I have a series of blog posts on this site about starting a YouTube guitar channel, where I do posts about what it’s like to go through the process of making a video every week. I’ve been at it for over a year now. My goal was to get 1,000 subscribers in 2 years. After one year and about four months, I’m at 839 subscribers, so I’m ahead of schedule.
The analytics are super interesting. You can see, in any video, where people stopped watching, which parts they skipped, which parts were most popular, etc. And based on that, you could adjust your content to appeal to the widest possible audience and make most people marginally happy. I’ve seen it on the other channels – there are a lot of guitar channels with no conversations, no humor, tight scripts like TV, and as a result I subscribe to like 200 channels and probably watch 6 of them.
I’m not dumb enough to call anyone out, and I have no problem with anyone’s channel. But too many channels are boring pedal reviews which act like every new pedal is a gift from the Tone Gods. Forgive me if I don’t faint with each new Klon clone or delay pedal.
I’m still learning how to make the videos I want to make, which is not the same as the videos other people want me to make. I’m definitely developing a group of subscribers that are older and more interested in discussions. Many younger people want instant gratification. My channel is a bad fit for them.
The truth is that when you’re really small, like 35 subscribers, you’ll almost never see negative comments. You’re just not popular enough. Once I got past 800 subscribers I started getting comments about how I shouldn’t try to have humor in my videos or that I shouldn’t talk much. I’m calling that Trolling, but it isn’t… Trolling is people intentionally trying to upset others. These comments are more along the lines of self-entitled people who think that because they can post a comment their opinion actually matters. It rarely does. Ironically, I’ve had people post comments to correct something I got wrong, and I honestly appreciate those comments! I don’t want to give bad information. I learn a lot from people who give me info in the comments.
I will confess I’m struggling with how to deal with comments about how I shouldn’t try to be funny. It’s not that I don’t know what to say – it’s more like I have too many ideas on how to respond and I’m not sure which ideas are the best. Part of me sees it as an opportunity to mock commenters, something like this:
Joe Nobody: You should stop trying to be funny because you aren’t.
Me: Ah, I SEE. How about if I send all of my jokes to you ahead of time, and you can decide for everyone else what’s funny. Maybe you could wear a special hat while you judge the jokes.
But I don’t really want to get into a flame war with someone who feels the need to leave stupid comments. So it’s normally like this:
Joe Nobody: You should stop trying to be funny because you aren’t.
Me: No.
See, I still think that’s pretty funny. I think my goal is maybe to try to be funny without trying to start a flame war. I’m just happy that I’m big enough (though still a tiny channel) to get “trolls.”
In reality, the REALLY big channels don’t even comment on troll posts. They just ignore them. Yeah. I should probably just do that.
