Why Do We Watch YouTube?  

Is it because our sink broke and we want to learn how to fix it without taking out a large home loan to pay an expensive plumber?  Or do we simply like to watch successful, influential people living fabulous lives that we ourselves are not? 

(And yes, I know that on the spectrum of YouTube there are many more reasons for watching, but work with me here … I’m trying to make a point.  LOL!)

One of my absolute favorite YouTube channels is called Kinging-It.  A 30-something couple from Wales just wandering around the world having adventures.  They’re completely goofy, always laughing and carrying on, and I just can’t get enough of their antics.  But why do I watch them?  Well, that’s a question that hit me from a very weird angle.

When you run a YouTube channel you’re supposed to create an ‘avatar’.  A detailed description of your typical viewer.  All of their hopes, dreams, fears, etc.  The idea is that you’re supposed to visualize this person when you’re looking into the camera so you’re talking to the right person with your content.  Well, that’s when I discovered why I like to watch Kinging-It.

I figured my channel’s avatar had to be similar to myself.  I was trying to create like-minded content based on my favorite creators, so why shouldn’t my avatar look like me?  So I broke out a spreadsheet and started documenting every aspect of this ‘imaginary’ person’s life.  And I wasn’t really happy with what I discovered.

Jealousy and Envy.  (More on that later)

Wandering In Circles

Back to my own life and channel.  So here I am, either traveling around the world or living in a converted vehicle just like Kinging-It does … and my life looks NOTHING like theirs!  Why aren’t my videos filled with that kind of wondrous excitement?  Why am I crabby at times on camera instead of constantly and easily laughing away my worst woes?  In no way, shape, or form am I creating content for someone looking for that kind of perfect lifestyle.  So maybe then … my avatar isn’t based on me?  Who are they then?  Who exactly am I creating videos for?

A possible answer came to me when I met an actual fan.  Let’s call him Jake Sully.  (Get it?  Jake?  Avatar?  Sigh).  Anyway, Jake is in his early 60s, lives in semi-rural America, has a government job, and has never traveled anywhere outside of a 100 mile radius from where he was born.  Could he be my avatar?  Was he watching because his life was so boring and dull that he needed to live vicariously through me?

Turns out the answer to that egotistical question was no.  He’s actually quite content with his choices, he just likes to experience different things virtually.  It doesn’t mean that he’s secretly wishing he could be me.  He’s happy as a clam being himself.

So now I was very confused.  I went down this rabbit hole looking for this perfect representation of my audience and instead I realized a couple of uncomfortable things about me.

• I was making excuses for a life I wasn’t living … and calling it happiness.

• And I wasn’t sure what that happy life actually was.

Envy is not a great feeling.  We have this neighbor here in Miami who has the greenest thumb you’ve ever seen.  Nikki (my girlfriend) spends hours in the garden, only to have limited success.  This neighbor does absolutely nothing special and his harvest is incredible.  How in the %$@# does he do that?  

He makes produce and we get envy.

The Solution?

I realized that while I wanted the life of that couple on Kinging-It, I wasn’t able to ever have it.  Because it isn’t even close to reality.  For the exact same reasons that you never see TV characters going to the bathroom to take a poo.  You cut out the things that don’t continue the story.  And what’s left is what we get to watch.

So what was my “happy life”?  And what did I want to show the world about it?

So I started journaling.  And not the “let’s scrapbook and glue pretty ribbons and sparkles to our journal, oh look at our creation!” style of journaling.  (Seriously, just Google ‘How To Journal’ and you’ll see exactly what I mean).  No I went for the cheap Dollar Store composition book with the wide ruled pages.  And every day I wrote down what I was feeling, what made me happy, and what made me miserable.  Turns out there was quite a lot.

You know the “forest for the trees” analogy?  Well each day was a tree, the journal was the forest.  And when I later paged through those entries a pattern emerged that I couldn’t ignore.

I wanted two seemingly polar opposite things, and everything I was doing was clashing and never working in harmony.

I wanted success.
I wanted to slow down and focus on things that meant something to me.

How does one work hard for success and also take things easy for a happier life?  That was quite the question, so I continued journaling.  But now here’s the thing … for me journaling wasn’t always writing.

Sometimes I force myself to stop everything, hop in the car, and go sit somewhere completely different.  And I think.  But here’s the trick … I never force that think, or try to direct those thoughts.  I just let them wander.  And what comes out is this giant jumbled mass of emotions, ideas, and stuff that I really should take taken and thrown away a long time ago.  And however long that think needs, it gets.

Then on the way back to my starting point, I try to organize what poured out of me.  I mentally expand on the ideas and accept the emotions.  And usually by the time I get home I either grab my laptop or that composition book (it depends on how many words I need to put down) … and I recap and expand.  It’s amazing sometimes what comes out of a good think.  

For me the key is to let it all out and never try to understand the contents until the pot is empty.  And by formally documenting what forms at the end, I have something concrete to deal with.

To wrap up the stories above, this repeated exercise made me realize what direction I needed to take my life, even though it felt like something I always wanted to avoid.  Embracing a slower and more focused existence.  And I also figured out that the only way I could have success on YouTube was to show the reality of that life … and all of the lessons I needed to learn in order to have it.

Will that create the success I crave?  Maybe, I don’t know.  But I’m still doing the sit-think-recap brain dump exercise to continue the examination.  In fact, this very article is just that.  Because I had a grand sit and think earlier today … and I needed to write it all down.