Comparing My Experience as a YouTuber to When I Had a "Real" Job

all right i'm going to do a video here based on interaction i had on instagram today where i said you know that's that's not really right now i'm going to acknowledge there's already a check mark at the bottom of this where overall being a youtuber is far and away the best job i've had better than the real job and that's a common comment go and get a real job it's not a real job okay uh for for people who do this for a living it is and it is as real a job as anything else and and there are regularly comments that try to undercut what youtubers do which is well anybody can do that and that's clearly it's technically true technically anybody can go out on a football field and and take a pass from from tom brady not everybody can catch the ball and and that's the thing like when i started out what five almost five years ago now doing this i had no idea no idea this would happen and uh there is no suddenly a line where you go okay that's it and my whole life's gonna change and yet it eventually did so i'm gonna go through these items and yes overall being a youtuber is clearly better than the jobs that i've had before um interactions i have with people i used to work with it reminds me why i'm really really glad that i don't work at those old jobs anymore now for set hours the real job was better for set hours now i would have mandatory over time at times so yes you do get you do get your overtime and so that's kind of a qualifier where you can say well i have set hours but there's overtime that's necessary too but what i've learned over the last couple of years is that as a youtuber yeah i i don't give myself set hours i don't have set hours as long as i'm awake i'm either thinking of ideas for videos or i'm i'm watching tv and getting ideas while i watch tv even if i listen to nhl radio i'm like okay i need to do a video on that and there's stuff that i'll hear and then i'll see that i go okay i need to do a video on that and i won't do that video for weeks maybe even months but it's in the back of my mind so it's always there whereas with the real job once you leave you're done you're like all right i'm done for the day and i remember you know i would work from 4 20 in the morning to one o'clock in the afternoon and i'd get home at 1 30 and then i would just relax watch tv and just you know chill out and and get fat and nobody cared and it was fine and it was great ish and it was lonely but you know that's that's the way that works benefits you know i have to say with benefits it's kind of a saw for me because you kind of have to make your own so if you want set benefits the real job we'll just say here you sign this you have your benefits package here you go as a youtuber you have to get your own i have to get my own medical which i have like the expand extended medical dental and all that i have that um and then you have your own rrsp setup i have that and and tfsas and all that i have that as well just tax free savings account you're just saving your money to throw into income tax and and so you know i've got all of that set up and all the financials as long as you have a good financial advisor you can kind of do the same thing with your benefits you have with the real job the trick is to make sure that you have a stable income here in order to make sure you can afford the benefits and those are not necessarily cheap with the real job it's just all taken care of before you get your paycheck so it's easier here requires more work here but it kind of evens out for me job security oh the real job's got the job security because you know speaking as a youtuber who's watched this platform for years now uh you just don't know from one month to the next one might happen you don't know when the next big scandal is going to hit and all of a sudden your income could potentially be out the door whereas at your real job you're you're pretty safe your your job's pretty safe and the other thing is you know if i was working and shipping in the warehouse at four o'clock in the morning there weren't a bunch of people busting the doors down saying boy i wish i had shannon shift what are his days off sunday and monday oh sign me up yeah no no what are days off wednesday and thursday oh i want that and i did that i had plenty of time where i would work at four in the morning and my days off for wednesday and thursday or tuesday and wednesday nobody really wanted that so there was a lot of job security whereas when you're a youtuber everybody wants your job everybody everybody says hey you know shannon you should take some time off and every time i hear that i think uh-huh yeah right i don't take days off i don't take time off i haven't gone a day without making a video in over four years the entire time that yvonne and i've been together and we started dating in september of 2016 i have i've done at least a video every single day including our wedding day honeymoon and everything in between and if we're on vacation everything comes with me and i do videos that day i have to do videos at the start of the day when i started dating her i would do videos after my real job before we we had a date and and that was just that was an arrangement where i was like all right so you know if you want to hang out that's great but i'm doing videos first and so she would sit there quietly while i was making videos so job security definitely on this side although again and this is kind of what that said hours thing i can kind of set them myself there are plenty of days that