Just wanna share my experience of being a YouTuber for 1 year

 

I have started a YouTube channel on Jan 19, 2022. The channel is called Ah Tee the Not So Great which I posted animations/animation meme of an original character name Ah Tee.

While most people shared their YouTube success and sky high earnings, I have none to share.

Well, to earn money from YouTube videos, you need to be in the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) and to be invited, you need to have at least 1k subscribers and 4k view hours. These criteria only guarantee you get the invitation to get your channel reviewed, it's not a sure entry ticket.

Sadly, after trying my best for 1 year, I only managed to gain 270+ subscribers (going up and down daily) and 270+ view hours. 

High Competition

The best thing about YouTube is the low barrier of entry, however, the competition is high as hell as well. Meaning, it takes more than just talent and effort but also some luck and a lot of analysis. 

YouTube used to be about quantity whereby you can get lots of views and subscribers just by uploading lots of videos. But that era have passed, it's now about content, flow and editing. Which means, filming yourself with a phone and uploading it probably won't get you views or subscribers, unless of course you have something really interesting and trending. Even then, your viewers might just clock out before your video ended.

Animation is surprisingly very competitive, way more competitive than I ever thought. And there are many animators on YouTube who can just whack me left, right, up and down with their superb skills. My animations have no chance to standout or maybe I just haven't discover the correct formula. 

Initial Success

Although I said that I didn't managed to get into the YPP nor did I found the correct formula, I did have a short period of "success". 

It's when I joined a "fake collab" with a highly successful animator. Well the animator just hit his\her 10k subs and decided to post a fake collab - meaning you download a video the collaborator made and there will be empty segments you can edit in your own characters or animations. 

Since the animator have a huge fan base, joining the collab gained me many views and recognition (10K of views and over 80 subs). Also, since I am very new to the community, my way of doing the collab came as a "surprise" (Some even call it trolling) and that kinda gained me some attention.

But that faded very soon. My subsequent videos didn't do as well and I mainly gain recognition from collabs only. My own non-collab videos have an average of only 50-60 views and I have only gained less than 100 subscribers from them. This means more than half of my subs came from collaboration videos.

My channel is not growing after I decided to stop doing collabs as I don't think that's the way forward.

Efforts not Rewarded

Making videos is not difficult, but making quality videos that will gain your viewers and subs is difficult. So is making animation. Sometimes a decent 1-2 minutes animation can takes weeks to month to make.

And while we are taught in school that if you put in the effort (to study), you'll be rewarded (with good grades) but that doesn't happen in the real world, and definitely not in the YouTube world.

The few video which I spent the most efforts and best in, did the worst in terms of views, watch time and Average percentage viewed (APV). Average percentage viewed is the percentage of your videos being watched. 

For example, if you did a 1 minute video and the average watched time is 30 seconds, your Average percentage viewed is 50%. My longest video (just about 2:30 minutes) have less than 40% APV.

It does gets very unmotivating as it takes more than a month to make.

The whole package

While you may think YouTube is just about making "great videos" but to get the first clicks, your Thumbnails and titles plays a huge part! 

It's like a package, the thumbnails and title is what catch the viewers attention and get you that chance to be viewed (the click on video) and then that's when your video content comes in. So without that first attention grabber (thumbnails and titles), you might never get any clicks.

It's just much more complicated than I thought initially. Basically, your thumbnail must scream "click me!". Unless, of course you're collaborating with a huge YouTuber who can just bring in the click for you. But these huge creators are usually busy themselves so they might not respond even if you reach out to them. 

Not the "Easy Income"

YouTube is a bout passion and discipline. If you don't like making videos, you will end up feeling like it's working in a boring job - you'll burn out real quickly and quit.

Also, if you think YouTube is that job which gives you lots of freedom and "easy money", you'll be very disappointed! 

I am honestly not the most disciplined YouTuber, but I have already pull a few all-nighter(s) trying to keep to schedule. Yes, having a schedule is important, but also choose a schedule you can keep to, say uploading a video weekly or bi-weekly so that your subscribers will know when to expect your videos. Viewers have a lot of choices, they won't hesitate to unsub and move to other creators if you went "missing" for a few weeks without notifying them.

I can breakdown the schedule of one of my longest video --> This One (if you would like to know)

Planning - 2-3 days (I honestly didn't plan well enough so I redone some parts)

Drawing + Animating - 4.5 weeks (I reused some art from my previous videos else will take longer)

Searching for sound effects and music - 2-3 days

Editing + Redoing some scenes - 4-5 days

This is how much time it takes to create a video, unless you're doing just shorts. If you're shooting say a vlog or non-animation video, you'll still need to take time to do editing and add effects in your video. The attention span of the viewers are much shorter now and you usually won't gain much views if your video doesn't have something happening (a view change, a sound effect or animation) in like 10 seconds.

