Back in the early days of my YouTube career, I shared everything on social media: Life events, my thoughts on whatever topics that pique my interest, video ideas, YouTube stuffs... pretty much everything. The last few years I've really been limiting how much I share though...
The main contributor to me not sharing as much anymore is me hopping off Twitter permanently (or X, whatever it's called, it'll always be Twitter to me) and honestly, it was one of the greatest decisions I've made in my life so far. The only social media I'm still active on (and I use that term loosely, I still only post once a month, not even that sometimes) is Instagram and that's because I feel like it's a nice way to share what's going on in my life with my most supportive and interactive viewers/subscribers without there being too much toxicity in the responses. Twitter/X is an absolute cesspool of toxic s*** on the other hand, seemingly full of folks doing nothing but disagreeing with each other (not necessarily a bad thing but can grate after a while when you see NOTHING but folks disagreeing), insulting each other while disagreeing with each other, folks aggressively pushing their own agendas while dismissing everyone else and much, much more. "You could just follow the positive folks" - Yeah, it's a good point but Twitter/X pushes other folks' content anyway so it's darn near inescapable! Sorry, Twitter/X rant over...
Anyway, the point of this post is to essentially say I'm going to be going further with not being so transparent/sharing on the Internet because I'm trying to limit the amount of ways folks can get on my nerves and thus better my mental health, the latest in a long line of steps I'm taking to better my mental health. YouTube comments is the 2nd most annoying place to deal with in terms of folks seemingly doing nothing but 2nd guessing you, picking you apart, constantly correcting you, all that stuff. Again, no one of those things is necessarily a bad thing but it can grate after a while when you get enough of those sorts of comments/responses to whatever it is one posts... a video, a community post, anything.
Recently, for example, I announced that I wanted to start a daily Minecraft Hardcore series because I wanted to see if I've still got it - Got what it takes still to be super consistent. It's been a very long time since I've been super consistent across any one of my channels lately and, like you folks I imagine, I'm tired of it. While a lot of folks were supportive in the face of a new Minecraft Hardcore series beginning, there was, of course, those who wanted to pick me apart or warn me off of it, whatever it may be. When I then made a follow up post essentially taking a little step back and saying it'll be 5 days a week (Mon-Fri) so I could make space for the normal LP to continue alongside it, something I wasn't originally going to do (I was going to put the main LP on a hiatus for a bit), stuff was said, feelings were had as a result, and now I just flat out don't want to do the new Minecraft Hardcore series at all anymore. THIS is why I get scared nowadays of starting new series... or even now announcing them... I miss the days when I wanted to start a series on a whim, because I *FEEL* like it, because I *WANT* to. I want my channels to be mine again. Yes, to an extent, I need to give my audience what they want but equally, I want to have total control over my career, my channels and my series again. I'm tired of feeling scared to start a new project, truly. The best content is always made when the creator is having fun so I'm going to do my best to recapture that.
Going forward, I'm no longer going to announce series ideas via community posts... or at all in fact. If I want to do something on my channels, I'm going to do it. The most I'll do now in terms of sharing is on Instagram for life updates/pictures and via my blog here for anything that's on my mind that I want to share (not series ideas) - Thanks for all your support. Apologies if I come off a tad prickly or self-centred in this post but honestly, it's something that's played on my mind a lot these last few years as, funnily enough, my career has all but darn near died all during the same period of the last few years... bit of a connection there, no? I want to have fun again in my career... and I will...