What It's ACTUALLY Like Doing Youtube *tips and tricks*

[Music] hi friends hello hi how are you i hope you guys are having an amazing day today hello hi and welcome to this video i i don't have a candle burning today i just forgot but today is gonna be a more chill video i decided that one of my favorite things that i love doing and love sort of talking about is youtube and like being a youtuber and all of that i love giving people advice on youtube i love just talking about how it works in general i feel like before i started doing youtube i had no idea how anything worked and so i always find it fun to make videos around kind of the platform how it works everything like that and so i asked you guys on twitter if you had any sort of like specific questions for me or any like any youtuber regarding youtube i do want to give a quick disclaimer that i can only speak kind of for myself because youtube is very different for everybody everybody's analytics are different everybody's experience is different but i do feel like there are some sort of tricks and tips that can be helpful if you're trying to like grow a channel or even if you're just interested in how everything works i think this could be a fun video so let's do it i also was not anticipating the amount of questions i got so i'm really sorry if i don't answer your question i i really thought this would be like a more low-key but anyway uh when would you have to start filing your taxes more than once a year okay a lot of questions were about taxes and i think that this is really really interesting because i did not know this when i was starting in youtube and boy was that something i needed to learn so if you are a youtuber i know that currently they might be changing it so they might be changing it so youtube takes out taxes i know also they might be changing it so if you live in a different country you have to pay more taxes there's a kind of some changes happening right now but as it stands right now on youtube with taxes just in general you have to pay your own taxes every year and you have to file your own so basically youtube when they pay me every month they are not taking out any taxes the way that like when i worked in a daycare center they would take a percentage of my paycheck out before it even got in my hands and that would be going to my taxes so youtube doesn't do that they basically just give you all your money and they're like figure it out i personally work with somebody to do my taxes because i have no idea what i'm doing and i think that taxes can get a little bit complicated but they basically advise me to be putting aside 30 to 40 of my income per month purely for taxes so every month when i get paid you get paid monthly on youtube every month when i get paid i take out about 30 of that and put it in a separate account that is an account that i just don't touch it's like the savings account i throw it in there it sits there and like that's that on that and the question about how often you pay so normally you would pay maybe every i think it's every april is when filing happens so you pay yearly how i pay my taxes now is i pay quarterly and basically i make estimates so they're not even like official payments like i still could owe more or less they're estimates based on how much i have made so far and personally that's just easier for me because i'm taking out my own taxes it's better for me to instead of having all this money sitting in the bank waiting to pay taxes just to pay it as i go and i also know that some youtubers do it differently i know some youtubers they just take the l when it's time to pay taxes and they don't put that money aside and then they use like one full paycheck because it's too much to put it aside which i totally get personally i like to put my aside just so i know it's like out of sight out of mind it's basically like money i didn't even make i started doing the quarterly taxes this past year that's when i started doing it just because it was like the easiest way for me to keep track of everything the other interesting thing about taxes i could talk about taxes for like a year because it's very interesting to me but so basically with taxes obviously pay your taxes first of all and number one i'm a very happy taxpayer like i feel like i should be paying taxes i don't necessarily agree with all the places my taxes go in the united states but i definitely agree with paying them to fund social programs you think that's interesting about taxes though especially now because i recently filed to be an llc which means that i am a registered company my my brand of smokey glow is like a registered business i could talk about that too i did that for multiple reasons it's much easier if you're an llc to write things off as business expenses which for example if i buy a new computer like i bought this new um desktop over here at the beginning of the year that is a tax write-off so however much i spent on that computer save a little bit on taxes i don't have to pay the taxes on that and it's the same thing with like my internet bill is pretty much completely a tax write-off makeup that i show in videos is a tax write-off any equipment i buy is a tax write-off we were able to write off this room in the house and our dining room because that's where we filmed the podcast we were able to write off those spaces on monthly payments that we make for this house we were able to write those off as well most of my phone bill was able to be a write-off if you drive a lot for your youtube channel so if i had been traveling a lot i could write off the gas that i paid to get to that location for example when i went to chicago last year to shoot the midas smoky glow promo shots that all the money that i spent in gas to get there was a tax write-off had i paid for my own hotel when i was there would have been a tax write-off so you got to keep track of those things and honestly i recommend keeping track of those things because it's there for a reason i have spreadsheets like nobody's business that keep track of all of my expenses and everything like that i will say if