YouTube Tax
I think in a few years we’re going to look back and need to examine the cost YouTubers and social media celebrities are paying for our entertainment. Putting your entire life out there for people to follow and comment on can be taxing, indeed draining. I’m no different, I enjoy following many YouTubers and various people just because of how funny, talented or attractive they are. While I often can be informed or entertained by their videos, I also worry about these strangers I’ve grown to feel a connection towards. This week, the immensely adorable, Charlie McDonnell posted a video called “hiatus” where it appears he’s signing off, for now. I completely get what he’s saying in this video. At the end of his video, I just want to hug him and have a nice chat over tea.
Indeed studying social media all day and being a content creator, I get this sense, this drive, to create more for the world to consume. It’s a lot. You can only create so much. You feel boxed in at times and creatively limited on other occasions. Even though I have no business being a YouTuber, I can’t help but feel the need (and want) to do it, but like Charlie, I run out of things to say. I struggle with that in my writing, be it online or offline. It is much easier to create content for someone else or a business. It’s harder when you’re the business. I’ve always wondered about the burnout factor on YouTubers.
I worry too about when the time comes for many of these talented YouTubers to switch gears into more traditional job structures. I assume it’s hard to stop the personal branding narrative and turn that around for someone else or end it all together. I know they all want to be, Hannah Hart, I was to be Hannah Hart, but some will make it further than others can. There must be a difficult moment on your self-worth when that happens. Pulitzer Prize winner Don Murray used to scoff at writer’s block. I don’t think this is the same thing. Burnout isn’t writer’s block, but also Don had journalism. There is a story around every corner and each time you meet a new person. It’s easier when you’re telling someone else’s story, but harder when you must continually leverage your own life for the entertainment of others, especially for your survival.
Check out Charlie’s video; it has an important message:

