Take a little trip down memory lane with me really quick. It’s 2019 and I am working at one of my local bookstores in an absolutely awful environment. The only upside being a few awesome co-workers who are missing just as much sanity as I am, but at least have great senses of humor. Standing there, working in a little coffee shop section, myself and my friend Jasmine discuss the wild hair idea her starting up a Twitch channel. Fast forward down the pandemic road, and with Jasmine now moved about seven hours away, to 2020. I am in the thick of trying to “build my author platform” as all the websites and writing course yell at me to do. But to have a platform, you need “content” and my book wasn’t ready yet for release. Digging down deeper in research and they tell me to do a podcast! But, I have no clue what to talk about or how.
Messaging back and forth with my friend (and massive writing supporter) Jasmine about my apparent “platform” need, we revisit the concept of making gaming content. And thus the Choose the Mouse YouTube Gaming channel came to be. We spent nearly that whole summer of 2020 recording as many videos as we could to build up a content buffer for when we both would inevitably run into things that would keep us from being able to work on these projects. Three years later our YouTube channel is now two years old! (Took a year of prep before we could launch it finally)
If you’ve spent any amount of time on social media platforms, or really the internet period, you’ll have likely had some sort of interaction with YouTube content. Whether it be by engaging in it or by creating it.
Maybe some of you are the curious type like I am, where you enjoy falling down researching rabbit holes to figure out how that particular part of the world works. Maybe others are like the other side of me, dreaming about making a big impact in the world and hope that YouTube could open those doors for you. Or perhaps you’re also simply a creative person and the ability to step into the film making world intrigues you.
If you connect with any of those areas, it’s likely you have watched at the very least a handle of YouTube videos that are meant to show you how to “break through” the YouTube algorithm, be seen, grow a channel, so on and so forth. Or even if you’re just a casual viewer you’ve also probably come across a video where a youtuber has had to take some sort of “mental health break” or shut down their channel altogether because the harshness of the YouTube world was becoming dangerous for their emotional and mental well being.
If you’ve spent any amount of time online you have easily come across the vitriol people can spew against each other. Or on the other end of the spectrum you have the concept of parasocial relationships and how those can be incredibly invasive over content creator’s lives. But the thing is, while we see a lot of these mental facets, I think there is a whole other side to YouTube and the video creation world that doesn’t get covered and can be just as valid a reason for making a person want to quit.
I’m talking about the struggle with technology.
Let me give you a “for instance”:
Just recently Jasmine has started working on her very solo first playthrough series. In order to play this game, and other higher quality products, she ended up getting an upgraded PC unit. This should have had the needed strength to run high graphics and record without issue. Yet on first boot up, her computer crashed. She had to bring it in to figure out what went wrong. So the playthrough was delayed while she got it looked at. Once done she goes again to record the first video.
Complication number two, in the post production part of video editing I need her facecam footage to be recorded into a separate file from her gameplay footage. I also need the audio track from the gameplay to be separate from her personal microphone recording. This allows me to fix separate problems on the audio tracks (balancing game music volume with her speaking volume) without having to scrap the whole thing. The way Jasmine initially recorded these files were no longer supported with the recording software she used. Hours of research later we discover a method through the OBS program, basically telling us to just open the program twice and set it to record the game in one window and the facecam in the other. We were unaware of how much power this would zap from her computer (in tech speak, used up way too much CPU). She was only able to record for thirty minutes before the game crashed yet again.
Number three, Jasmine’s computer died on her completely (what people call the “blue screen of death”) and so she had to send it out to be fixed once more.
Number four, Jasmine gets her computer back and now we have to figure out how to record differently so it won’t breakdown. Days of researching and I finally find a YouTube tutorial showing me how to separate the recording files as Jasmine records just like we need. Or so we thought. Jasmine follows the tutorial step by step and does a two hour recording session. I get the footage only to find out that none of the files separated and to top it off her personal microphone didn’t pick up any of her sound!
We can’t scrap the footage because this is a story based game – meaning it would get confusing to watch if you took out all that plot. And so I decide to try and salvage it by turning it into a mini “reaction” series where I record myself reacting to Jasmine’s style of gameplay and give my own commentary.
Problem number five, I can’t get her footage to download to my laptop. It fails three times, each time taking between 1 to 2 hours before said failure. I finally get it working and start my recording session at 12am.
Then comes the editing. It takes me almost two full days to edit all the footage together because my program kept glitching and crashing. An example of said glitch is the photo at the top of this very long article 😅
All of this to produce only five videos.
From random static in microphones, to editing program failures, to video corruption (lost a three hour long recording session once to this) – there are tons of minute details involved in the technical side of working with YouTube. And truth be told, when you’re stepping into this world with only floor level knowledge of the tech world this becomes very overwhelming and very frustrating pretty fast. Not to mention the difficulty in trying to research how to fix all the random things that break when you have no base language for what it is you need help fixing. I have learned triple the amount of tech terms in our two years on YouTube than I’ve known prior.
My main piece of advice for anyone who is wanting to step into the YouTube world and really wants to grow their channel is prepare to become a researcher. There is going to be a lot of jargon. There are going to be so many “how to” videos. And there is going to be a lot of technology based growing pains. It’s going to be a mix of videos, articles and a whole lot of trial and error. It may feel impossible and way over your head, and you’re not alone in those feelings. It’s rough and there is no singular method to “crack the system.” Despite what some videos or articles may promise you. Also beware those types, they’re usually just trying to sell you something.
One of these days I might go into some of the different programs, devices, general setup we use for Choose the Mouse, mainly because I despise gatekeeping any sort of information for all my creative brothers and sisters out there. But today, I just needed to get my aggravation off my chest. 🥴
With all the talks about there warning you about burn out, or how to fight against algorithm woes, it just seems no one remembers to warn you that in a lot of ways technology can really suck! 😆
Oh the prices we pay for creativity…the currency is pieces of my sanity apparently. 😂