Q&A: “I have some questions about your YouTube stuff.”
anonymous said:
Hey Vesper! I have some questions about your YouTube stuff. Feel free to get to this as you feel like, no rush! What are the biggest differences between discussing LGBT+ stuff on tumblr vs on YouTube? Who are some other LGBT+ vloggers that you enjoy? And do you have any advice you’d give to other people considering vlogging about LGBT+ topics and their identities?
hi! i’m flattered that you’re interested in my answer to these questions. apologies in advance for the length and if my responses aren’t even helpful.
“What are the biggest differences between discussing LGBT+ stuff on tumblr vs on YouTube?”
the big differences between the two platforms make for big differences in the way discussions unfold and how one even goes about initiating a discussion, imho.
i feel like it’s much easier to have discussions on Tumblr and the discussions that i have here are much more likely to surpass the level of depth that is commonly found in more superficial, reactionary YouTube comments.
on Tumblr, content that is tailored to your interests (thanks to you choosing it yourself) is laid out back-to-back in an easy scrolling format. it’s easy to engage in a discussion by reblogging with commentary. there’s, of course, also the option of searching for content and then engaging with it in the same manner.
on YouTube, content is also tailored to your interests thanks to subscriptions, but there’s also a lot of algorithms at play that constantly suggest content to you. it’s easy enough to watch a video and then engage with it by leave a comment on it, but there is no guarantee that you will ever get a reply to your comment for a discussion to even happen. furthermore, even if you do get a response, it’s often a superficial, brief one and chances are higher that the person responding may not even be who you wanted to engage with. there’s also the option of responding to a video by creating your own response video, of course, but there’s nothing actually in place to link your response to the video that you’re responding to and video responses aren’t really conducive to discussions anyway.
as a blogger on Tumblr or content creator on YouTube, the way in which you engage with your followers or subscribers is also very different. this has already gotten ridiculously long, so in brief: making sure that i engage with the people who are taking the time to engage with my videos on YouTube requires a lot more effort and can be taxing at times. this has, in turn, affected my interaction with others’ videos because by the time i get to checking out others’ videos, i can’t even been bothered to leave comments most of the time. this sucks a lot as that is the easiest way for me to engage with other content creators, although as i said before, even if i did leave a comment i may not even get a response. collabs are also an option, of course, but i haven’t been involved in many as of yet.
“Who are some other LGBT+ vloggers that you enjoy?”
this is by no means an exhaustive list and i’m mostly going to include “small YouTubers” since most people are already familiar with bigger ones.
- based goddex
- Lane S
- uppercaseCHASE1
- Sarah Belyea
- RitchandFamous
- jesstheindecisive
- OutOfThisBinary (collab channel, but still)
- W Durham
- Kat Blaque
- Love is Vulnerability
- JD Dalton
“Do you have any advice you’d give to other people considering vlogging about LGBT+ topics and their identities?”
LGBT+ topics and identities is a pretty broad theme. try to decide what the scope of your channel will be from the beginning. what identities will you talk about? will you only talk about topics that relate to you specifically, or will you try to be all inclusive?
it’s easier, and often ‘safer,’ to stick to something that you know personally, but if you are going to talk about others’ identities and topics that don’t specifically pertain to you, be sure to do your research. even collab with someone else who is more familiar with the topic or identity, if that is a possibility for you.
also, i see it recommended a lot that if you want to be “successful” on YouTube, you should put out content regularly. a lot of vloggers try to do this and i’m sure it pays off in one regard or another. i, however, have never done that, so… *shrugs* my channel has always been for my own benefit rather than to entertain others, so i’m content uploading things at my own pace.
one of the most daunting things about YouTube, at least for me, is that the content you put out will be like a shot of you frozen in time. what you say will forever be out there unless you take it down. there is no going back and editing it and people will continue accessing that content years after the fact and for all they know or care you might as well have uploaded it yesterday. i’m not saying all this to scare you, just to say that it pays to be mindful of what you put in your videos, be it personal information about yourself or otherwise. when my anxiety gets the better of me and i get overly anxious and stressed about the things that i’ve put out or am going to put out, i just remind myself that the stuff i’ve put out in the past that i wince at now is just proof of where i was and how far i’ve come to get where i am now. it’s a shot frozen in time of where i was at that point in the journey that i’m still on today. nothing wrong with that.
i’m going to shut up now, but good luck anon! shoot me a message sometime if you do get your channel up and going? 🙂
