So I'm starting a youtube channel in 2022. Not one channel, in fact, but two. Am I nuts? No. Isn't the market saturated? No. What could I possibly say that hasn't been said already by someone with hundreds of thousands of views?
Hi! My name is Tashlentine and I'm not a business minded person.
I'm actually a graphic designer who has found herself right at the beginning of a rather massive career change thanks to the pandemic. Don't get me wrong - I'm not blaming the pandemic - I am actually thanking it. For me the pandemic gave me a chance to re-evaluate where my life was going. Which has led to me starting a youtube channel in 2022. Read on, or if you want the the entire cup of tea, you'll find it all in glorious technicolor for you in the video below
So many of us charge through life with blinkers on just trying to do the next thing and the next thing and the next thing on our checklist of crap that needs doing, and never having a chance to breathe, or even ask ourselves why we're doing the things, and if we should be doing the things, or if we even want to be doing the things.
Whether or not the things make us happy doesn't seem to factor into our priorities, lists or planning much, yet we spend a fair bit of time moaning about how we're not as happy as we'd like to be (funny that).
THE PANDEMIC MADE ME DO IT:
For a number of reasons I'll go into in later posts, I've decided that a regular old job with a traditional employment model is not for me. I've also decided to become an actor. It's not a new decision - I'd worked my arse off training to be an actor when I was a kid - and I mean worked my arse off. Every weekend I was in a full day of classes and I was in the theatre at least two nights a week after school, and the rest of the nights I was binge watching films studying other actors, thinking how I would say their lines differently, doing my homework from my weekend classes and reading plays. I had two Open College certificates in performing arts by the time I was 15. And I and shelved all of it because all the grownups around me told me to do something sensible and stable when I got to GCSE age and I thought 'well, they're old enough to know better than me' so I listened. Which was a really dumb thing to do. The concept of a stable job is one of the biggest lies kids are ever told by the school system.
The arts is a real job, and nothing is stable.
When the pandemic hit, most people I knew were having reoccurring dreams of being chased by covid zombies. I, meanwhile, started having reoccurring dreams of walking through a door and onto a stage.
I'm 36 now. I think there's only so long you can ignore the thing you were born to do, and keep pushing it down hoping it shuts up so you can somehow, by some miracle, become a successful human being in a world geared one way, when every cell in your body is geared the opposite way.
So I decided it's time to bite the bullet. I'm going to do the thing.
I'm going to drama school. Yes I'll be old enough to be everyone's mother when I get there. Do I give one single fuck? no.
BUT FIRST, MONEY
I'm not a naiive kid with my head in the clouds hoping my life is going to be like 'Fame' with boom boxes and lycra and dancing on cars.
Thats actually my idea of hell to be honest - I have zero interest in fame, or being in musical theatre, or scraping by, living in a hole, and subsisting on stale ramen. I've lived like a student enough already to be utterly done with it. I can BE a student and not have to live like one. I'm old and fussy and I have basic standards now.
Drama school is expensive. Like, really expensive. The one I want to go to has a year long course and fees are £14k. I can't get a student loan because I've already had one for the 'sensible' degree I spent 3 years of my life on which I've never used. If I rely on a conventional 9-5 job, 2/3 of what's left of my salary after the tax man has got his slimy fingers on it is eaten by rent and the remaining 1/3 is equally split between vegetables, bills and Transport For London. I'll manage to be in a financial position to apply to drama school when I'm approximately 108 if I go down this route.
Which I'm not willing to accept.
So I'm on my own with this. I have a financial goal in my head of £62k which gives me living expenses for a year, pays my fees and gives me about £2.50 for a graduation ice cream after the tax man has told me to stand and deliver.
I know I am intelligent. I know I am a good designer. I know how to use the internet. I KNOW there is another way to reach this goal faster than by relying on a conventional day job to get me there.
I'm reading about passive income til my eyes bleed. And this is the reason why I'm starting a youtube channel in 2022.
There is money to be made out there, and I want in. And to make money online you need an audience, and to get an audience you need to be a good entertainer.
AUDIENCES
The most important thing to an actor is, or should be, an audience.
The audience tells you what you're doing right or wrong. They are the ones who force you to grow - whether they realise it or not. They pay your rent, and it's your job to give them what they came for, and to stop them walking out half way through the first act.
What is the internet, if not a massive audience? And who better to learn from than the thousands of others who have tried and failed, or tried and succeeded? And who better to connect with than others who feel the same way you do? And what better use of my time, than helping others using the things that I've learned, and the skills I have acquired?
So I have two youtube accounts. My first account is one teaching graphic design, which I'm starting from zero. It's been two weeks and I've got two videos up and 6 subscribers. One of them is my best friend, another one is me.
My second account has a springboard. I managed to hack into an old account that I made when I was in my early 20s. I have about 4 things up there from 12 years ago. One of them went viral, and I have over 5 million views and 7.777k subscribers on a channel I've not even looked at in 12 years.
That's an entire stadium full of people I can learn from, by how they react to me, and I think they will be an amazing bunch of people to get to know, and to get comfortable with being in front of on my journey. Whether they know it or not, I've learned a ton from them already.
I see this as not only a way to connect with other human beings, and a way to funnel an audience towards things I make to help me reach my financial goals, I see it as pre-prep for drama school: I've learned about lighting, sound tech, teleprompters, screen presence and cinematography already and I've only been there for a couple of weeks.
But another wonderful thing about audiences is that they can - and do - help build you up, encourage you, give you direct impartial feedback, and push you forward. You don't get that in many places. And you rarely, if ever, get it from family - who see every decision you make through a prism of worry and love and concern rather than objective critique and comparison to others in your niche who your audience is already watching because of the life experiences that have led you all to find each other in the first place.
People keep saying how tough it is out there now because the market is so saturated on youtube - 'it's too crowded' - they say - 'it's too hard to grow!'
The way I see it is this is the best training you can give yourself in screen-presence. If you can hold attention on youtube you can hold attention anywhere including in a theatre. It's not the same by any means but I think it's a transferrable skill.
You have so many people out there you can learn from - not just from so-called 'gurus', but from anyone on youtube, simply by watching them and evaluating what makes them successful compared to someone else doing the same thing who isn't. And yeah of course it's hard, but that makes you level up faster than you ever would otherwise in order to keep up!
I think the space being 'too crowded' is a bit of a bullshit excuse to be honest - from people who want to be comfortable, kick their feet up and have success come to them for as little effort as possible.
You don't grow from comfort.
I've been comfortable for the last 15 years and the only part of me that's grown is my waistline.
So here's to starting a youtube channel in 2022.
Wish me luck.
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