the other day and posted by first video. It was a video about me opening up some Pokemon packs and was really excited both for the opening and how the video would do. After finishing the upload I placed a title and some descriptions and waited. Time went by and I didn't get any views, so I started looking around other channels who also posted videos about opening Pokemon cards but were getting a lot more views. I placed a few comments here and there and then I asked one how come he's getting so many views for doing practically the same thing but I got nothing? I got nothing from that either, no response.
This was really frustrating, I spent a good 3 hours creating that video, editing it, checking that everything was perfect before recording. Talking clearly onto the mic when discussing what cards I could get and giving out a lot of fresh info on things that many viewers may not know yet, I was being informational and providing a lot of value in this video, yet no one watched it.
A few days later someone other than the youtuber replied to my comment asking why I hadn't received any views, he mentioned that he had just randomly sorted comments by new instead of the default trending and found my comment which led him to reply and give me some hints of how I could get more views and at the same time had gone and checked out my video, subscribed and left me a comment. This really made me happy that someone had just randomly happened upon my comment and I got my first subscriber, but his comment turned things around. He had left quite a critiquing comment about the way I open and handle the cards and that I had a few things wrong about some of the info I gave out that I may have misremembered. I can't have this comment on my first video, I spent so many hours on it I don't want others to see it as I'm not going to bother editing it any more. I decided to delete the comment from my video which unfortunately meant we were back at 0 comments but a few views. I wonder who else has seen it but not left a comment or like.
Where are my likes? I hear it helps with the algorithm or something to suggest my videos to other people in their feeds, ugh. The next day I received a new comment, the same account asking why I had deleted his previous comment, ugh, I can't get into that now, let's delete this one too.
The next day I had received a dislike. REALLY? A dislike and no likes? This probably means no one will ever find my video organically... What should I do? I'm pretty sure I know who the disliker is, must be the guy who commented, that asshole, how dare he dislike my first video as I'm just starting out, just for a few mistakes and cause I deleted his comment? I'm going to contact him. Oh, apparently I can't, there's no chat here, but maybe I can reply to another of his comments somewhere. Oh you can see his public email here on his youtube channel, I'm going to email him to let him know why I deleted his comment and to ask him nicely to remove his dislike.
He responded with "no, you deleted my comments twice when I was just trying to be helpful, I'm not removing my dislike and in fact I'm going to tell my friends in discord about your activity". The email came as a shock to me, I quickly went to my youtube channel and noticed there were now 34 dislikes on my video and a message from youtube saying I have been flagged for inappropriate content and received my first out of three strikes.
I felt like my world was falling apart, I was supposed to become popular and eventually get accepted into their ad revenue sharing program to earn a little bit of income for my hobbies, maybe even scale them up with that income to provide more content to my future viewers. I contacted youtube and told them the whole story and why the strike is unfair because I had probably been unfairly flagged by a bunch of people who disliked my video based off of that one person. I even included the fact that I had deleted his comments, I mean that's what people do these days, right? They delete and block criticism and trolls. Why is this happening to me? I deserve to take part in everything other content creators are doing, ugh.
I received no response. I sent another message that quickly sent back an automated message asking me to wait instead of sending more requests. I waited but nothing ever happened, the strike remained. I felt unmotivated to continue making videos so I googled and youtubed a little bit to see what tips or tricks others told me about becoming a content creator.
Many were talking about branding, sharing and engaging in the beginning of your creator journey. You're supposed to be active constantly to match up with other creators, you have to treat it not just as a full-time job but also as an investment vehicle. Don't expect to make any revenue your first year and even if you start making some in the first or second year, make sure to use all that revenue back to improve your content and attract more viewers. Some even suggested some less "legal" alternatives where you over time a little here and there bought followers and viewers because in this day and age "everyone does it" and if you don't, you'll have a hard time getting into the good side of the algo.
It really seemed like an uphill battle, but with a lot of work, determination, maybe some tricks here and there, I could become one of the few percentage of content creators that could make an okay wage once I start hitting 100k daily views from my current 0.33 daily views. There were a lot of other things to think about, though, the realization that this may not happen, no matter how hard I work, how determined I am, how much time and money I pour into my account, it just may never happen. People either won't like my content that much, the Pokemon fad may go away, I may not find something to replace it with, I may lose focus and subscribers/viewers and just fade out over time. Worst of it all, I already have one out of three strikes and no help to get it removed. What if those early trolls keep clinging onto my account on the next video I post and keep holding a grudge and keep flagging me. My youtube channel could be deleted, if not now then maybe they'll come back later when I have more activity. I've heard so many stories of smaller channels being deleted and no one caring about it because they couldn't manage to make enough noise on other socials about their unfair treatment.
If only.
If only, there was a way to ensure my account couldn't get deleted. My content would remain seen to whoever wants to view it. My trolls wouldn't be able to unfairly try to hurt my account. If I could see who dislikes my content and maybe ask them why or at least check if they have a history of disliking things for legitimate reasons. If youtube adrevenue were to drop suddenly, if I could just take all my content, followers, history and move it onto another platform but still use the same account. If my earnings wouldn't just completely stop happening from a few false reports. If others were around to help me out to keep things fair rather than sending emails to bots back and forth. If only it would feel like I'm invested in the whole ecosystem rather than just being someone who generates ad revenue and gets half of that back. If only I could reward my viewers and people engaging for their good and helpful comments rather than just giving them likes while most get ignored. If I'd be more open to criticism rather than just deleting and blocking everyone who doesn't see eye to eye. If only things were a bit more transparent.
I wonder if such a platform exists out there.