Well, I started out trying to join the YPP and now, I have realised that it's not possible for me, or at least with what I want to do. I will probably still keep it there but won't be forcing myself to keep to the schedule anymore, I just do what I like, whenever I feel like it. 

I won't discourage anyone from joining YouTube as a creator but I just want you to know that there are failure stories, in fact, many of them, you just didn't get to hear them. Also, if you decided to join, then know that you need to put in a lot of time and efforts and be prepared that they could go down the drain.

Good luck people. :)

Why I love my Poco X3 pro - Review after 1 year usage

I have had the Poco X3 pro for more than a year now and while it did gave me some problem (battery dying on me), I must say I still love it a lot. I can even say that I love it much more than my iPhone 7 plus. 

Of course, many would say that it's not a fair comparison. Which is true but only to a certain extend.

Well, you see, I use my Poco phone mainly for my Grab deliveries and gaming, retro gaming to be exact.

Retro-Gaming Beast

I have PPSSPP (PSP emulator), DraStic (NDS emulator), Citra 3DS emulator) and Skyline (Switch Emulator) installed on the Poco phone and almost all of them run without any problem. Well, except for Skyline because Switch games are just so demanding and it being relatively new, many games aren't fully compatible yet.

I can run Persona Q and Q2 at normal speed with at least 20ish fps (90ish% speed) - which is enough as there is no obvious lag or stutters. And over 50fps at 400ish% speed.

It does however lags a little with long hours of gaming, say more than 3 hours. Sometimes, it freezes the emulator. Clearing the cache helps but you have better save as often as possible.

On PPSSPP, I have run Bomberman, Persona 3 Portable, Teken 6 and Gungnir with no problem at all. There is also no obvious input lag with my iPega 9167 controller.

Skyline is kinda disappointing as the games I wanted to play (Fatal Frame and Bomberman), cannot work on Skyline yet. I managed to play Bombing Busters though and it worked well. However, you need to get Turnip Adreno driver for it to work correctly.

The phone have no sweat running DraStic. Completed, Nanashi no Game, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin and a few other games on the phone with long hours of gameplay.

Battery Life

The 5160 mAh did last quite a long time, at about 3-5 hours of gameplay with Bluetooth controllers connected, depending on how demanding the game is. For daily usage with light gaming and video streaming, it could easily last a whole day without problem.

However do take note that the battery is prone to swelling when not charged correctly. 

Do not charge your phone overnight, especially on a Fast charge charger. Most importantly, DO NOT play game on your phone while charging. And for this reason, I got myself a fast charger so I don't have to wait hours for the phone to charge. (The original power brick, I gave it to my sister to use in her office) 

Anyways, my battery died about 1 year of usage, or maybe slightly more than 1 year. The battery swelled so badly, my back cover was pushed out, leaving a visible gap between the back cover and the phone body. It was also completely dead that my phone couldn't power on.

It fortunately happened in Malaysia and I managed to find a repair shop with Xiaomi's (Poco was under Xiaomi) parts (including original battery). And the best part is, it's cheaper when compared to getting an original battery in Singapore due to the exchange rate. I got a battery replacement for RM110 (with some negotiating). I have asked around in Singapore and it seems like not all phone repair shop repairs Xiaomi phones, some only repair those popular brands like Apple and Samsung and even if they do, it cost more than what I paid in Malaysia.

I am still monitoring how long this battery can last, now that I am doing whatever I can to prolong its life.

Firmware Updates and Ads

While one common complain of mid-range phones is that there won't be much security and firmware updates, I think I have received at least 2 updates in just this 1+ year of usage.

An unofficial website predicts that Xiaomi/Poco will try to provide security patches for up to 3 years and at least 2 Android versions or 3 MIUI versions. But this is all prediction based on past updates patterns and doesn't promises anything.

I do feel that MIUI seems to be slow at times and sometimes my phone boots to a blank screen (not icons or anything) for a good second before the everything start getting loaded. But after that, the phone will usually run quite smooth. 

And yes, there are some useful preinstalled apps that do have annoying Ads, like the Cleaner app which I use to clear my cache. There is a medium chance of encountering an Ad after clearing the cache. No doubt you can close the Ad (there is no countdown timer), but it does gets annoying over time.

Overall, I really love this phone a lot. It is smooth and runs my games really well. There are occasional bugs and stutters here and there - like if I gamed for long hours but they're easily fix by killing the app or clearing the caches. 

The only 'real problem' is the battery swelling problem which, you'll have no choice but to get a replacement!