Guess I'm a YouTube Girly Now

screenshot from first video

Hello everyone, 

Fancy seeing you here! Last month I posted my first YouTube video. Well not my first exactly, but the first one I actually told people about. I’ve always wanted to start a YouTube channel. When I was a teenager I would spend hours on YouTube every single day after school to catch up on the dozens of creators I followed. I loved watching regular people talk about their lives, create funny and creative content, and make their own shows and art spaces. 

I followed creators of all ages, but the ones who inspired me most were teenagers like myself. It made me realize that no matter who you were, you could build a community just by expressing yourself. YouTube’s logo at the time had text underneath that said, “Broadcast Yourself,” and that’s really what it was. YouTube has evolved from what it used to be, but there is still so much amazing work out there by independent artists and creators. 

Even though many YouTubers I followed had thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of followers, YouTube still felt like somewhat of a secret world. My sister and I shared this obsession and would discuss our favorite videos and send each other links. Many of my friends at school weren’t on the platform (or at least not to the degree that I was), and would have no idea who I was talking about if I ever mentioned the creators who inspired me most. 

Watching so many creative people broadcast themselves, I wanted a piece of it. I wanted to make videos and be part of the community, but I was afraid too. My youthful insecurities and sense of not enough-ness were unfortunately more powerful than my desire to put myself out there. 

I didn’t think I was interesting enough, talented enough, creative enough, confident enough, or attractive enough to have a channel and build an audience. Because I was terrified of making a fool of myself, I thought it was safer to bury this dream. I had a vision of who I could be if only I weren’t so afraid, but I didn’t know if I could ever get there. 

Fast forward a lot, because going through the entire story could fill an entire book and I don’t want this blog to be super long, I am now ready. I don’t know why I’m ready now and why I felt I might never be for the last 15 years, but sometimes that’s just how the cookie crumbles. It’s easy for me to look at my life and wish that I had started earlier because, who knows where I could be by now if I had? But this type of thinking is pretty useless because it causes me to dwell on another version of my life that does not exist. 

I’m here now and that’s what matters. There’s a dialogue I like about this. I can’t remember where I first read this, or who said, but it goes something like this: 

A person asks, “do you know how old I’ll be by the time I finish med school?” 

And another answers, “as old as you’ll be if you don’t go to med school.” 

We will keep growing and aging in this world, and we can decide how we want to spend our limited time. We can either tell ourselves that who we are isn’t enough, or that it isn’t the right time, or we can just go for it and see what happens. 

Thank you to everyone who has been following the journey. Below is my second video about being yourself. Pretty apropos, ain’t it? Thank you all for being here, and I’m looking forward to what will come next! Love ya’ll <3