It’s a dumb title, I know. Anything can be art – it just depends on the creator.
One of my favorite topics to contemplate is how much a person should compromise their product (whatever it is) to achieve popularity and success. I watch a lot of channels on how to grow your YouTube channel, and I ignore most of their advice. I am not 100% sure why I have a YouTube channel, but it has something to do with giving back to the Internet, and something to do with self-expression, and something to do with self-gratification, and ego is in there somewhere.
I’ve blogged before about channels who cater to their viewers 100% of the time – eliminate the humor, eliminate anything that might make some random dude on the Internet want to NOT watch your channel. No political views, no humor, no rants, no controversial opinions, nothing that might offend someone. To be fair, I do try to make sure I’m not doing politics or religion on the channel. That’s become harder lately, as anti-science people think God will save them from getting sick and making other people sick. Let’s not go any further than that.
Any humor in a YouTube video will cause you to lose a percentage of your audience. I’m reminded of how music is the same way – if you wanted to be on top of the charts right now, you’re restricted to pop, rap, or a combo of both. If the music biz followed the advice of YouTubers, all the other genres would be gone.
Ben Levin is my hero. If you haven’t watched his YouTube channel, Ben is a composer who makes trippy music and trippy videos. I love some of them. I can’t stand others. And that’s great – Ben is making art. He doesn’t care what I think, nor should he.
If you make YouTube videos, you can see the exact points in time where you lose viewers. The business advice is to eliminate those items from your videos – no humor, no introductions, no logo/branding, just get right to the point. Don’t infect too much personality. Yet some of the biggest channels have humor, branding, and lots of personality.
I’m reminded of one of my favorite Steven Wilson quotes. To paraphrase, he said if you want to be a true musical artist, don’t plan on making a living at it – just make your art. If you’re lucky, you’ll develop an audience – but if you change your art to be more “common,” you’ll lose the pieces that make you unique. I think he’s right. Having a career as a pop star is different than having a career as an actual artist. I’m not here to say one is better than the other – we all have to work for a living. If I had the chance to sell out and make millions, you bet I’d do it. But it’s far more likely that people who sell out won’t make millions. In fact, it’s what will happen (with very very very few exceptions.)
Ten people will watch a video on my channel, and 7 or 8 of them will dislike the humor and leave. I’m OK with that. I’m not going to change who I am to be popular, as if this were high school. I did high school already – most of it was stupid.
BUT. Steven Wilson didn’t get to where he’s at without an understanding of marketing and advertising. And knowing who to hire to help him. However, no one would have helped him if his music was terrible.
In the new music biz, if you can sell out 600 seat venues at a rate of 2 per state in the US, you can make a living at music. You won’t get rich, but you can make a living.
No witty conclusion here – I don’t have anything against people who want to make as much money as possible on YouTube. Do I consider my own videos “art?” No. My videos are supposed to be edutainment. You like them or you don’t. I enjoy making them. And I will definitely do the ad thing once I have enough subscribers, because music is an expensive hobby and I’ve spent money on the channel (lights, time, etc.)
My hope is that 90% of the people who check out my channel will leave, but the 10% will remain because they like the style and the format.