you're writing off a lot run that stuff by your tax person to make sure that like you're writing off the right things like for example i can't write off clothing i couldn't write off this shirt just because i'm like wearing it in a video uh if you buy those clothes to do a designated haul and that haul like the center of the video is around doing a haul then you can write off those clothes however if you're just wearing the shirt you can't write it off if there are rules my whole thing is i'd rather pay a little bit more in taxes and not get like audited and have them be like oh you weren't supposed to write off this blush so i i'm a little bit more weird about it like i don't like to do two too many write-offs i like to just try to keep it exactly the things that are within the law i don't try to do any loopholes and that's honestly what i would recommend so taxes are complicated if you're making enough money on youtube or you're paying taxes i would recommend just having somebody help you with it because the first year i actually made money i just filed with like turbo tax and i ended up paying way more than i probably needed to had i known somebody who understood the tax code a little bit better so that's kind of my big advice with that but yeah taxes are definitely complicated and i did not really think about that when i was first starting out it also can be tricky too because on youtube money is so weird so you could make like 30 cents one month and then the next month you made like a thousand dollars and you're like what so so it can be really tricky once you start making it really quickly and if it's sporadic income it's all that stuff so but definitely do pay them definitely pay your taxes like what's a good editing software for a mac honestly i think you can get away with imovie forever um i upgraded to final cut pro and honestly it works for me because i have a lot of different devices and once you download final cut pro on your apple id um it goes on all your devices so it was worth it for me to be able to use it everywhere however i use final cut pro but i think imovie is fine the difference between final cut pro and imovie is really just small differences that i notice because i upload videos like four to three to four times a week and also especially with like the vlogging now and the podcast i noticed those differences but if you're just starting out honestly any of the free editing softwares um that any computer has is gonna be totally fine i think editing software might be one of the last things i would recommend investing if we had like a list of where to start investing i feel like it goes in this order in my opinion first lighting you can build a youtube channel with an iphone camera like i promise you you can build a youtube audience with an iphone camera the camera in your phone is probably very good quality and probably going to be better than most cheaper camcorders or cameras that you can buy i would say lighting can significantly improve any camera quality i used to film on my laptop's um webcam so you could tell in my first few videos if you look at a video i filmed at night um versus a video that i filmed during the day when it was light out and i would film in front of a window the lighting just improved the video quality so much so i would say if you can afford like a ring light or i use these lights right here they're from amazon they're led lights i'll link them down below they're they're not too too expensive but they're also they're not like thousand dollar lights but they're also definitely not cheap but i would say if you can invest in any sort of lighting that would be first then i would say invest in a camera if you can afford to do so i would really look at canon dslrs i've only ever used canon dslrs and i only have positive things to say about my canons they work so well they're great cameras i really love them easy to use easy to make the settings work for you like love the canons this camera right now is the canon rebel eos t8i but i was also recently using the canon 80d this is a new camera i just upgraded and then all the other sort of stuff like you know editing software computers you know things like that i think there's a misconception that you need perfect camera quality i don't think you need that as much anymore i think people actually appreciate the sort of simplicity of simple setups versus these highly overproduced ones so my whole thing is like don't invest money until you make money that's what i would recommend what kind of content does well on youtube right now regular beauty content is not the same yeah definitely i would say if you want to get into beauty youtube right now tutorials are kind of not the way anymore while i do think there's still a smaller audience that does appreciate the tutorials i think that you have to have something interesting or different about them a good example is like antonio garza kind of came in with tutorials but the tutorials weren't real tutorials they were like funny really heavily edited like interesting crea whether you like the editing style or not they were interesting videos that weren't just your standard beauty guru from like 2015 tutorials um i would say if you're trying to get in right now into the makeup it's so hard to say but i would just do different types of things like maybe do like a get ready with me i feel like people like the chatty get ready with me is i feel like people enjoy videos where you're honest about products and you give honest reviews about things this sounds bad but it's true like i feel like negativity sometimes does get more views in the sense of like negativity about makeup tends to get views i think people are kind of overhearing what they need to buy and now they want to be talked out of things they don't necessarily want to be sold on something unless it truly is good and i'd also just say just being honest about every product i think to thrive in the makeup space right now though you have to be sort of doing that more kind of creative content it can't just be as simple as like filming an eyeshadow tutorial how do