I Want To Be A YouTuber and It's Embarrassing...

I am selfish and desperate for validation. I'm insecure and need to prove to myself that I can be successful on my own. I'm indulging in a frivolous pursuit that serves me and no one else. I went to college, and am running a company that helps kids learn to read and I am a piece of shit for wanting to put my time and energy towards making videos for people I'll probably never meet. This has no purpose beyond inflating my own ego... These are the thoughts I've had over the past two years as I've struggled to come to terms with the fact that I want to be a YouTuber.

When I started this channel, I truly felt so much confidence that this was what I should have been doing all along but many of the assumptions and stereotypes about YouTubers that I held made me feel an immense amount of guilt for committing to this pursuit. Growing up, I always avoided doing things that would draw attention to me. I got pretty good at parkour, and while some friends would use their skills to show off and get attention (especially from the ladies), I would mostly try to do things while no one was looking. Sometimes a stranger would catch me doing a backflip off of a picnic table and I was a little delighted when they'd look around and be like "Did anyone see that? Do it again!" and I would just kind of chuckle to myself. It felt like a secret talent but ultimately I didn't want people to like me because of that kind of stuff so I mostly kept it hidden. At least until I started making parkour videos. 

It was showboating in a way that I could avoid the uncomfortable gaze in person and I loved being able to pair dubstep with the movements. It was a great combination of expression. And then by the end of highschool myself and my good friends made some video projects for class together that got some big laughs and often headshakes and mild disappointment from our teachers. But we had so much fun doing them we started a sketch group and youtube channel called Guys and Giggles.  I enjoyed the editing the most, but my friends were by far the funniest people on camera that and off that I'd ever seen. I wanted to continue it into college but life gets busy and ultimately that passion faded away. 

Three years later, I picked a camera back up for the first time in years just to document some outdoor adventures during covid and shittily through together some home videos for myself and my friends and the passion began to grow again. Then, I kinda hit my quarter life crisis and began breaking down to my girlfriend on a semi regular basis about the stress of running my families company and just feeling like I was living out someone else's life I decided I needed to find a new direction in life. I literally couldn't watch the show succession because the whole "Family Business" aspect of it just uprooted some stress and emotions that made it impossible to enjoy the show. 

So I decided to take time to reflect on my values and ask myself some big and important questions. What brings you joy? When was the last time you felt proud of yourself? What puts you into a flow state where the time just flies by? If money didn't matter, what would you do all day? And in asking these questions I realized that 1. Making others laugh brings me joy. 2. The last time I felt proud of myself was when I bought my motorcycle and turned it into a scrambler which required a lot of problem solving and learning about something completely new to me. 3. Video editing and building are the two things that I can do for HOURS without getting distracted and even forgetting or just not caring about eating. 4. If money didn't matter, I'd go back to my original dream from highschool of making a youtube channel where I get to make comedic videos while building things. It finally all made sense! BUT, even then I had some self judgement to deal with... 

When I started really trying to make videos again for the internet I felt so much embarrassment about recording. I NEVER wanted to come across like some unaware vlogger who lives their life just to show it off to strangers and I tried to only record when no roommates were home and no one could see me. And I never want to turn into that. Even if the camera was out, I would stop and like pretend to be doing something on my phone and act like there wasn't a camera on a tripod right next to me for whatever reason. It felt like the most right AND most wrong thing at the same time and I just pushed through the negative emotion. I then proceeded to tear BOTH of my ACL's playing ultimate so that made it quite a bit more difficult to build things and film hobbling around on crutches for week, then walking with my leg locked straight in a brace. It was devastating but all the while I knew (and know) I'm building something special and getting to do something that I love. 

The next flash point was filming the Skiyak video when I had to face my fear of towing on a busy trail and have all this in person attention that I hated so much as a kid. Thankfully ALL of the interaction were so positive and kind and what was such a big deal to me, ultimately was nothing to these strangers but a passing thought like "oh look at that thing, that's neat" and they'd keep it moving. 

And finally I went to Open Sauce this year and saw the joy my creations brought HUDREDS of people. The smiles. The laughter. Kids. Parents. Grandparents. Friends. Siblings. I realized why it matters. I can bring people laughter and joy. Will it save their life? No. Will it fundamentally change their future? I doubt it. But, for that moment, they'll hopefully forget about the stress, the anxiety, the sorrow and pains of life then crack a smile and ask "What the fuck made you want to build this?" 

My dad told me my whole life to find what I love doing, be the best at it and the rest will work itself out. I think I'm finally on the right track.