i could have taken off that like i said all right guys i'm not gonna do videos tomorrow and that would have been fine and people would have understood but i like to i like to be in that routine privacy set job has that so this is this is what this is what caused me to say you know this is this is not cool the idea that like i made the video yesterday where i just showed my jersey collection with the what jersey am i going to wear for the playoffs kind of thing because that was kind of fun and and i wanted to do a video like that for a while and and there are people who clearly think that well now you're just inviting somebody to come take all your crap okay i'm not i don't leave the house for one and for two we we don't show the outside of our house we don't show uh any license plates we don't show the numbers of the houses across the street we don't talk about where exactly we live we don't get into that my neighbors as far as none of them have any idea what i do and and yet that's a thing and and there are plenty of youtubers that have had just people show up at their door and because of the fact that i've done videos every day there are people who in watching my videos will say hey shannon's a friend of mine even though i haven't met them which is which is fine and you know i would say 99.9 of of interactions i've had with people have been perfectly fine in person and it's been great and it's been nice meeting people whether it was at disneyland or vegas or seattle or wherever it's been great but you know i i do kind of sometimes miss being nobody it was there there are there are times where it's like you know i i do kind of kind of miss being a nobody and and i think this is part of the reason why when months back i started talking with michael uh michael buble who everybody knows is a singer to me he's my friend mike and and i don't treat him any different than anybody else i don't talk to him any different than anybody else and and to be honest i don't really care about the music aspect or or who he is or what kind of house he has i just you know he's he's fun to hang out with and talk to and he's a nice guy and you know for for privacy reasons obviously i'm not i'm not making videos of this house i'm i'm not you know doing anything that would that would violate that level of trust there are a couple of subscribers who know where i live uh there's one subscriber spin on my house a couple of times and and that's because i know he's not going to go out online hey you know where he because again and that's where things get strange and that's where where is that line so at what point if somebody's making a video if i made videos and and posted pictures of my kids uh years ago nobody cared and now because of my my channel having you know 147 000 on the main channel 13 000 on this one in terms of subscribers now it's sort of a well you're you're just inviting trouble but i still like i still have my personal accounts and all that and and at some point you know it the the kids enjoy interacting with with with videos when they're in them and that kind of thing and so again you know we do our best to make sure that we're not giving away anything like our house is the most common kind of house you're going to find in bc it's called the bc box for a reason there are hundreds of thousands of houses like this in bc there's just there it's the same as every other house because every now let's see is he living in the house i used to live in at probably because all of them are the same and and it's it's kind of nice because i always had friends when i was in high school that had houses like this and i'd be like man i wish i had a house like that and now i do and you know it's it's kind of fun but at the same time there there is always that privacy concern and so i try to make sure i never show you know license plates and that kind of thing and i'm very cognizant of where i'm at this is part of the reason why i don't do videos in the backyard as well because it's it's not just a noise issue there was part of me and said you know be pretty easy for somebody to figure out certain things certain certain landmarks and so you have to watch for that social interaction you know what the real job works works that way too so you're going to notice that over here uh privacy yeah no set hours not really benefits only if i make them uh job security not really uh social interaction yeah good luck so i'm home all day i'm home every day i'm in my room here every day and at a real job i'd probably be talking to people if i choose to that was one thing i liked it working in the shipping department if i didn't want to talk to anybody i didn't have to i could just be miserable just shoot people away and do my job but you know i i could have that social interaction i'd have like lunch in the lunchroom and i'd sit down and talk to people and and breaks and all that and i could have you know interesting discussions and tell jokes and you know just blow off steam and now not not really i mean you know i'm home uh but social interaction and then the number of friends that i had before the channel took off seem to be higher than the number of friends i have now so even though if you look at at facebook you go well shannon's got x number of friends but how many of them are actually friends of mine so i would talk like people that i knew before i was thd people i knew years back people i knew uh and and honestly i've i've lost touch with a lot of people and and this is one of the prices that that you kind of pay um when you go into and i i