits. Thank you for your advice. I’m having such a hard time right now.
Hi Sarah. I love your videos. You’re easy to listen to. I am a older middle-aged lady myself. I live in a mobile home because that was all I could afford. I have an adult disabled daughter who lives with me. Praise God that I own the trailer, but I still have bills too. It sure is hard to stretch those dollars! We also go to the food pantry. They have been very good to us. Anyway I wanted to tell you that I find your videos enjoyable and very relatable!!! Thank you Sarah for helping me not feel alone. And to the people you are ugly to you, they are obviously very unhappy with their selves. Don’t let anybody drag you down! Anyway, sending you love from Florida.
I appreciate your kind words! Thank you! There’s so much judgment for going to the food bank. I did not realize when I started sharing that part of my life how upset it would make others. Part of the negativity probably comes from the types of items I bring home. A lot of food pantries are not stocked like mine and frankly, I just got lucky. I see all types of people shopping. It’s not like it’s serving a destitute part of the population only. It’s actually trying to help the lowest income households keep pace with the cost of living. Life comes with bills and anything that can alleviate those costs sure does help! The food bank is a huge Blessing!!