When people tend to think of social media and social networking sites, often times, the platforms that get left out are the ones centered around video making. The platform that I am talking about specifically here is YouTube, but also Tik Tok, Vine, and anything else similar. My personal journey with these social media sites/video sites has certainly been an interesting one and ones that I have used for many years now, and happen to have a pretty big place in my life.

Looking back to middle school, and even high school, I remember myself watching YouTube videos a lot. My cousin and I were obsessed with hair and makeup back then and would watch tutorials for HOURS on end so that we could perfect our skills. We even *thought* we got so good at it all that we were going to turn 18, move to California or Miami, and open up our our resort and spa that did allll the things. Hair, nails, makeup, massages, facials, you name it. Yeahhh, let's all laugh together on that one. Sorry, Sarah! ;) While none of that ever happened, many moons ago, after getting sick of watching other people's videos, we did have our own channel for a little while where we would create and post our own tutorials, which was always really fun!

Aside from those purposes, a couple other things that I would use YouTube for are probably just what anybody else was using them for back then. I would watch music videos, Ted talks, different how-to's, certain hacks, speeches, and a couple of other things.

Now, as I got older, my Youtube needs changed a little bit, but were still pretty heavy. While I never moved to some major city and opened a salon, I did have a pretty successful Mary Kay business for a while. With that said, there were many, many times that I used YouTube to post all things Mary Kay related. I would post videos about products, tutorials with products, sharing the opportunity/my "marketing videos," and training purposes when I had a team and was on my way to Directorship.

In certain ways, I feel as though my use of YouTube pretty much can relate back to what social media really because there was always a community aspect tied within it, and it brought people together, especially when I was using it for my Mary Kay purposes. However, I recognize that there are people who never imagined these sites were social media platforms, let alone considering how they can bring people together, until now...

While I was always been an avid YouTube user, there are some people who were not, but in this "new normal," of social distancing, where we are forced to be #TogetherApart, people find themselves using YouTube more now than they ever have before. People are now posting things that they never would have even thought about doing before Covid-19, but are forced to now so that people can still be united in their communities, whatever they may be, and maintain some sort of normalcy.