don't know that this happens with other people when they're self-employed or when they make a big change but that's the way it's worked for me so it's all on this side but i will say this vacations as a youtuber vacations are better now i do work every day so the set hours don't exist and and even on vacation i work but on my vacations we're not bound by what my boss says one of the most frustrating things when i had the quote real job and again you know putting that quotes because again to me if you are employed and you make money for something you do when you're then it's a job and if you can get paid as an artist that's your job if you can get paid for writing that's your job and that hobby becomes your job for in this case my hobby became my job but there were times where i would book a holiday i'd have vacation time booked at work and then you know the boss yeah we can't give you that i already booked it sorry we can't give you that something's changed and we have to take it away from you now this year i had to cancel two vacations to vegas and it's a great sadness for me but the reality is that that's a pandemic that shut it down it is not something a boss told me to do something that was was changed uh because i decided it was something out of my control it is it is nice while i don't have the set hours i also have my own okay i can take a vacation youtubers are known for taking vacations from the last week of december until about mid-january because that's when ad rates drop to the lowest if i if if you're new and you haven't heard me say it that's what it is so when they say well i'm going to take a bit of a holiday oh yeah that's because that's because you don't really get paid so your ad rates are the highest from about middle of this middle of november until the first or second week of december and then they drop i don't take a holiday i'm sure you will so again and i don't stop i don't stop even though i know that i'm going to get paid a lot less because i think all right i'm producing content now and there are other big content producers that aren't on the pro on the on the the platform so while i may get paid less i will get more views so that's how i see it is it's not always about you know well what is your click-through in your rpm and all this stuff that they always throw at you that's not as important and i i don't view that as being that important i think what's important is being consistent what is important is being yourself and what is important is making sure that when you upload videos every day is is pretty consistent your timing is pretty consistent the one that i've added to the bottom under the overall that yes overall being a youtuber is is to me more more rewarding and enjoyable than than the real job the self-esteem though it's kind of a soft so at a real job your self-esteem is going to take a hit from co-workers from broken friendships from big fights you have at work from arguments you may have with the boss certainly i've had those over the years but online male or female you're measured by how attractive you are on some level and i think because as a youtuber you're dealing with people that are are you know dealing with with you from an anonymous perspective mostly there are people who use their real names online on whether it's youtube or uh twitter or whatever it is but in a lot of cases they don't and so they'll they'll just take shot after shot after shot and so the stress level that that comes from that shot to your self-esteem can be tough and and if you're i could see how for some of the youtubers that are a lot younger than i am that would be really difficult where you're you're trying to figure out who you are you're trying to figure out what you're going to do with the rest of your life and you've got these people that are constantly on you it might be about your weight it might be about your just your general appearance whatever it is i talked about the jim jeffries thing earlier i know there's a lot of people who want to get mad at jim jefferies which is fine but the one thing that i i laughed at because i identified with it was he said that he had lost seven pounds in a week because he had stopped eating and he came from a a family of of overweight fat people and one of the things that kept him from ending up like that is the internet because the internet will not let it go if he gains 10 pounds or gains 20 pounds and yes that's true that's absolutely true where i could have a video where i i give my opinion on something and i do my best to do you know research on that and make sure that it's as as crystal clear as possible and one of the first comments will be boy you're getting fat okay yeah that's not pertinent to what's going on here that's not really part of it and then you know i'm watching tsn or sportsnet i'm watching other commentators i'm thinking they look bigger than i do he's definitely bigger than i am but okay and and again it's a different environment right so yeah on i don't think the youtube is necessarily great for self-esteem reading up on some of the bigger youtubers and some of the issues that go on i think part of it is again i think a lot of its age i think when you see youtubers posting pictures where they're posing with like a sports car you're just asking for negative nasty comments you're just asking for people to get mad at you you're you've you've now put a target on yourself and i i think when they do this kind of stuff when they're doing it on instagram they're doing it on on twitter or or on youtube and if they're doing it for for clout or whatever they're doing it for it just backfires a lot of the time and then they'll come across as tone deaf and an apology you know we we drive a minivan we we drive a minivan and the only reason there's two reasons i have a new minivan one because it is a tax write-off if we do things business related with it wheat's attacks right off we haven't had for uh the last three years and so yeah yeah alright if i get a brand new vehicle then part of the cost of of the monthly payments goes to that and and gets written off and we we needed a newer vehicle we've been driving vehicles that have been falling apart the whole time yvonne and i've been together i i spent 20 years with vehicles that were falling apart uh dating back to i mean my dad had cars were falling apart my ex had cars that were falling apart and i thought you know it would be nice to have to be able to get a new vehicle and again because i'm self-employed and because i don't technically have credit because i just pay for everything upfront that causes problems as as an example i get a lot of jerseys through ben ben h sports right on my main channel and ben will tell me you know shannon if i'm going to send you this jersey because i'll ask them i'll say i saw these jerseys you have and i'm interested in them and they'll say you know i'll just package them up and send them if you you won't you can pay me back a little bit later i know you're good for it i always pay him immediately that payment usually goes through i i.e transfer him usually that day he's like wow okay you paid already and i'm like i do not end up in debt i do not believe in ending up in debt if i agree to buy something from you i will pay for it immediately if if somebody says to me hey i found a mighty wing jersey which i know they have on custom throwback jerseys but try to put one in your cart it tells you they're out of sight they're sold out so somebody says hey i've got this jersey has 400 to say 400 and i look at my account i look look at my current situation i go you know what i can't justify that i'm not going to say to that person i can't pay right now but if you give it to me i'll be good for it later and if they say that if they say you know what i understand you're going through some stuff right now just i'll send it to you and don't worry about it you can pay me back later i will say no i will say no i i do not so again the credit i don't have credit i don't like the idea of having credit and because i'm in my 40s and i don't have credit apparently it's much harder for me to get a credit card or they've changed the the rules or just because i don't have a real job so they can't guarantee wages from from some craptastic job i have and so they they won't grant me a card so i may have to get one through my bank and that's a that's a kick to your self-esteem too when these cards that that are sending you hey you want a card and i'm like all right well i'll build up some credit the idea that i will buy something with this card and then i will immediately pay off that card before we've even thought about 30 days in interest and now sorry no you work you work for yourself that's nice no so another shout out to the self-esteem there so anyways there you go the the difference between what i do now and what i did before and and it all starts from this whole idea of you know shannon takes all these these these pictures and videos from around he's you know boy i tell you puts everything out there i always did i always did and it it's it's part of being honest about who i am and and being myself and yeah so there you go let me know your thoughts in the comment section below as always don't forget to hit like and subscribe if you're browsing my three just happened upon this video and yeah this is another one of those ones where if you're trying to figure out the whole youtuber thing and do i want to do it there there are some there are some pitfalls and and again overall yeah i love this i love being able to do this every day and talk to all you fine people but there are definitely times where it it gets stressful where a video will go live and then after i've put it up i go um crap and then for some reason either i have to just delete the video and start over or i have to do a video where i update something that i talked about in that first video and then it can just turn into this whole big thing and yeah there are times one one thing that i think it's also done is it's kind of muted my personality a bit as the years have gone on i've learned to just stay as even-tempered as possible and and that's through everything so even when i'm when i'm watching hockey which was like my greatest joy i don't find i get as emotionally involved now as i used to which is again you can decide whether that's a good thing or a bad thing sometimes i think it's a good thing i can watch a team i love lose the game and go well i gotta do a video and just kind of put it out of my head whereas before i would have been you know all mad and kicking stuff and screaming about how stupid the coach is and how terrible all the players are and trade everybody and yep uh-huh and now it's just not gonna do video all right well i gotta put that out of my head thank you guys so much for all your support to get here it means a lot and i will talk to you again soon

Channel: The Entertainment Guy

Views: 29,358

Rating: 4.9491019 out of 5

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Id: pyteHur7LZQ

Length: 22min 25sec (1345 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 19 2020