Anyone have any experience with running a YouTube channel?

Started by Daniel, August 02, 2020, 05:50:27 PM

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Daniel

I'm going to start a YouTube channel but I'm just wondering if anyone has had any experience with this. How do you get subscribers? And how does your channel become monetized? (How much does monetization even pay? Do people really do this for a living, or does it only bring in a couple of bucks?)

And what's up with channels always complaining about being demonetized? How does this happen... is it because the channel has violated the user agreement, or is it because YouTube is trying to censor them, or is it just something that happens for no real reason at all?

Mono no aware

#1
I don't have any experience with running a YouTube channel.  But I'm curious as to what kind of content you intend to have.

What puzzles me is why so many YouTube channel hosts aren't podcasters instead.  Why is it a video presentation when only the audio has value?  You're typically looking at some person with wires coming out of their ears, filmed from the awkward vantage of a computer or cell phone camera, with the clutter of their house as the backdrop.  There's just nothing interesting about it whatsoever.  Only a very small percentage of the population is beautiful or worth looking at for an extended period of time.  In former times, the expression was, "now there's a face for radio."  At least in the olden days of the television chat show, there were usually tasteful sets, and you had several camera angles, and the guests were allowed to smoke.  I think smoking aids in the collecting of one's thoughts—when you have to pause for lighting and dragging and puffing.  Most of the best YouTube channels are the ones that offer archival content from decades past.  I recently watched Allen Ginsberg being interviewed by William F. Buckley on Firing Line.  They were not handsome men, but they both had interesting faces.  It would have suffered as radio.  But what the internet offers is the reign of the amateur.  There's not a patrician Catholic intellectual or a radical Jewish poet in every bedroom.  Now it's just an average person with casual banter.  "Hey guys, what's up?  Don't forget to subscribe.  So anyway, whoa, there's a lot going on with X, Y, and Z, and I have a lot to say" and then a long unscripted, uninteresting stream of consciousness.  And nobody smokes.

I think there are ways for amateurs or semi-professionals to offer good content, though.  There's a hobbyist musician named Edward Boensnes who takes public domain silent movies and scores them on his home organ.  And there's an art historian named Micah Christensen who tapes his lectures and then puts them on YouTube with the relevant paintings on the video feed.  These are good channels.  But thank the heavens for the people who put up the old shows like Dick Cavett, Mike Wallace, and Firing Line.  Anyway, I'm not sure what you have planned, but that's just my unsolicited take on these things.




Sempronius

Pon de replay,

Thats why I'm suprised that Taylor Marshall has so many followers. Its just his face for 1 hour. I haven't yet watched his videos but I'm glad its doing well (I think).

But people like those videos, the informal ones. Many YouTubers have livestreams that last 3 hours and they are just chatting and cooking food.

Daniel

I think Taylor Marshall is an exception since he was already a celebrity.

I also don't think people particularly like those sorts of videos. In the case of Dr. Marshall, I think his fans watch those videos because those happen to be the kinds of videos that he makes these days. But his scripted podcast was way better, as were the high-quality videos that he made for the NSTI.
But then again, maybe people actually do like his videos. I don't know. I'm aware of the live-streaming fad. While I'm not sure why people are into it, it does seem that people are into it.

MundaCorMeum

Honestly....they probably don't actually watch Marshall's videos, but just turn them on, and listen to it in the same way the would if it was a podcast.  This is what I do for videos like that, anyway.  The people who 'like' his videos simply agree with what he's saying.  I, however, agree with Pon....podcasts are better  :beer: (there's no smoking emoji)

Greg

I put YT videos on and cover my tablet computer with an empty pillowcase to keep the bedroom dark.  Or connect it to a bluetootb speaker and listen on that.

They don't podcast because 95% of people are using YT.  A podcast would not be discovered and downloaded.
Contentment is knowing that you're right. Happiness is knowing that someone else is wrong.

Daniel

Quote from: Greg on August 03, 2020, 10:16:20 PM
They don't podcast because 95% of people are using YT.  A podcast would not be discovered and downloaded.

Yeah, it's counterintuitive but I guess it makes sense.