YouTube Subsriber Count: 8848
A frustrating week to say the least. The height of my viewership on The Selador channel came around at a time when I have been least able to capitalize on it. Maybe I should have had better foresight, but I left my mic and equipment back in Newcastle, and now all I can do is read and write until I return later this month.
I shouldn’t complain because I have gotten lucky to have such rapid growth in these past two months, but it is a scary concept when you feel as if this luck is being pissed away. But regardless, I can’t help it now so may as well continue what I’m doing and hope it works out.
Talking of what I’m “doing now”, I have been working on the script for my video “The Early Articles of Ernest Hemingway”, which is shaping up to be my longest video yet (lucky me). Every time I begin a new video, I promise myself it will be a short and easier video to make, but every time I wind up making it denser with info and fucking longer than the previous one. If I had to guess, I would say that this video will exceed the 20-minute mark, which requires a lot (and I mean a lot) of editing.
My “style” of editing takes after Pursuit of Wonder. I usually grab a moving background and get cropped images of which float around on the backdrop, somehow in a way that relates to the voiceover. Sometimes this style of editing can be incredibly rewarding – especially when you find a new way to use it – but most of the time editing is monotonous and boring. However, the finished product does work wonders, as I have been complimented for my edits frequently since the increase in viewership hit the channel.
There are plenty of factors I need to improve on, however. One of those is my consistency (probably the biggest one of them all), and another is my scriptwriting. Watching back over my Acosta video I noticed I say “AND SO” a lot. AND SO, this happened. AND SO, he did this. AND SO, you get the idea… I’m surprised nobody has pulled me up on it because I say it so much it annoys me to listen to. AND SO, I have decided to limit the number of times I begin a sentence with “AND SO”, so as not to sound like a complete idiot – I prove my dysfunctional intellect through other means.
I have also been reading Anthony Bourdain’s A Cook’s Tour when not writing scripts or working. My plan is to have two perfectly crafted scripts by the time I return to Newcastle, with one on A Cook’s Tour being one of them. I always try to imagine the beginning and end first, which – for this video – will both be in Japan. Bourdain had got the attention of an editor through an email that contained the writing of a later chapter in his breakout book Kitchen Confidential called “Mission to Tokyo.” I may have said this in the previous update, but fuck it, nobody reads them anyway. Basically, this chapter got an editor's attention, which led to Kitchen Confidential being released, which subsequently led to Bourdain’s fame and travel shows. So, I intend to use “Mission to Tokyo” as the opener, before going into his book A Cook’s Tour (a book about travel and of which is reminiscent of that chapter) so I can eventually end the video on the chapter titled “Tokyo Redux.”
I think I’ll have four parts for the video: the first will be “Mission to Tokyo”; the second will be A Cook’s Tour where I will generalize the book and note the little side “series” in the book called “Reasons Why You Don’t Want to be On Television”; third will be “Tokyo Redux”; and the last part will basically state the obvious about how Bourdain went on to do his shows, be successful etc etc. I am not too sure how that last part will go, and I haven’t read “Tokyo Redux” so maybe it won’t work out. Who knows? I will in time.
Another weird revelation I’ve had since the increase in viewership is at the unanimous support I have got my video on the most beautiful word in the English language. For a long time, I had considered that video to be one of my worst ones, but – besides 1 dislike – everyone has responded incredibly positively. I think it might something to do with how it reveals the reason why I chose the name “Selador.” I think when that little revelation clicks in people’s heads they go “ooooooooh, that’s why he's called The Selador. That’s cool. Subscribed”, and boom, I have once again blown minds wide open with my pseudo intellect.
If I am completely honest, as I write this right now, I am really struggling to find something to write about. Since coming home for the Easter break, I have been working 50 hours a week doing night shifts (9 pm – 7 am) and by the time I get home, I usually fall asleep at around 8 am, wake up at 3ish or 4ish, and then have until 8: 35 pm (when I leave for work) to get all my YouTube shit finished. I have to keep reminding myself to carry on chipping away and eventually I’ll thank myself, but it is exhausting sometimes. Additionally, it has led to me not progressing as much as I’d like to and thus not having much to write about on here. Therefore, I think I will just talk about my plans for the future and try to unravel them as I write, seeing as saying “I have written more of the script” doesn’t make for any interesting updates.
There is only one goal I have with YouTube: to make enough money to travel. I think I may have a good chance at earning some decent money from this, as well as finding other avenues in which to make earn a decent wage. By “other avenues”, I really just mean Substack. I think if I am going to try and earn some money, I am going to have to find an easier and quicker form of content to make. Right now, I have no idea what that could be, so maybe I should start browsing for ideas online after writing this up. I have no real interest in doing reviews other than the small write-ups I do for this Substack, but to be honest, other than that I have no idea what else I could possibly do.
Right now, I don’t know what to write about. All I can say is videos are coming and by late April I will be working extremely hard to get them out one after another. For now, though, there is nothing more to say than that, so I have an idea. Because I have promised a write-up of 2000 words or more each week in the “About” section, I have decided to make any write-up below the word count I have promised free of charge. Today’s update will thus be accessible to anyone because I can’t provide the content I have promised.
The Selador.