- 2,641
- 25
- Subscriber Goal
- 250000
2017
I was new to the journey here on youTube and fighting desperately for a foothold on my own little corner of the fishing and outdoors community. I was skilled; I had spent a full year studying the Nimmin brothers, Derral Eves, Roberto Blake and Brian G Johnson well before I ever hit record on a camera. Prior to that I had spent years refining my skills behind the camera for several now defunct mini-film festivals in teh area and I was ready to hit the ground running. I was skilled; more so than a good portion of my peers. I was proud of my skills and now that i was beginning to film i was proud of the work I was creating.
It did not take long to make friends in the community and one group in particular stands as several of my closest friends to this day. We learned together, we grew on the platform together and we all celebrated many milestones together. At one point there must have been a dozen of us all racing for the 200 subscriber milestone!
Initially the livestreams began as a means for us to all hang out, to network, discuss projects and analytics and spend time assisting each other with our views, watchtime, and to share information. Several channels committed early on to taking their channels full-time and at any cost and they began to livestream more and more frequently and as they did their subscribers bases began to catch fire. And the bigger they got the more excited their audience was to hear how they had grown so fast and learn the tricks needed to do the same for their own channels.
2018
Almost overnight these channels which had been celebrating their 250 subscriber milestone with the rest of us were now crossing the 2,000, 5,000, and 10,000 subscriber milestones. They saw that channel growth was the popular topic that everybody wanted to get in on and the more subscribers you could encourage in the chat the bigger that chat would grow. Hundreds of people poured into every stream. Streams began going for 4, 5 and 6 hours to the point where the streamers began creating weekly content schedules. They coordinated timesslots and passed their viewers on to each other in a never ending cycle of vanity and empty promises.
The 'grwth streams' had taken over the outdoors community. And it was depressing. We filmed and edited, collaborated and researched music and studied intricate editing and filming tricks only to have our videos collect a tenth of the amount of views these livestreams saw. The lack of talent and shallow, valueless nature of the streams was maddening. And so we stopped showing up. We huddled up together and just stopped supporting the idiotic masses that attended the streams. it wasn't our niche and as much as it sucked that the least talented of us were seeing such success with such an absurd model that is how things were. We couldn't step foot in a stream without attracting ten or twelve empty subscribers all willing to sub to the first thing that walked in the door in the hopes that this incessent, shotgun approach to sub collection would help finally lift them over the monetization requirement so that they too could begin raking in the fat financial rewards of a monetized channel. There was no way we could catch them and no way we could change the format. So we just moved on. We buried our heads and we persevered. We ignored the streams, we seperated ourselves from the pack and we focused on making our videos.
2019
Turns out that we weren't the only ones who grew weary of the growth streams. Turns out it is a lot of work to grow a channel ten subscribers at a time while attending as many livestreams as is physically possible throughout the day. The lucky few who were able to physically carry their channel across the 1,000 subscriber mark never got any where near the 4,000 hour requirement. Though for many that wasn't even really a goal. It was always more about vanity metrics.
And the streamers? I wish i could point you to specific channels for details (but i won't do that to them, they learned a hard lesson). None of them stream any more. Of the four biggest offenders two are gone and two remain, though none of them livestream any more. Turns out it is a LOT of work to stream for six hours a day for an average of $6-$10 in superchats. And those videos that the livestreams so quickly eclipsed? Well our videos continued to produce after they were published. The livestreams did not. Those channels still sit on their 2,000, 5,000 and 10,000 subscriber milestones. And in a cruel twist of fate it is their videos which embarassingly collect only 100 views.
With no more growth stream clients these channels are left with only a handful of straggler fans to watch their videos. And though they may collect 10,000 impressions when they drop a video none of their subscriber base responds, none are their to view the videos and those who do no longer care. There is nothing left in it for them and the notifications go ignored. This of course destroys their CTR's, making it almost impossible for even their best videos to get the traction required to gain steam. It would almost be better to start over again with a new channel.
It's sad to see. These were not bad people. They were unskilled and unwilling to put the time in to improve their channels and their work. They knew it wasn't the right way to grow a channel. But it was easy and it was quick and by all appearances it was working.
We all grow frustrated seeing these guys and their apparent success. But understand that as a real content creator bent on growing your channel as efficiaently as possible and striving for success you will need to forego the vanity metrics and nonsense clout. If you are going to do this you need to do it right; because nothing is more sad than having put in that amount of work for something so ridiculously unproductive. Put your faith in your work, ignore the noise and put on the blinders. The long haul is not so long as it may seem.
I was new to the journey here on youTube and fighting desperately for a foothold on my own little corner of the fishing and outdoors community. I was skilled; I had spent a full year studying the Nimmin brothers, Derral Eves, Roberto Blake and Brian G Johnson well before I ever hit record on a camera. Prior to that I had spent years refining my skills behind the camera for several now defunct mini-film festivals in teh area and I was ready to hit the ground running. I was skilled; more so than a good portion of my peers. I was proud of my skills and now that i was beginning to film i was proud of the work I was creating.
It did not take long to make friends in the community and one group in particular stands as several of my closest friends to this day. We learned together, we grew on the platform together and we all celebrated many milestones together. At one point there must have been a dozen of us all racing for the 200 subscriber milestone!
Initially the livestreams began as a means for us to all hang out, to network, discuss projects and analytics and spend time assisting each other with our views, watchtime, and to share information. Several channels committed early on to taking their channels full-time and at any cost and they began to livestream more and more frequently and as they did their subscribers bases began to catch fire. And the bigger they got the more excited their audience was to hear how they had grown so fast and learn the tricks needed to do the same for their own channels.
2018
Almost overnight these channels which had been celebrating their 250 subscriber milestone with the rest of us were now crossing the 2,000, 5,000, and 10,000 subscriber milestones. They saw that channel growth was the popular topic that everybody wanted to get in on and the more subscribers you could encourage in the chat the bigger that chat would grow. Hundreds of people poured into every stream. Streams began going for 4, 5 and 6 hours to the point where the streamers began creating weekly content schedules. They coordinated timesslots and passed their viewers on to each other in a never ending cycle of vanity and empty promises.
The 'grwth streams' had taken over the outdoors community. And it was depressing. We filmed and edited, collaborated and researched music and studied intricate editing and filming tricks only to have our videos collect a tenth of the amount of views these livestreams saw. The lack of talent and shallow, valueless nature of the streams was maddening. And so we stopped showing up. We huddled up together and just stopped supporting the idiotic masses that attended the streams. it wasn't our niche and as much as it sucked that the least talented of us were seeing such success with such an absurd model that is how things were. We couldn't step foot in a stream without attracting ten or twelve empty subscribers all willing to sub to the first thing that walked in the door in the hopes that this incessent, shotgun approach to sub collection would help finally lift them over the monetization requirement so that they too could begin raking in the fat financial rewards of a monetized channel. There was no way we could catch them and no way we could change the format. So we just moved on. We buried our heads and we persevered. We ignored the streams, we seperated ourselves from the pack and we focused on making our videos.
2019
Turns out that we weren't the only ones who grew weary of the growth streams. Turns out it is a lot of work to grow a channel ten subscribers at a time while attending as many livestreams as is physically possible throughout the day. The lucky few who were able to physically carry their channel across the 1,000 subscriber mark never got any where near the 4,000 hour requirement. Though for many that wasn't even really a goal. It was always more about vanity metrics.
And the streamers? I wish i could point you to specific channels for details (but i won't do that to them, they learned a hard lesson). None of them stream any more. Of the four biggest offenders two are gone and two remain, though none of them livestream any more. Turns out it is a LOT of work to stream for six hours a day for an average of $6-$10 in superchats. And those videos that the livestreams so quickly eclipsed? Well our videos continued to produce after they were published. The livestreams did not. Those channels still sit on their 2,000, 5,000 and 10,000 subscriber milestones. And in a cruel twist of fate it is their videos which embarassingly collect only 100 views.
With no more growth stream clients these channels are left with only a handful of straggler fans to watch their videos. And though they may collect 10,000 impressions when they drop a video none of their subscriber base responds, none are their to view the videos and those who do no longer care. There is nothing left in it for them and the notifications go ignored. This of course destroys their CTR's, making it almost impossible for even their best videos to get the traction required to gain steam. It would almost be better to start over again with a new channel.
It's sad to see. These were not bad people. They were unskilled and unwilling to put the time in to improve their channels and their work. They knew it wasn't the right way to grow a channel. But it was easy and it was quick and by all appearances it was working.
We all grow frustrated seeing these guys and their apparent success. But understand that as a real content creator bent on growing your channel as efficiaently as possible and striving for success you will need to forego the vanity metrics and nonsense clout. If you are going to do this you need to do it right; because nothing is more sad than having put in that amount of work for something so ridiculously unproductive. Put your faith in your work, ignore the noise and put on the blinders. The long haul is not so long as it may seem.
