I am new here. I guess this board is dedicated to asking specific questions. I am going to attempt to not belabor over this too much and get to the point. I started my channel in 2006. YouTube, social media, and the internet in general was much different back then - but then again, so was society and culture. For the time, I was moderately successful and grew a following. It was at some point in 2008 they invited me into the partner program. I won't bore you with those details of dealing with it back then right now, but things have gotten much better on that front for sure.
It was around 2011 when I got laid off of my job. Rather than try to turn to my small subscriber base and beg for support, I did what I had to do and took on three jobs. Working odd hours didn't leave time for videos and since I need to pay some bills, I found a hard time justifying it. I uploaded occasionally, but I noticed the lackluster responses to uploads even back then. Since then, I haven't uploaded a lot. In fact, I have this bad habit of deleting a lot of my older videos. I removed a lot of them. I realize this probably ended up hurting the authority for my channel and could have pissed off some people who follow me. Though, few have ever said anything to me about it.
Now, in 2020. I find it hard to find out what to do or what direction to even take. I don't know if it is different starting a dead channel or starting a new one. I would imagine if my subscribers left YouTube, then the accounts would be purged and my numbers would have dropped a lot more over the years. I am not sure if their tastes changed along with society or if they are just no longer on YouTube watching games.
My niche is gaming, but I have never been dedicated to one genre of game or type. I mostly leaned a bit retro. There's a huge glut of gaming channels on YouTube. Lately, I have been uploading nothing special and I am aware of that fact. But it's hard to get the endorphin rush of creativity and response when my subscribers don't see it. I am not saying I think the algorithm is flawed or against me or anything like that. I am not sure what the issue is.
So, I guess the question is, what does one do in my situation, if anything? I can't ask my subscriber base because I am not even sure most of them are seeing the videos I publish and there aren't really great resources beyond the community feature. Any ideas? Because I would love to feel as passionate about the process now as I was years ago. I am just not feeling a similar vibe yet.
It was around 2011 when I got laid off of my job. Rather than try to turn to my small subscriber base and beg for support, I did what I had to do and took on three jobs. Working odd hours didn't leave time for videos and since I need to pay some bills, I found a hard time justifying it. I uploaded occasionally, but I noticed the lackluster responses to uploads even back then. Since then, I haven't uploaded a lot. In fact, I have this bad habit of deleting a lot of my older videos. I removed a lot of them. I realize this probably ended up hurting the authority for my channel and could have pissed off some people who follow me. Though, few have ever said anything to me about it.
Now, in 2020. I find it hard to find out what to do or what direction to even take. I don't know if it is different starting a dead channel or starting a new one. I would imagine if my subscribers left YouTube, then the accounts would be purged and my numbers would have dropped a lot more over the years. I am not sure if their tastes changed along with society or if they are just no longer on YouTube watching games.
My niche is gaming, but I have never been dedicated to one genre of game or type. I mostly leaned a bit retro. There's a huge glut of gaming channels on YouTube. Lately, I have been uploading nothing special and I am aware of that fact. But it's hard to get the endorphin rush of creativity and response when my subscribers don't see it. I am not saying I think the algorithm is flawed or against me or anything like that. I am not sure what the issue is.
So, I guess the question is, what does one do in my situation, if anything? I can't ask my subscriber base because I am not even sure most of them are seeing the videos I publish and there aren't really great resources beyond the community feature. Any ideas? Because I would love to feel as passionate about the process now as I was years ago. I am just not feeling a similar vibe yet.