you post without feeling judged by those you know in real life i am sure that people i know in real life judge me i'm sure that people i went to high school with are judging me i grew up in a very small town i'm positive that they judge me for these videos um but i also know that weirdly i've had people that were like childhood friends of mine reach out to me and they're like oh my god i found your youtube channel like how we haven't talked like 10 years they're like i follow you now i love your channel you know and it's that's really sweet i feel like more often than not people are going to be really nice and supportive like yeah some people might be but like more often than not i think people are going to be pretty nice about everything so in what ways has your life changed even small stuff that no one would have guessed it's very weird because i think where i'm at right now because i'm i'm i'm definitely like a mid-level youtuber i'm not like one of the big guys not like a big player but i also like live in a town where like nobody is a youtuber like nobody's doing like social media really here there's not a lot of us here in roch there's a few like stephanie harlow's here i know but there's not a lot of us in roch and i would just say like it's very strange because in one aspect everything in my life has changed and in another aspect nothing in my life has changed because like it's still relatively the same um i think the big thing that's changed is me like personally that i wouldn't have anticipated i've changed a lot in the sense that i think i've grown a much stronger work ethic in just life in general like my day-to-day real life i think my work ethic has definitely drastically improved as a result of this youtube channel um i think that having to make your own schedule and having to solely you don't have anybody in your ear like telling you okay time to clock in like it's time to work like you have to be very self-motivated to do youtube in this capacity um at least for me i had to be very self-motivated to get everything going and so i think that in a way something that changed in me was definitely i grew a much i didn't have a great work ethic before i started doing this and i think that this definitely helped with that so that's kind of one interesting way how do you find work life balance your office is at home your life opinion brands is your income yeah it's not easy um right now it's not easy that's that's very very tough um i don't like to complain about youtube because it's it's such a blessing to be able to do it but i will say that i would recommend if you are starting out or if you're a youtuber right now or even just i feel like the supplies to people who use social media is like take a break sometimes from social media i was explaining this to charles the other day because he was like you know you're always online and i was like well what do you do when you're bored for fun you go on twitter you know you scroll through twitter you scroll through facebook you scroll through tik tok like that's your way to unwind and relax that's how a lot of people unwind and relax they browse through social media but for me that is working because if i'm liking a tweet that's an endorsement i have to think about what i'm doing i have to be kind of hyper aware of how i'm acting online i have to see things and then give opinions on them and it's a lot i think for me what i've been working on lately is especially because i struggle really badly with insomnia and i'll stay up all night just like it just absolutely spiraling and so i think a big thing for me is just like putting my phone away i think there's an extra layer to it when you're a commentary channel or a drama channel because you don't want to like miss something like there's always so much happening um in the youtube space and if you're offline too long it's like what if i miss this big scandal and it's like so what i've done to combat that is i've taken a lot of pressure off of myself of not necessarily feeling like i need to be the first person to comment on a story not feeling like i need to be the first person there because i used to used to feel like i needed to be the first one to give an opinion on something and now i've definitely scaled back and i'm like i don't mind being a little bit later to the party and taking more time to kind of formulate this opinion and i think that that has been helping my videos a little bit because i think when i was too reactionary it just ended up in me and a lot of drama channels can do this successfully they can just like say the facts and be totally right on the money like within an hour of a story breaking um and i just can't really do that i ended up making a lot of mistakes my my commentary was sometimes not very well thought out so i think that's been a learning thing for me too is sometimes not being first is kind of a good thing i think how did you learn to edit um i practice google practice and google literally just google how to do things i didn't know how to insert a picture into my like videos for so long and once i googled it it was like the easiest thing in the world to do like it wasn't hard to insert a picture you literally just have to google what you don't know and also biggest advice i have is like don't be lazy with the edits it's very easy especially when you're editing all of your own videos to get sort of complacent and be like oh i don't want to throw in this one little thing even if it would enhance the video a little bit like i don't want to take the time to do that just do it like take the extra time take the extra minute to enhance your videos a little bit more because that enhancement could mean the difference between like a person just casually watching and a person being a subscriber because they appreciate the effort so that's a big thing i would say is like learn how to do it through google practice it a lot and also i think too a lot of it comes with just time i if you watch a lot of my older videos i feel like you can tell that i didn't exactly know when i should be cutting things i didn't exactly know