What I’ve Learned About Being An Immigrant On YouTube

Photo by Brennan Burling on Unsplash

It’s been a month since I began documenting my life as an immigrant on YouTube and thus far, it’s been a great experience. I didn’t know what exactly I was going to talk about but as I continued to progress from video after video more topics began to pop up in my head and I began to gaining my following. I will admit, it’s not easy trying to start a YouTube channel in this day and age, and perhaps even in the future. But one question that’s on people’s mind is “how did I do it?”

I could try and go on about how one needs to nick and pick with the algorithm or keep up the social media appearance, but I’d be lying because I don’t know any of that stuff. All I did was turn on my phone camera on and begin to record. However, I had to plan of course, I had to have a goal and I also set some targets which would keep me motivated and wanting to post more.

The strategy I came up with was pretty simple:

1. Talk about myself (tell your story)
2. Build up from that with another video about the challenges you face as an immigrant.
3. Talk about where you see yourself in the next time frame
4. What are you doing about reaching that goal 5 to 6 years from now.
5. Repeat step 1 but bring in other things are playing role in your life (family friends etc.)
6. Talk about the challenges they are facing as immigrants.
7. Talk about how life is a struggle for all immigrants.

These are the first basic task I had to complete from the day I began. vlogging. And as you will notice these are straight forward and easy to follow steps. One of the doubts I had encountered was, the feeling of emptiness and what would happen if I hit the wall of being content less. When the idea of starting a YouTube channel came to mind, I kept thinking about the end goal, but every time I would do that, the excitement of starting a YouTube channel would go away. But then there were moments where I would get excited about the process.

I finally realized that it was better to focus more on the process of starting a YouTube channel rather than worrying about the end goal because the process looked more fun in my head than the end goal.

This is probably a life lesson for anyone trying to achieve something, I think most people struggle to achieve things because they often think about the end result and the joy they expect from it, but I believe it’s better to focus on the process, or adventure because that’s more fun than the end result. What brings you more joy and purpose is the process you go through while trying to reach the end goal, it’s within those moments of trial and error, that you get to see and discover yourself with the potential you have.

Within a span of one month, I’ve already attained 1000 views with a channel of 33 subscribers and 18 videos live. This is the process that brings me joy. To some it may seem like nothing but to me, I can celebrate this because I know I’ve done something.

Never mind the things I’m missing, like how long my videos are being watched for, all that will matter once I get into worrying about my end goal. Right now I am happier about the fact that I was able to get 1000 viewers to click on something I created. It’s with that, I am now able to find even more ideas and topics to talk about on my channel and also able to blog about it on my blog post.

My name is Levi Misenga, I am an immigrant who fled the Congo crisis, I vlog and tell the story of life’s journey as well as educate people about the Congolese way of life. If you have a curiosity in learning about immigration, culture and African philosophy then I invite you to please subscribe to my YouTube channel, like and share the videos you found interesting so I would know which one to improve. And don’t forget to follow me on Instagram where we could collaborate on ideas you have in mind.