I Let my YouTube Channel With Over 200k Subscribers “Die” — Here’s Why
I always dreamed of being a content creator for YouTube. I dreamed of what it would be like to have thousands of subscribers and make a living making videos. I watched all of my favorite creators do exactly that, and envied the life they lived.
That was until I got a taste of exactly what I had been dreaming of and it was nothing like I expected.
The beginning
It started on Christmas day of 2015: just a girl, the camera she had gotten as a present earlier that morning, and the script of a video she had written a month ago. Her finger pressed down on the record button and all of a sudden, her life was about to change and she had absolutely no idea.
The day I uploaded that video, I was elated. I had spent 2 hours editing it, a half an hour creating a thumbnail for the video, and all but 15 minutes actually uploading it. I had been thinking of making this channel for months prior, and it was finally happening.
Weeks go by and nothing really happens. I get maybe 500 views from promoting it on social media websites and doing an unfathomable amount of “sub for sub” comments on other people’s videos (something I’m not proud of doing).
I upload a few more videos, again with no luck getting many views. That was until January 3, 2016.
That day I uploaded a very poorly edited video of me dyeing my hair purple. A video that I filmed just the night before and stayed up until the sun shone through the sliver of window my blackout curtains didn’t cover, just to get it edited and uploaded as soon as I could.
I had no expectations. I thought it might end up funny to film the process, and I had seen others upload similar videos before. That was it, I didn’t really expect many views from this one.
Expect it or not, it happened. In basically the blink of an eye.
The First “Viral” Video
As you can see below, the very first day I recieved over a thousands views was February 7th. After that, the views doubled almost daily.
Everyday from February 7th on, I recieved at least 1,000 views on this video, and that number only got more excessive as the days went on. For the entire remaining month of February I amassed over 500,000 views on this video. By the end of March, the video had almost 1.5 million views. (It now sits at over 7 million.)
I was in shock. I watched daily as my subscriber count grew, my comments were flooded, and quite clearly: as this video took off. I was euphoric. My dream was coming true in front of my eyes.
I filmed a new video, thanked everyone for all the new subscribers and views and immediately after I posted it, my subscriber count basically doubled. Suddenly I went from 3k to 30k in only a few days, and that number continued to grow rapidly as the days went on.
I continued to put out new videos every week, those all at least getting 40k–100k views. I had a decent number of people who called themselves fans of my videos, and even had fan accounts made for me after this.
I was on cloud nine.
The “Puppy Love” Phase
You know how they say that every relationship has a “puppy love” phase? Where everything is blissful and you’re so in love that nothing else matters in the world but the person you’re dating?
Well, It was like I was in a relationship with YouTube and it was the “puppy love” phase of a lifetime.
I made other YouTuber friends. I traveled across the country to attend Vidcon, which is a convention based completely around YouTube/Youtubers. I was invited to parties, I filmed collabs, I was offered sponsorships, and I was making money by just uploading videos that I loved to make. I was living the life I had dreamed of since I was 13.
Everything was perfect… until it wasn’t.
The Downfall
I can’t pinpoint the exact moment that things started to go wrong, but I know it was sometime in 2017.
At this time, I had had 5 videos get a lot of views, all with at least 500k. The rest of my content was teetering around an average of 15–50k views per video. Which, yes, is a lot still. I know there are plenty of people who would be more than happy to be getting that amount of views.
However, when you keep having videos that end up in people’s recommended section, that amass hundreds of thousands of views, sometimes even millions, you start to compare those videos to everything you make that doesn’t do as well. You start to ask yourself why YouTube’s algorithm will like some of what you do, but not all of it.
It became hard for me to look at a video that got, say 20k views and be proud of it. I kept beating myself up over any video that didn’t do as well as the ones that got at least 500k views.
I started to become more inactive as time went on, uploading maybe twice a month, comparatively to the 4–5 uploads I was doing before. I was extremely unmotivated and felt like nobody really cared about me as a person, and only really cared about the videos of mine that were popular. My mental health took a drastic turn, and suddenly I fell into a pit of depression unlike anything I had experienced before.
Things got worse from here, unfortunately.
People started to notice how inactive I was and would ask me to upload more. Which was both stress inducing and sweet to hear at the same time. On one hand, I could barely get myself to have the motivation to film a single video every few weeks, and on the other hand I was extremely flattered that people cared enough to wonder where I was and want more videos from me.
It was a balancing act that was never in balance. I was constantly at war with myself over if I should just make more videos, even If I don’t want to, so that my subscribers would be happy or if I should only make them when I was motivated enough to do so.