when i should be sort of like cutting pauses there was a lot of long awkward space in those videos which some people liked personally that's not my editing style anymore i like things to be a little bit more concise so i think it really just comes with time finding a style and googling things that you don't know how to do should you choose the algorithm over talking about whatever you really want to no i feel like when you don't actually want to be talking about something and you don't actually really care you're just doing it for views i genuinely feel like people can know i've done that a few times where i've been like man i should just talk about this like you know i know that everybody's talking about it and people can tell you didn't actually care about this and i think that's more damaging to have a video circulating you almost don't want that like the last thing you want is a video that gets a lot of views that you know you you can tell you didn't really have your heart in it you didn't really care about the topic it's so much better even if you get less views to have a video on a topic that you like genuinely care about and people can sense that i think that it's always better to choose what you actually want to talk about versus favoring the algorithm you know it's also really impossible to know what the algorithm is going to favor like i have videos that i had no idea were gonna do as well as they did and i have other ones that i thought were gonna be like a slam dunk and they did horribly so you can't even really predict the algorithm so just do what you want to do you're never gonna be able to predict the video that actually ends up doing really well is never gonna be the one you think it is like it's just never gonna happen that way how to make content that people actually want to watch make content that you like watching i like watching my videos my old ones especially i like going back and like i just might sound conceited i like them like my favorite videos i've ever made i can re-watch those and enjoy them for the content that they are um and then there are some videos i don't like doing that with usually i do have to take a minute because usually by the time i'm done editing i'm so over a video like i genuinely like don't even like it anymore i'm so over it so usually it'll take a couple weeks but if i can go back and genuinely enjoy watching one of my old videos then that's a good video for me um and that's what i try to aspire to do is create content that i enjoy watching and then i feel like that kind of helps you know if you wouldn't even watch your own content and you don't even enjoy watching it because it's like boring to you why would other people want to watch your content you know how many years did it take before you started making money lots of money questions as well um and i don't like to give specific like amounts and stuff number one because i don't know if you're allowed to number two i just don't feel like that's you know beneficial but i will say um this past year of 2020 was the first year i started making like actual like money um and then in 20 i started my channel in 2017. i made no money until the summer of 2018. i had a very unfortunate timing with my channel where i was eligible to be monetized right when they were changing the rules around monetization it used to be you just needed a thousand subscribers and then they changed it to where you needed like a certain amount of watch time and a certain amount of subscribers and whatever anyway um i got in at the wrong time and it took me eight even those eligible took me eight months to start making money so i didn't start making any money until uh about june of 2018 and then from 2018 to 2019 to the beginning of 2020 i still wasn't making i was making like okay money like i was definitely making decent it was a good it was like kind of part-time job money but then in 2020 is when things really started picking up and i started making more so i guess around the time i hit 100 000 subscribers i was making like oh this is like money now you know what i mean i would say around to that point is when i would say yeah but honestly it really just depends on views it doesn't even matter subscriber count if you have 50 000 subscribers but you're getting 4 million views a month for whatever reason you're making fantastic money like like you're making really good money so it really just depends more on view count and even now really sporadic like one month i could make x amount and then the next month i could make half that and then the next month i make triple that and then the next month i make a fourth of that like it goes back and forth sometimes very very sporadic and that's low key why i actually understand why people now that i've been doing more sponsorships and things like that i understand why people like sponsorships and like the appeal because the guaranteed income that that can provide you it's not even about like the money necessarily it's the security like you'd have a guaranteed paycheck coming when you sign a year-long deal with a brand um and that's something that i think a lot of youtubers crave because it's so sporadic like money is so fickle absence is so fickle that it's like it's a little bit almost scary to make sort of like life commitments whereas with sponsorships if you sign a year-long deal and they're saying we're going to pay you x amount every month for this sponsorship which i have a couple of those deals it's it's not even about like oh i'm making bank it's like oh i have a guaranteed income or at least this year and i know i'm gonna make this much but i get the appeal of sponsorships a lot more the more that i grow on youtube i used to be a little bit more like kind of anti that because i didn't really get that but now that i'm in that position my views have changed a little bit more i still don't think you should do shady sponsorships but i will say i understand more why people do more sponsorships and things like that because it really does give you that consistency that you don't get in other places on youtube would you still post