Dealing With Online Stress
I never thought I'd have 1,000 subscribers, never mind nearly 70,000. I've been extremely lucky in my YouTube journey, and I'm forever grateful for those who helped me get where I am today.
It's not like I'm Mr. Beast or anything. I'm not famous. I don't get noticed on the street as I limp along. Nobody is asking for an autograph. And I'm not making millions on my videos.
But even with all that being true, there is an amount of stress that comes along with being a YouTuber that I never thought about before. There's the pressure to make videos that people like. There's pressure to make content somewhat often. And there's pressure to interact with the community you build in some form or fashion.
It's the last one that has always been the worst one for me. I don't think most people realize this, but I'm not a people person. I have never been. If left to my own devices, I'd probably never talk to anyone outside my family. I'm a loner, and fairly happy being one.
That's why it's always been so very odd that I ever started a podcast or a YouTube channel to begin with. I've been podcasting since 2009 with friends, but that was always just for fun. Nobody listens to The 3 Cast, so it's really just me and a couple of friends talking every once in a while about movies.
When I started the Linux Cast, I figured that would be the same. But then people started to listen to it, and for some reason, I thought to start the YouTube channel. Why I ever made that first video, I will never know. Something kicked me in the ass and got me to do it.
Since then, my management of the pressure to interact with people online has been a real challenge. I like a lot of the people I've met. I have made true friends that I will cherish for a long time. I've also met innumerable assholes. The number of people who think it's the height of their responsibility to tell me to lose weight in the most condescending manner possible is absurd. I've gotten death threats on one video and told to kill myself several times due to opinions that I have that others don't agree with (one of those recently).
That isn't my idea of a good time. There have been many times when I've considered quitting. I don't need to make videos to be happy. The friends I've made in the Linux community wouldn't abandon me if I decided I didn't want to be a YouTuber anymore.
But I do like making content. I've had my ups and downs, but I'm actually pretty good at this YouTube thing and I can see a day if I work at it that I might even be able to do it for a living. That'd be wicked, as the kids say. But, even if that never happens, it has been a great hobby despite the assholes met along the way.
Some days, the stress of dealing with the negative people online gets to me. I've had several days like that recently, where every little criticism just pisses me off, usually leading me to snap at people who don't really deserve it. I have also some days just walked away from the idea of making a video just because I didn't feel like dealing with all the stuff that goes along with publication. Some days, it's just easier to pass YouTube by and pretend it doesn't exist.
This is an attitude that I didn't have way back 5 years ago when I got my start. If I didn't post every single day, I thought that would be the day that the channel growth would finally slow down and reverse course. It took years for me to realize that it's okay to take time off. In fact, it took me getting COVID to realize that taking a couple of weeks off wasn't going to spell the death of all my hard work. The channel recovered and continued to grow once I got better. Since then, I've been working on finding a balance between posting often and taking time for myself. It's been hard, and it has slowed growth a little, but it's the only reason I'm still going.
This doesn't just apply to me. Everyone has this need for balance in their lives. In your job, you have stress. They may be different from the ones I face in my day job and online, but they exist. Dealing with those will be a challenge that can only be met with balance – something to offset the negative aspect of whatever it is you do.
Finding that balance can be hard, but it starts with recognizing that you need it in the first place. You're not Superman. You need a break. It's a truth that I need to remind myself of often when I find that my stats are suffering due to lack of content, or I'm dealing with too many entitled idiots online.
This is a journey, and I'm happy with how it's turned out so far. But there are still bad days, and I need to remember that “Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
This is day 3 of 30 in 30.
