My boyfriend gave me a small poinsettia plant a couple of weeks ago. My family always had fake poinsettias because we had cats and poinsettias are poisonous to cats. So, I don't know how to take care of the flowers, and now they're dying. :\
I really miss my kitchen at my parents' house. Not only is it big, it's fully stocked with any kind of appliance or cooking utensil you might need, and no matter what I felt like cooking, they'd already have most of the ingredients.
I'm having problems again with my boyfriend and friends. Sometimes this exchange student experience is more sad and lonely than high school was, and high school was a nightmare, the most horrible phase of my life.
Four (that I know about) international students in my program have found my YouTube channel. I've had to defend myself ever since they found it. And now I feel like I wouldn't be able to make a video the same way again. I think I will act differently, and I don't want that to happen. If some random person on the internet sees your videos and judges you, it's not a big deal -- it's just one person out of 6½ billion. It's different with someone you know outside of YouTube. I still haven't come up with a good way of explaining my feelings, so the other international students still don't understand, but anyone else who has had their channels discovered by people they know in real life will know what I'm feeling. Can anyone explain it better?
Maybe YouTube is a way I can express more of my honne (true self), whereas, in front of people, I most likely have some form of tatemae (mask) present to follow giri (social obligations) and keep peace somewhat. I don't know.
This is what I'm wondering: where are all the cool, supportive YT people in real life? The fiveawesomegirls channel, for example, has a group of awesome, supportive, loving followers. Where are these people in real life? How come I've yet to meet anyone in real life who like vlogging or watches vloggers or is at least accepting about vlogging? It's not that much of a strange, new, foreign thing. It's been around for years. Why is it still considered so weird IRL?
Hey there. As a fellow vlogger, I can tell you that I understand and have been where you are, and that everyone goes through this "being discovered" dilemma.
ReplyDeleteWhen I started out, I was always puzzled why no one in Japan did a kind of sxephil/whatthebuck kind of channel. It would be easy to do, you only need a few minutes and access to news. And good lighting.
However, when I started out, I began to realize pretty quick that things aren't as straightforward as they seem in the online world.
First up, unless you never even show your face, there is no way to avoid SOMEONE finding out at sometime, if you're doing anything at all right. If you put your face on there, you can take steps to minimize how people can find out about you, but my advice is presume that everyone most important to you will find out about it. That's when I discovered pretty quickly that the reason no one does vlogs like those big vloggers is that very few people have that degree of freedom. I had to be very mindful of work, and the customers I interact with, meaning I realized fast that I can't really do anything that could even be misconstrued as offensive. After a few early blogs, I developed a few policies;
- No personal information (other than hobbies, etc)
- No sex, politics, religion
- No discussion of work, or anything vaguely related to it, or any customers.
And even then, I had the other problem - a wife who doesn't get it and finds my hobby weird and wishes I would stop.
So you might wonder "what is there left to vlog about?" Well, for starters, your limitations depend on your situation. As a student, I'd say you're still freer than most, although you'll have to consider your vlog when you go job hunting.
For me, realizing all the limits I had on me was daunting at first, but then I realized it gave me a framework to challenge myself to do interesting vlogs, and that extra effort is what got other people interested I think.
I'm not sure how good vlogging is as a medium for showing total honne about everyone in your life. If you make sure you are completely anonymous, maybe, but if your face is there, you need to presume you will be found at some point.
Vloggers are a bit of an odd breed, but my experience of meeting up with others has been entirely positive, and while you do get the odd stereotypical weird geek, most people are articulate, worldly and fun to hang out with. You are down in Nagoya, right? You should get in touch with Gimmeabreakman, especially with your 悩み about vlogging - he is the wise old man of the mountain for that stuff, and the center of the J-vlogger community. Plus he is down there in Nagoya, along with other (mostly) normal person vloggers like Fatblueman, Ghostofmatsubara, Shotamerican and Daichen.
Gambatte and don't let the haters pull you down!
Peace
What Hiko said is true. Even those vloggers who has been doing it for a while have experienced the same thing you are going through. Mainly because the whole vlogging thing has not been completely accepted by those who uses youtube for viewing purposes only. Unless you are super famous, most people considers us vloggers as just an otaku, and puts us in the same category as 2chan people or those who spend all their time vlogging, and have no social life.
ReplyDeleteIf you watch any of our videos that we've made in the beginning, you'll notice that most of us act kinda awkward in front of the camera. In my case, I didn't want the viewers to get the wrong image of me, so what ended up happening was that I was never completely myself. Gimmeabreakman used to get on my case about not being myself, and he was right. It took time, but slowly I was able to adjust to the idea that it's ok to show my true self.
I still hate those earlier videos, and yes I could take them down, but I leave them up there to remind myself how much changes I've gone through over the past year.
Whenever non-youtubers ask me why I do youtube, I just tell them that it's just a thing that I do as a hobby, and to get my music out. If people like it, great! But there are going to be people who are going to form negative opinions just based on what they see on the video no matter what you say or do. But that's when I tell myself the same thing my piano teachers used to tell me. "You can't please everyone. Just appreciate the fact that there are people out there who appreciates your work. If people have constructive criticism, listen to what they have to say. But if all they are gonna do is to give you crap, and you still feel right about putting your work out there, ignore them and go on with what makes you happy.
Because I teach at an elementary school, and fact that most of my family do watch my vids now, and to avoid stalkers, or anyone bugging my family, I have actually taken down several of my videos that I have made in the past. The contents of those vids includes: showing my tattoo, talking about my tattoo, talking about my family, any videos that showed my job even for 10 seconds, and anything where I have used copyrighted music as bgm. Several months ago, I made a series of vids acting as a sexual pervert, and I'm sure that those will be taken down one of these days depending on my work situation. I also don't talk about my channel to any of my students, nor plan to show what I do at work on YouTube.
It's one thing if you are one of those people who purposely makes offensive videos, but you're not. Sometimes you do have to be careful on the contents, like the copyrighted music, being too open about your personal life and such, because you never know who could be watching your videos. If you feel that you have some videos that you don't feel comfortable with certain people watching it, you could always either privatize those vids or take them down completely.
One of the best thing you can do is to hang out with some of the youtubers who live close, and even attend some of the youtube meet-ups sometimes so you can see how we deal with it. You'd be surprised how much we all have to talk about, and off the camera, we all are no different from the people from real life. It's actually not that bad as people make it out to be.
So don't delete your account, and be yourself! There is nothing wrong with what you are doing, and you shouldn't have to feel like you have to defend yourself!
がんばれ！
Here follows an outsider's point of view.
ReplyDeleteThe idealist in me wants to say "Just be yourself". The realist in me can't help but to point out that, in the real world, there are consequences to being yourself.
On the other hand, that's who you are. Important point: There are also consequences to not being yourself, and I'd even say they can be far more harmful.
So sod the realist in me, and by all means be yourself.