Making content for YouTube is so strange. So often, I do videos that I’m really excited about sharing with others, and when I upload them, they just sit there and nobody watches them.
Then a year passes…
All of a sudden, hundreds or even thousands of people begin watching some video I did a year ago - a video that I’ve long since moved on from. My emotions and hopes are all on the video I posted yesterday! But what everybody is watching is the video I did a full year or more ago!
And the strangest thing about this is that I have absolutely zero way of knowing what people will latch onto. So many of the videos I do that I think people will love get no love at all. They will sit out there forever with no more than 90 viewers. But videos I do that I think nobody will care about inexplicably become big hits!
It’s a very odd way to work.
I throw my heart into almost all of the videos I put out there, but these two realities - the year long delay before a video gains traction, along with never being able to predict with any accuracy what people are going to make successful - creates a real difficulty.
Another thing to consider is that as I go along, I’m learning new things every time I upload a video. So the video I make today and think is great is a video I will view much more critically a year from now. I’ll think, “Well I would never do the video that way these days, why didn’t I do it this way or that way?” Well, because I didn’t yet have the experience and hindsight then that I have now. So a lot of my older videos that begin doing well are not videos I’m particularly happy with! Whatever the newest video is, that’s the video I’m most proud of and want everybody to see! But no, a year has to pass first and then some might do well and most won’t.
It’s very, very strange for me as the guy creating these things.
I would have thought Pleasant the Hillbilly Pickle would’ve taken off like fire right from the beginning, but he hasn’t at all. But who knows what his popularity will be a year or two from now? It’s impossible to know. The only thing I can do is wait and see.
There you go, an honest, inside look behind the curtain of The Practical Woodsman.
I think I found my grandpa reincarnated online - which is strange, since this guy seems to be only thirty years or so younger than my grandpa would be today.
Anyway, the guy talks like us, acts like us. “I don’t think it’ll kill nobody” made me laugh out loud, because that’s our attitude as we continue scarfing down some thing we don’t like but that is technically edible and nutritious.
I’m caught in a two-week black hole of commitments and obligations, so I haven’t been able to be very active here or upload new stuff. But I can already see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Check out this valley. Does it call to you?
A moment of joy for myself - a milestone - but also an opportunity for me to reaffirm my appreciation for those of you who have been with me since the beginning. @GHuns @Swerth @Hepburn99 immediately come to mind. You guys have been undeservingly good to me the past couple of years.
You were interested in what I was putting out, and talking about, even during the stretches when nobody else cared or was listening, and when the channel was going completely overlooked.
There were many months - long stretches when I simply couldn’t devote lots of time or attention to The Practical Woodsman, because of personal life obligations, so I just did what I could, and it was you three that especially showed me undeserved support during those times.
I just want to tell the three of you how much I appreciate your support. All three of you have more to offer than I do on many of the topics I highlight on The Practical Woodsman, and I am not deserving of your support. I should actually be learning from ...
