
What One Year of College Vlogging Taught Me About Creativity
I officially started vlogging in June 2017, after receiving a camera for my high school graduation.
I’d been making videos for years before then, none of which my parents would let me post on YouTube (and for good reason — I recently rewatched some of them and spent a solid thirty minutes cringing), but when I started vlogging last summer, I was determined to make “good” videos consistently. So I tried my best. Over one year and eighty-plus videos later, I still roll out videos each week, and I am so thankful for all the lessons that I’ve learned while running my channel. Here are just a few:
Creativity is a discipline.
A photographer I follow on Twitter recently tweeted the following quote from Chuck Close: “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.”
One common misconception I’ve stumbled across (and that I’ve occasionally subscribed to) is that creativity and inspiration are entwined with one another, to the point where you can’t be creative unless you’re inspired. Making videos every week has shown me exactly how untrue this is — and I’m sure all of the other creators online who make regularly published content will attest to this. You do not have to sit around for inspiration in order to be creative, and you do not have to have a “creative job” in order to be able to do consistent creative work. Creativity is a discipline as much as it is a gift, and it’s something that must be harnessed and honed in order to utilize effectively in any environment, professional or otherwise.
As someone who hopes to have the privilege of having a creative job in the future, I’ve realized over the past year that it’s not enough to simply call yourself a “creative” in your Instagram bio — you have to be willing to practice that creativity consistently. Running my channel and giving myself the challenge of filming, editing, and uploading a video every week is exhausting at times, but not only has it proven to me that exercising the creative muscle is important, it’s shown me that being creative is what I want to do with my life, whether it’s writing or filming or editing or honestly just brainstorming.
Creative worth is not defined by human approval
Ever noticed how the only way to gauge the “quality” of your creative work on a platform like YouTube is through human approval? The only way to measure how good your videos are is through your watch time, your views, your subscriber count. All the engagement you generate is based off of other people’s reactions. This essentially equates your creative worth with how well other people receive it.
This is kinda stupid.
This is also very normal. It’s the twenty-first century manifestation of that internal artistic struggle (as pretentious as that sounds): in order to have the resources to make art, artists must sell art that appeals to consumers. Their creative reputation depends on other people’s opinions. It sucks, but it’s reality, right?
That being said, though, I believe that if you make consistently good content that fits into a somewhat relevant niche, people *will* follow; it just might take some time. So in this sense, human approval is a measure of quality — just a very rough, often inaccurate one.
To be able to create on your own time is a luxury and a privilege.
I’ve recently realized that many of the vloggers I follow online belong to a certain socioeconomic bracket before they even begin YouTube; in fact, the reason why they’re even able to do YouTube is because they’re already wealthy to begin with. Even though it’s easy to point out that all the success stories and people who are able to make their living off doing YouTube videos, the reality is that for most, the payoff is very, very slow, and most people can’t afford to do it long-term.
If you have the time and resources to film, edit, and upload elaborate videos, you’re privileged because you have the luxury of leisure time, not to mention the resources (camera, computer, editing software) to make the things you want to make. Creativity might be a gift and a discipline, but, at least in regards to YouTube, being able to actively practice it is a luxury. As someone who has this privilege, I want to tacitly acknowledge how skewed the realm of independent digital content creation is, and how thankful I am to be able to pursue this. I don’t really know how to counteract this culture, which seems rather unfair to me, but I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity I had this past year to spend time making what I wanted to make.
I don’t know where my channel will lead — if it’ll even lead anywhere — but to have the chance to make videos this past year and see some growth this past year has been more than I could have ever hoped for. Thank you to everyone who has supported me! Here’s to another year :)
To read more of my writing, check out my website: rachelseo.com.