regularly if youtube sponsors did not pay you yes i would absolutely be posting less though because it wouldn't be my job so it wouldn't be like my full-time gig it would be like my side thing like kind of how it was for the first few years i was doing it like i wasn't making any money i just liked posting i think it would have just stayed like that i probably wouldn't be posting like four times a week i probably wouldn't be doing all this extra stuff but i probably still would be posting like a couple times a week and just doing it for fun because i think at the end of the day like you really have to love it and this is where i think people get tripped up you kind of have to love like the actual creating process i think people love being youtubers and social media influencers for a lot of reasons that don't revolve around the creating process and i think that that is like so strange to me because to me it's like you have to love making the videos like making the content i feel like you have to genuinely enjoy all of that like the editing process the filming process the coming up with ideas like you have to enjoy that to do it but i probably wouldn't be taking it as seriously as i take it now or like investing all this money into it or like you know posting as much content like absolutely would not have gone the extra mile but i definitely would still be posting do you wish you started youtube earlier no i'm so glad i started when i did i believe i was how old was i in 2017 i was like 21 20 i think i was 22 when i started my youtube channel i had worked real jobs that sucked i i was in college for a short amount of time i feel like i had a decent head on my shoulders i definitely was not who i am now but i definitely had like a decent head on my shoulders and i'm happy i started when i did i think i was in a good place to start being like a person on the internet at this age you know i think that that was definitely the right timing for me i do not wish that i had started when i was younger i feel like i would have gone i would have just i can't even imagine like being 18 and i can't imagine even now being 18 and having the amount of subscribers that i have currently much less being bigger than i am right now at like 18. i literally cannot imagine so i'm glad i started when i did yeah i feel like it was the right time for me how many of your videos are passion projects versus what's trendy that's a very good question um i would say well that's it's kind of interesting because the my the evolution of videos were definitely passion projects especially those first the first real one i did which was the evolution of gabby hannah that one was like the first one i really took like i took so much time on that video and i like spent so much effort and like really deep deeply dove into that whole thing it took me so long to edit it took me so long to do everything um and i had done a cup i done a video previously i did the evolution of david dobrik i think but i didn't do nearly as much as i did for the gabby hanna video that was like truly my passion project for a minute and that video paid off like i got like a million views of my first video to ever hit a million views and it was definitely also what was trendy but it was also like the passion project i feel like the sweet spot you have to find with youtube is kind of figure out what is trendy and also what you like doing and that's where you're gonna find a good place to be so for me now the evolution of videos are always kind of my passion projects i always sort of dive into those head first and they just happen to be the best performing videos on my channel for the most part so that's just kind of how it happened but i think that's a really good place to be in them because i like making them i enjoy it and they do really well so if you could change anything about youtube what would it be i would absolutely change that when you dislike a comment nothing happens i don't understand why comments even have dislike features if it does nothing like if you dislike a comment like if somebody leaves a really nasty like vile comment if you dislike it nothing happens it doesn't show how many people disliked it it only shows how many people like it and i don't understand and it doesn't get like down voted or you know what i mean there's so many other places where comments that get like bad engagement or less engagement it pushes them lower but on youtube for whatever reason the down vote does nothing but for creators like our videos if you down vote a video then that shows which i actually agree with that i like that you can see um likes to dislikes i personally look at that as a creator i look at that to see kind of gauge where the video is going and how it's doing most of my videos have really high numbers but some of them don't there's a couple that have like 85 like to dislike and i take note of that and then i can look at the comments and figure out why that is however i don't understand why comments people can leave like nasty comments and it'll show the three people that liked it but it won't show the like 50 people that disliked it i hate that i would absolutely change that do you think you'll know when it's time to stop i feel like youtubers always have a bad end yeah oh yeah i talked about this at length with charles the other day because i was like it's so weird because i cannot imagine myself not doing this i cannot imagine myself not being on youtube i can't imagine i just can't picture it because it's so much of my life right now it's like so much of what i do in my day-to-day life is this um and i can't really picture it but i also was saying like i don't want to be one of those people who like everybody's sick of me and i'm still like hi like here i am and i also think for me personally and i think a lot of other youtubers this is the case where like you can use this platform as a springboard to just like do something else and like that's ideally i think what i would like to do is use this platform to do other things that maybe go beyond just commentating on makeup and youtube drama and things like that do you ever not want to discuss a hot topic not for any reason but you just don't yeah absolutely a lot of the time i don't want to talk about things so i don't there's certain topics for whatever reason i mean usually there is a reason why i don't want to talk about it but usually yeah there's topics i just don't talk about and i feel like the thing about youtube that's so great is there's so many channels that offer commentary and so many channels that do similar things to what i do that if i don't want to cover something chances are they're going to cover it um or vice versa if they don't want to do something chances are i'm gonna cover it so chances are now at least somebody's gonna cover it we're not in a position where like if you don't talk about it it's not being seen you know which i think is good do you feel fulfilled in your job that is such a good question yes yeah i think so i think i feel pretty fulfilled doing youtube i yeah i feel like i feel fulfilled right now i don't know if i will in a couple of years but right now i feel fulfilled but i think that's because i i'm able to talk about things that i love that are fun like makeup and candles and clothes but i'm also able to talk about things that i feel very passionately about and have opinions on so right now i feel very fulfilled i don't know if i always will and if i there comes a time where i don't i don't really know what i would do i don't know if i would just like leave immediately or if i would slowly leave or how i would adjust if i would change my content like i don't really know i haven't gotten to that place yet so that's a great question though i've never really thought about that do i feel do i feel fulfilled yeah i guess i do um tips on staying motivated during a slow growth oh listen i've been through my share of ebbs and flows i think i'm about to enter an ebb right now youtube is all the ebbs and flows like if you look at freaking any youtuber social blade for the most part most youtubers their subscriber growth is gonna go like a freaking roller coaster like it is very rare that you have just constant growth and you never stop you're always gonna have periods where you're a little bit red on social blade where there's a lull where you're gaining nobody even especially when you're first starting and there's going to be times i remember i hit 4 000 subscribers in like a freaking week after my john kuckian video my first one i gained all these subscribers really fast and then i sat there for months and just like had no growth and then i remember finally after a few months i hit 10k and then i sat at 10k for a couple of months and then i finally had this big growth burst during glomis and then i sat uh for months i think it was like six months i sat at 16 000. and then um in 2019 i had a huge boom randomly because of my olivia jade video and then it kind of ebbed off and slowed down and even right now i was in kind of a lull at the beginning of this year at the beginning of 2021 where i wasn't really growing um and then i had the nikki and gabby video just happened to hit right grew really quickly probably now will face another kind of little bit of a lull um it's just how it happens it's just you're never going to have that consistent booming growth all the time so you have to kind of expect it and also i think what i try to focus on is if i am in a lull i don't want to lose people i feel like i've done pretty good at this if you have that gain just try to do everything you can to make those subscribers that are new happy and that organic content will contribute to growth and also will contribute to more sort of like loyal subscribers that like like you for you you know and not just like one viral video that's always my big thing do you ever just want to quit yes absolutely i don't though that's the secret just don't just don't quit you know don't quit how much money did you make in december oh glowmis okay this is the tea this is like some true tea here and i'm gonna be genuine here if you're gonna do vlogmas it's a lot of work it's a lot of time commitment but even if you are a small channel and you're gonna post every day and you have like a small audience the income that you get from that doing that work and putting in the effort to do something like glowmis or vlogmas or whatever absolutely worth it like i will say the the rewards you get for working hard during that month is absolutely worth it the thing about december is the cpms are ridiculously high because it's you know holiday seasons advertisers are paying a premium um and you will make very very good money all of my glow misses have been some of my highest earning months on youtube were glomus and so you know take that what you will i'm not going to say how much i made i feel like that's a little tacky but i will say it's a lot of money and it's very good money despite the amount of work and stress that uploading every day can cause we'll end on this one how has youtube impacted your life negatively and positively this is a good one to end on um okay let's do negatives and we'll end on a positive negatively it definitely affects your mental health there's no way around that at whatever size you're at i know creators who have five thousand subscribers i know creators who have five million subscribers it affects your mental health one way or another people are going to be rude to you people are going to be mean to you people are going to say horrible things about you people are going to lie about you people are going to make up things about you people are going to have a perception in their head about you that you are a certain way even though that's you know that's not how you are so much so to a point where sometimes you start to think they're right and it can drive you crazy if you think about it too much um so that aspect of it is is tough it's not something that you can just you know get over like that's tough when people have made up their mind about you and they think that you're a bad person and there's nothing you can do about that that's not normal and it's not something that you