Some of my favorite YouTubers have built their careers on daily vlogs, like Casey Neistat, BFvsGF (RIP), Zoella, Justin Escalona and more.
Fellow Video Producer and Social Media Director Amanda Choy has taken a crack at vlogging. From being an NYU student, intern and contributor to Odyssey, Choy took on the daily challenge of documenting her life.
Choy started doing vlogs during the semester after being inspired by the famous Neistat, who she follows.
I decided to do daily vlogging because one of my favorite YouTubers, Casey Neistat, was going on this vlogging mission. I have been following him for several years now and seeing him go from a filmmaker to a daily vlogger has been super exciting and interesting. It has been over a year since he started vlogging, and he has found that it has stimulated him creatively and helped to grow his channel. While I’m not really into becoming the next YouTube superstar, I wanted to give it a go. I’m somebody who can’t sit still between “creative kicks” and felt like a week of vlogging would be the perfect challenge for me.
Choy vlogged daily for a week.
Doing seven days of daily vlogging was a lot more challenging, but a lot more fulfilling than I thought it would be. The most annoying things were lugging around my chunky DSLR, having people stare at you when they see you talking to a camera in public, and staying up till the wee hours of night trying to finish an edit. However, after the first few days, I got really comfortable in front of the camera and started to work out when and how I could film the things I was doing throughout the day. Getting positive feedback from friends and family would help me to push through day after day of filming, editing, and posting.
Justin Escalona, known from his "Daily Docs," is an amazing video maker and is one of my favorite people to watch. His edits are always clean and quality is never below crisp.
Currently a student at USC, he documents nearly every day of dorm life, frat parties and being a cool person in LA aka flying drones off of expensive houses in Hollywood Hills.
But, even he recognized problems with daily content.
Sure, for people who already have a platform and following, daily content is an exclusive pass for fans to see more from their favorite creators. But, it does create a stress to always being doing cool things for the sake of vlogging. This is the reason BFvsGF stopped vlogging, but also played a role in personal affairs that ultimately led to the end of their channel (at least for now).
However, my main complaint concerning daily vlogging isn't about the stress or troubles established YouTubers may have. While that is valid, I'm more concerned with the people who are just vlogging, just to vlog.
I'm not going to call out specific people, but the new trend is daily content, and unlike other video creators, that's all some people do.
Here's my reaction: What's the point?
I know that's harsh, but is daily, constant content what viewers really want? Is that even good for your social footprint and following? Isn't this the traditional debate of quality versus quantity?
And I think my third grade teacher would agree; quality is what matters, even when you're talking about friends or content.
There are multiple theories that posting daily can actually be detrimental: to quality, to your subscribers, to your overall profile.
But it's also not smart in the marketing sphere either. Logically speaking, since everyone, or most YouTubers, are blowing up the subscription boxes every day with the same daily content as the next one, what makes you, as a content creator, different than the person next to you? Nothing.
Garnishing a style, gathering a following and using the Internet as your creative source is difficult, but daily content is actually making it harder and making everything mean a lot less.
I get it, just like how most people will scroll through headlines and not actually finish the article, most people won't sit through a short film that means a lot to you, but will definitely binge-watch TastyMade videos on the train ride home, each about 15 seconds long. But here it is again, quality versus quantity.
In the short run, posting a lot of content, that has relevancy, seems to be the best way. But, in the long run, I think it has a generally diminishing effect.
While posting daily may be a coin of commitment and challenge, I think, overall, it would be more beneficial for everyone to spend more time, energy and thought on the content produced.
The YouTube bubble is expanding and expanding, and bubbles only have one destination: popping.
And as I learned from blowing way too much bubblegum as a kid, the greatest part about bubbles is, well, popping them. So I decided to join the impending doom by taking a crack a daily vlogging.
This is what I learned: I actually enjoyed it?
While it was tedious and definitely unrealistic, it was fun. But on the same token, I found myself almost obligated to make a good vlog. On my laziest day on Sunday, I felt like it wasn't a good vlog because I didn't really do a lot because I had nothing planned for that day. Which is crazy.
I definitely see now the pressure of creating daily videos and doing things just for the sake of making a good video.
That being said, I really hope daily vlogging is not the future of content and that creators explore something that has more depth or meaning that when they wake up in the morning and the 10th cup of coffee they drink for the day. But then again, I'll always love Zoella and Casey Neistat.