First year as a YouTuber
20K+ subscribers, 600K+ views, $300+ revenue, 88 long-form videos
Last year, precisely on this date, I published my first YouTube video 🎥. This was a long-time dream, but I kept postponing it, thinking that:
My friends and family would laugh at me.
People in academia would judge me.
Who am I to share my opinions publicly?
What do I know to share with others?
My life is not perfect, so I cannot help others.
Don't get me wrong—I couldn’t overcome all these distorted thoughts over the last year. But I just knew that regardless of these thoughts, I would have regretted it in the future if I hadn’t tried to be a YouTuber.
Here we are, in my first year as a YouTuber; I have published 88 long-form videos, gained 20K+ subscribers, and earned $300+ revenue from 600K+ views 📈
You may wonder what changed last year around this time, and how I ignored my distorted thoughts and published my first video on YouTube.
First, something happened on July 27, 2023, that made me realize I want to have full control over my life. Of course, this is impossible if I keep worrying about what other people think, so I decided to ignore them 🚀.
Second, after completing my first year of teaching as an assistant professor, I realized there is a limit to the impact I can create while teaching a well-structured course offered by a large institution. So, I wanted to have my own space where all the rules are set by me 🎓.
Finally, one of my cousins took the university entrance exam last year. Although I am the only one in our large family with a graduate degree and the only one working as a professor at a university, she didn’t ask my advice while choosing the department and the university. Honestly, this made me sad because I knew how much I could have helped her. But then, I decided that I don’t want to give unsolicited advice to anyone and share my thoughts only with people who really want to hear 👩🏫.
Thanks to these three experiences, I recorded my first YouTube video on July 28, 2023, and published it raw without editing it. On the first day of my YouTube channel, the video was viewed only 164 times, and 8 people subscribed to my channel 😅. Of course, I didn’t give up because I already knew that there is no such thing as overnight success.
Here is what I learned from my experience as a YouTuber in the last year:
Nobody cares. Everybody is too busy getting their sh*t together.
Real friends and family only support and give feedback; they do not judge or laugh.
Nice people in academia support each other, and I don’t care about the others (the not nice ones).
Sharing something publicly requires lots of courage, and I am and will always be proud of myself for being so courageous 💪.
Not knowing everything doesn’t mean that I don’t know anything. Everyone has something to say to people a few years younger than themselves.
There is no such thing as a perfect life or perfect timing. We are all experimenting 🔄.
With this, I would like to thank Ali Abdaal for being such an inspiration and a fantastic guide throughout my journey 🌟.
Cheers,
Sidika