The answer does not lie in view or play count.
I recently watched a video by my favorite YouTube creator, Frank James, in which he frankly (no pun intended) and candidly discussed his creative block. This answered the question of why I hadn’t seen any new videos from him in a while. On Fridays, one of my reasons for leaping out of bed is that there will be a new “16 Personalities” comedy sketch to watch. It may sound a little silly, but we all need a source of joy in our lives and FJ’s videos rarely fail to elicit that spontaneous and energetic burst of laughter that is so essential to good physical and mental health.
While FJ’s video “I’m creatively blocked” did elicit some smiles of delight, I mostly replayed it because it provided me with the cozy, comfortable feeling of camaraderie that emerges when enjoying a warm cup of coffee and a chat with a close friend. This is a trick that successful YouTubers have. They give you the impression that they are a real and regular presence in your lives when the fact is, they wouldn’t know you if they met you on the street. It’s essential to go out and interact with three-dimensional humans, even if you are an introvert like yours truly.
In his video, FJ identifies his obsession with view count as the reason for his creative block. If a video did not get more than 10,000 views, he felt as though he had failed and creating the video was a complete waste of time. I didn’t feel that way, but he did. I did, however, feel that way about my own podcast episodes. Not being as popular as FJ, I am nowhere in the neighborhood of 10K plays per episode (it’s more like 1.7K plays for all 5 seasons and I have to acknowledge that some of those plays are my own) but I certainly felt frustrated and disinclined to continue when a new episode failed to generate the traction I was expecting. “It’s a good story,” I would fret.
“Why aren’t more people listening?”
The impact of social media on the creative process has been explored in depth:
When we conceive of an idea, social media offers us an easy, immediate and above all, free way to share that idea with the world. We need not seek out editors, agents, publishers, et. al. Social media effectively cuts out the middleman and connects us directly with our audience.
The heady feelings of amazement, euphoria and disbelief that emerge when the audience responds positively, and with an apparently voracious appetite for new episodes, is surprisingly intoxicating. Both creator and audience experience an eagerness for generating and consuming new content. Episode and view count both ascend. When each new episode generates more views, comments and shares than the previous one, the heady feeling of intoxication intensifies, with no very clear idea of where this will all end. Dream castles of immortality on the small and silver screens dance before our eyes.
“The dreamer’s joy is worth the dreamer’s pain,” wrote L.M. Montgomery in “Magic for Marigold.” Truer words were never spoken. With every inception of a new idea, there is an inner awareness, a small grief, in the knowledge that once we see this idea to fruition, there will be an inevitable termination. At some point, the story must end. The audience needs closure to experience satisfaction. “But what will I do when I can no longer tell this story?” the creator secretly wonders.
“Now that I have experienced this joy, how will I ever return to ordinary life?”
“There is no such thing as ordinary life,” L.M. Montgomery consoles us in “Emily Climbs”. The joy was always in the creating.
Saranya Murthy 