I am going to start a new YouTube channel in addition to the one I have now. I will upload videos to it in addition to my current channel, although with less frequency. The channel will be a new home for vlogs- a place where I can put videos like "Believe me, Microsoft won't ruin minecraft" and "An Inconvenient Truth (About Let's Plays).
Why am I doing this? Because while I enjoy recording myself playing games, I feel starved as a video maker if I don't regularly produce a video with a little more polish. The science videos fulfill this need, however, I can't bring myself to create an entire channel dedicated to science when I have no real expertise. Science is a hobby of mine, not a profession. I would feel disingenuous if I let people subscribe on the premise that I'm an expert when I'm really just a dude with Wikipedia who thinks space is cool.
But why a new channel? Why not just upload those videos to your current channel?
This is a graph of my subscriptions over the last month. Try to ignore the fact that there is a dip in the end- That's bound to happen when I make less Minecraft videos (I just didn't feel like playing on a server that was going to be reset soon). What stands out to me is that fact that I am practically hemorrhaging subscribers. For every 3 people that subscribe, 2 other people are unsubscribing. There were even days where the losses outweighed the gains.
Now YouTube will drive you crazy if you let yourself think too much about the numbers. But I can't help by ask- Who are these 969 people that unsubscribed? What did they originally want from my channel when they subscribed and how did I disappoint them with my content?
And I think I know where the answer lies...
Imagine being one of the 700,000 people who watched the Universe Death Clock. You don't play Minecraft much anymore, but you still watch the occasional video on it, especially the cool ones. You finish the video, and watch the "related videos" from my channel which are all about light speed and space and stuff. Being impressed with my level of quality, you subscribe, hoping to see more in the future. But over the next 3 weeks, I inundate your subscription feed with daily Minecraft gameplay that you aren't interested in. You put up with it for a while, because you want to see the newest "cool" video right when it comes out, but eventually you're annoyed that I've put out 20 "other" videos and decide it's not worth it. You unsubscribe so that you get your precious subscription page real estate back.
Sure, a few people do watch the gameplay and decide to stick around, but I'm convinced that the lion's share of subscribers from those videos don't care for anything else that I make. Instead, they leave my channel disappointed that I don't make more "good videos" (i.e. the videos they subscribed for)
The point I'm trying to make is that the content isn't really the problem. All of your videos can be "good", but if they aren't reaching the correct audience, no one will watch it. So I need to start a new channel- something that people can subscribe to without getting spammed by videos they don't care about. Basically, the entire channel needs to be treated as 1 series.
Which is what I plan on doing with my vlogs. It will be a place where people can go to see well-researched, source-provided arguments about gaming, from someone who plays video games full time. This is also much more related to my college education than science videos (Communication) so I can comfortably present myself as an expert without feeling like I'm pulling one over on people.
Most importantly, new viewers won't be turned away by unrelated content. I want people to stick around after pressing subscribe, and I want to give them what they came to my channel for. I also very much enjoy making those vlogs and I'm excited about scheduling them into my weekly routine.
I'm still going over the finer details about the channel- Such as channel name, style, mission statement, etc... but I just wanted to throw this out there so it wouldn't be a huge surprise.
Finally, it doesn't escape me that numbers aren't everything. I know there are actual people behind those numbers, and a lot of those people DO watch all of my videos and are my biggest supporters. And to those people, I want to say thank you. Thank you for putting up with all of my indecisiveness and mistakes. I know a lot of people think I'm a "big famous YouTuber", but I'm really just a grown man who plays videogames alone in my room 5 days a week for a relatively small audience. I will never forget the love and support that I've gotten from you over the years, and that's what drives me to always do better.
