B- Rating on YouTube. Pretty Cool!
This is just a random post on my blogger. I decided I would use my blogger account in 2021 to post random things that did not for fit my other websites.
This morning I went looking for details on Steve TerreBerry's hacked YouTube account. I generally watch his videos on the weekend for a good laugh and some tasty metal riffs.
That is when I came across the website, Social Blade. Stevie-T is at the top of YouTube's 10,000 most popular channels, and in the top 500 for the county of Canada. That's really impressive. He's super talented, and I say that as someone who had worked professionally in the film industry and gone through film school.
If he's editing his own videos, which I believe he is, and he's producing his own content, then he's definitely got room to expand off YouTube in the future into film production of he wanted to.
It takes the same kind of energy, talent and skills to produce successfully for YouTube as it does for the film industry.
We use the same skill sets used during film school, where we produce all of our short films and project usually independently on a tight schedule.
One thing I've found helpful about YouTube, is it forces me to keep practicing my skills every week. It has been similar to when I learned how to play guitar or speak in Japanese, the more I spend time doing those things, the better I get at using them or at least retaining them.
Whether YouTube is your hobby or your monthly pay check, out takes considerable time and money to do. Steve takes a whole week to produce his videos and it shows in his quality and content.
Unlike a preacher who can reuse an old sermon of they ran out of ideas one week, there is no doing that on YouTube. Successfully channels are turning out for videos a month. That's more than I had to put out during advanced film school. I might put out six videos during a six month semester.
Anyway, it was impressive to see how well Social Blade says Steve Terreberry had been doing, but it also shows the damage he sustained from his account being hacked only four days ago.
The damage is greater than of someone store his car or broke intro his home and stole all his gear. These hackers of found need to be charged with an international felony, regardless of where they live.
Forget about the fact that it's a federal crime to hack a service l website, the person who persons who did this, deleted his legacy, his career, his work, his time, his money, his creative soul.
Though YouTube should be able to eventually restore his channel from their backups, the damage and violation to Steve's image, and greater still, his creative soul will forever be damaged to some degree. It's not going to far to say that they morally and creatively raped him.
As someone whose had their identity stolen twice in the past, I know you just take a long time to recover from these kinds of crimes.
I in all sincerity pray that those who did it will seriously mess up in their steps to the degree that they can be found and held accountable
When I began YouTube, i spent more time doing research about YouTube, as anything I've every done it takes years of dedication and decisions to survive.
I've had friends who asked to meet with me during the recent twelve years, who thought they were going to hop on YouTube and become famous.
They would invite me over too talk and ask me questions about techniques and marketing and equipment needed to get started.
I kindly took an hour or two to give then information about what its really like to basically work as a YouTube partner.
I made them take physical notes, because I knew they'd be wasting my time. I wanted to see how serious they were.
They wanted to reproduce in a month, what I'd spent everyday for my first four years on YouTube researching and practicing, in addition to having earned a degree in advanced Cinematography.
My skills helped a little, but not much. Any creative person can teach themselves how to edit a video. But you can't teach someone how to be interesting. You can't teach someone to be dedicated and committed. You can't teach self discipline. Those are what makes or breaks a YouTube channel.
You keep doing it, even when you're not eligible to become a partner. You're competing against multiple millions of other people with good ideas, who have something they want to share with the world. It rarely just happens. There is s lot of luck involved, but even more work for most of us on YouTube.
If there was a magic formula, everyone would be buying the 10 step program, and though they're are plenty of people selling those kinds of things. They're just feeding your greed or imaginary world I which you get discovered and recognized.
The difference I've observed been myself as a channel producer and those who ate just starting is, i didn't begin making YouTube videos with the idea of finding fans, recognition, money or anything else.
I never had any imaginations that one day, my small channel would have 25,000 people watching it a month or 5,000 people who liked it enough to subscribe to it.
It never crosses my mind, other than once in a rare moment, i might look at my channel analytics and think, how did i get all these people to follow me? Why are all these people spending their free time watching me? I seriously have no idea.
But my friends and people I've met, who asked me over to hear their ideas, they're not in that state of mind. They're convinced that everyone is going to want to hear what they have to say or show in a video.
They're convinced that they're going to be even more popular than my channel in only a few months. I would just say, "right on!"
I'd let them ramble on until i began to get sleepy, then I'd say, "I'm afraid my time is running out, take out your pad of paper and let me tell you the bottom line. "
1. Be consistent
2. Put out at least one video a week, every week until you meet the YouTube Partnership requirements.
3. Don't invest a lot on money in equipment and tools, until you're making enough in a month to pay for it in cash.
4. Use a decent webcam for the easiest setup, that way you're recording directly into the computer and not having to do transfers of video files.
5. Make videos about something you enjoy. Not something you think we'll make you money.
6. Never stop. Never give up. The moment everyone usually stops, is right before a channel usually begins to work. Most people quit instead of pushing though.
7. Try to make at least one friendship with another YouTuber who talks about what you talk about who is committed. You'll need them pushing you to keep going when you're ready to give up.
I watched Steve TerreBerry's old videos, compared to his current videos. I see his persistence. Those old videos were pretty wacky, not so great looking, but consistent.
He's refined, learned and grown as not on but a musician, but also a content creator.
The difference of several years of practice has made the difference.
He's unique, and had found his nitch.
I was was quoted for saying, "Defining who you are, will cost you everything you have."
This is so true when it comes to being in the public media and spontaneously becoming recognized through your own independent channel.
The better you know yourself and have a passion for your topic, the more people with similar passion will respond. Find your nitch!
So all of this, leads me to why i began writing this. I had been looking at Social Blades page about Stevie-T, and on a whim, I thought, "I wonder how my channel rates on Social Blade. "
I guessed maybe an D- or F. At least in part because after years of hosting SellerThink, In May 2021 (three days ago), I made a decision I had been considering during the past three years, which is to move back to my own channel of Randy Dreammaker.
I left the dying Twitter platform back in January, and three days ago, I left Facebook forever too.
Since SellerThink was greatly associated with Facebook in particular, and i would cause disruption by "cancelling Mark Zuckerberg", anyway. I figured I might as well, make the move back to having my own channel.
So I was shocked when I saw I had received a B- (at the time of writing this), on Social Blade.
I remember having a D+ or C- the first time I liked at it a few years ago. Reminded me of my grades in high school.
My final thoughts since I have conveyed multiple thoughts in this free writing.
1. I pray whoever hacked Steve TerreBerry's YouTube channel is found by the FBI and Canadian dudes, and able to be criminally charged.
2. If you don't know who Stevie-T is, then check out his channel when it goes back online. He reminds me of a 1980's clean cut punk rocker heavy metal comedian. Fun to watch.
3. If you're going to try to survive as a YouTube creator, persistence and commitment are your best friends.
4. Thank you Social Blade website for your B- Rating. I think that's the biggest grade I ever got in high school too.