The Reality of Vlogmas for a Teen YouTuber

I posted the last day of vlogmas today, and with the year coming to an end soon, I wanted to reflect on how my first vlogmas has been, if I will do it again in 2021, and what I will do differently if I do choose to do it another time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7CKONm3Fbw

I have grown up watching vlogmas, so when I decided to take on YouTube seriously around when quarantine started, I knew that I wanted to do something like that. When it was starting to get closer to December, I made a google document outlining what I wanted to include in vlogmas videos, and also what my uploading/filming schedule would be. I was super motivated and excited to be uploading so much in one month, and that made me determined to succeed in every other day uploads. However, I told myself I would be realistic, by not being too upset if I missed a day, because I still have a lot of other responsibilities in my life.

The Challenges

Even though I was very excited and motivated initially, there also came many struggles with this rigorous posting schedule. The first that I found was that my life is just boring right now. It was hard to want to turn on the camera when all I was doing was sitting at my desk listening to my teachers on zoom. I knew that I could make it more interesting by switching up the angles, or the music in editing, but it was very discouraging because I felt like no one would be interested in what I was doing at home. This remained a struggle all throughout vlogmas, but I felt better after I realized that everyone is in the same boat, and as long as I find different ways to stay creative, people would be interested.

The next challenge I realized soon was that editing takes a loooooong time, especially if it is a vlog. If you don't know anything about editing, my camera footage shows up as a clip and every different time I turn on the camera to record during the day is another clip. With sit down videos, usually I just have 1 or 2 clips, so it is relatively easy to just cut out mistakes and add overlays and text, but with a vlog, there are so many components to organize in just one video. Even though this was a struggle, I found the solution quickly, which was to edit as I go. After having a few clips from the morning, I would sit down and edit them, then add footage throughout the day, so I was ready for an upload the next day. It was honestly a good lesson in time management that I can even take into other areas of my life.

The last challenge I wanted to talk about was thumbnails. Let's be honest, my vlogmas thumbnails were bad. And I can admit that. The main reason for this is because in a vlog there isn't much still footage where I can take a screenshot for a thumbnail. It was also a small time frame, so I did not have enough time to put hours of work into one thumbnail. I have learned from this experience that thumbnails do matter, and as a viewer, I know that I wouldn't click on a horrible thumbnail unless it's a creator I really love.

Will I do it again in 2021?

This is a tricky question, because we really have no idea what the next year will even look like. Will COVID be fixed? Will schools be back in session? Will we have to be in quarantine again? My goal would be to do it again, as long as I have enough time. If I have even less time than I did this year, maybe I would do weekly vlogmas episodes, because I saw some people doing that, and it seemed more fun and way less stressful. It would probably take a while for me to ever do the traditional vlogmas format of uploading every single day until Christmas, simply because I am still in school. Most of the people who do this, it is their full time job to do YouTube, but for me, school and soccer have to come first.

When/if I do vlogmas again in 2021 I would definitely take the time to make better thumbnails, prefilm videos, and time manage better. With that being said, it was super fun this year, and thank you to everyone who watched, I really appreciate it!