I was told by countless people that if I wanted to make it on YouTube, I had to push through the days I couldn’t even get myself out of bed, throw on a fake smile, and make content. I was shocked that this was the general consensus between so many of my other content creating friends. It sucked to not have anyone tell me, “Hey, take a break. You deserve to put yourself first sometimes.” That was all that I wanted to hear in that moment.
So many things about YouTube started to make me not want to make videos anymore. I was constantly comparing myself to others, I didn’t want to only make videos because I felt like I owed it to people rather than making them because I enjoyed it, I was depressed and was told that was normal and that faking a persona in your videos is fine, and I was just generally losing interest.
Everything felt so fake and it all started to only be about numbers, whether that was subscriber counts or views. I started out making videos because I enjoyed doing it and slowly started to care more about numbers than the content I was making.
I started to realize that when you get “big” on YouTube, things do become more about the numbers, the money, the “fame” for a lot of people. Which is exactly what started to happen to me.
The person I was turning into was someone I never wanted to be.
The Breaking Point
2018 rolled around, and at this point I knew in my heart that I needed a break.
Realizing I had to step back from YouTube happened all at once. It was like being slapped in the face. I remember that being a terrible day, but one that I’m now thankful for.
I didn’t really make it a big deal online. I didn’t make an ominous video titled “goodbye” or post a bunch about it on social media: I just stepped back.
A month went by, no uploads. People asked questions, I didn’t answer.
I read a lot of books during this time. I started journaling. Improved my relationships with my friends, boyfriend, and family. I started leaving my house more and went on a hike that changed my life.
Three months went by, and people were still asking questions. I was still avoiding answering.
I had made many new friendships in this time. I started writing what now is a finished novel I hope to publish one day. I learned that exercise can be enjoyable. I went on a road trip out of the state that made me feel alive for the first time in months.
Then around six months, I had finally broken the silence. I made a simple post on a few of my social media accounts saying that I was taking a break for my mental health. I wrote that it had been really good for me so far, and that I hoped to come back to YouTube someday when I felt like it was something I loved again.
The reaction was mixed. Some were sad, some were happy for me, some unfollowed and stop caring about me, and some were even angry. All of these reactions were fine and justified. I was just happy to have said something.
The year point came around. I was losing subscribers rapidly. My follower count on Instagram went from 13k to 10k. I was no longer getting monthly Adsense checks, they would only come every few months.
This was the time I decided to upload a new video.
People were excited for my return. I thought I was ready to come back, and I told them I would upload more.
Turns out, I wasn’t ready. I found myself disappointed with how many views that video got (It now has over 100k, but in the first few months it only got around 20k). I cried realizing how much numbers still meant to me and how little I was thinking about anything else. I was supposed to be thinking about how nice it was to be back, to be excited to upload no matter how many views I got.
In the end, what I needed was one more entire year. Yes, two years with only one upload.
The Message
In these past two years, a lot has happened. I’m back making videos now and feel great about it for the first time in a long time. You see that 3,951 views my last upload got? For the first time in a long time, a small amount of views hasn’t made me sad. I look at that and it doesn’t really do much to me.
I’m still losing subscribers, still losing followers on my social media accounts, getting less views than I ever have. Yet, I’m as happy as I was when I made that first video on Christmas day in 2015.
I won’t lie and say that if a video of mine were to “blow up” again that I wouldn’t be happy about it. I think anyone can admit that it’s a good feeling when something you make is appreciated by a lot of people.
The biggest difference though, is that I feel more focused on who is subscribed to me and not how many people are. I read my comments now, I look at who’s subscribed, I put faces to usernames. It’s been really nice to appreciate those who appreciate what I do, and is something I took for granted in my first few years of uploading.
They say you learn a lesson from every bad experience you have, and this one is proof of that to me. The more I let things like money and follower counts get to my head, the more detached from reality I became, and the worse a person I felt like I turned into.
It’s hard to look back sometimes, but I don’t regret any of it. I don’t think I would have learned nearly as much as I have if it wasn’t for absolutely failing as a YouTuber, but it does make me sad to think about how miserable I was during what could have been the best times of my life.
It’s way easier than I thought to get caught up in numbers. Numbers of subscribers, followers, or likes. Honestly, If there’s anything to be learned from my experience, it’s that those numbers can destroy you.
So I refuse to let them anymore.
If you’re going to take anything from this article, I hope it’s this:
Consume yourself in doing what you love, and loving what you do, even if the support you receive is a droplet instead of a sea. No matter if 10 or 10,000 people like what you do, let the pride you have in yourself and your accomplishments always be enough.
Live the life you want to live, and as happily as you can. At the end of the day, isn’t that what matters most?
I’d like to believe it is.