can just get through so that part sucks also i would say negatively i definitely have somewhat of an unhealthy relationship with success and that's something i'm working on a lot where i place a lot of my value as a person um in the success of how i'm doing on youtube and that is not healthy um and i realized that i was i didn't even realize that was happening i didn't realize i was doing that until um last december and i realized all of a sudden that i had put all of who i was as a person and all of my value and all of my success into channel growth and being well liked and being good on youtube and having subscriber gain and i put so much of my self-worth into the numbers and the analytics that when things faltered and when things went wrong i thought it wasn't just oh my channel's going poorly it was i'm i'm i'm no longer worthy as a person like my self-worth is lowered because of this and i think that a lot of youtubers struggle with that it's so hard not to when every single day youtube is telling you that analytics are the only thing that matters um so i'm working on that now in therapy and i just made an appointment for next month so i'm gonna start going to therapy for that but also i just talked to charles about it and you know working through that feeling has been really important so that part kind of sucks when you feel like your whole self-worth is dictated by a channel um the positives though i will say so many um number one i love that i have a community i love that i get so many different perspectives opinions even on something as simple as like makeup like recently my new thing is but i find it so fascinating how people in other parts of the world view makeup and like what makeup is popular in you know japan what makeup is popular in south america what makeup is popular there that maybe isn't here i love that i know all of those things because you guys tell me them like i love hearing from everybody different life experiences and different perspectives on drama because of different things i love all of that that is why i started doing this channel and to this day is my favorite thing about this channel obviously on a monetary level it's changed my life entirely i posted a vlog the other day about me and charles like house hunting and even just through the house hunting experience and starting to look at houses and knowing that we can afford a house that is nicer than i could have ever dreamed of affording when i first started my social work degree just because youtube has allowed me to save enough money to put a down payment on a home that is like the home of my dreams i actually like cry um i like genuinely get teary-eyed thinking about that um because monetarily youtube has absolutely changed my life the fact that i've been able to start a retirement fund and actually contribute to my future is like makes me cry um because i don't know why i got so lucky that i got to do this for a job i don't know how long it's going to last but i'm very appreciative that monetarily i have been able to do things for myself that are going to help me greatly in the future and i'm able to invest in something like a home for my future family because of this freaking channel like that's insanity to me and if you had told me when i started that i was going to be able to do that i literally never would have believed you um so obviously monetarily it's changed my life in every facet and i would also say just for my confidence while it definitely youtube it's kind of a double-edged sword because it can be so detrimental to your confidence i i think i'm just a generally more much more confident person i think back to who i used to be before i started this channel and i think back to how sort of timid i would be in conversations around difficult topics and how i would be afraid to speak up on things or how i would almost want to be kind of people-pleasing and i would want to like just agree with people to not cause a strife and now i'm like let's bring let's open the debate stage like let's let's debate let's chat like let's do it like i feel like i'm so much more um confident in how i speak i'm so much more confident in my opinions i'm more confident just as a person in general and i think that youtube has absolutely done that for me as well i think just there's something about having to sort of talk for a living that makes you much more confident in how you speak and i think that that is a really cool thing as well so a lot of positives a lot of negatives but overall would not change it for anything in the world that has absolutely changed my entire life uh overall in a very positive way for sure crazy so yeah that was my little q a i hope you guys liked it i hope it was helpful for anybody i'm gonna link all of my equipment down below that i use just so you guys can get an idea but again don't feel like you have to invest until you start making money i i literally grew to i think i was at like 4 000 with just a laptop webcam and then i grew to 10 000 with a camcorder that i bought for like a hundred dollars and a ring light so don't feel like you need to invest until you're making money i love you guys so much if you like this video please like and subscribe or just like or just subscribe or do neither honestly just so happy you're watching me thank you so much for being here my merch my social media and everything i'm wearing on my face will be linked down below along with some links and information in my little social justice spotlight about the rise and asian hate crimes since the start of the covet 19 pandemic super important stay informed stay involved i love you guys so much and i will see you in the next one bye [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Smokey Glow

Views: 72,808

Rating: 4.9757118 out of 5

Keywords: Smokey Glow, Q&A, Youtube, How to start a Youtube Channel, How to make it on youtube, how much do youtubers make, Makeup youtube, Makeup I love, Makeup I hate, What Youtube is like, What being a youtuber is like

Id: 0-lSYMFp4Gs

Length: 36min 32sec (2192 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 06 2021