Telling People I’m a YouTuber

If you’ve come across my channel on YouTube, subscribed and enjoyed my content, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart! It’s you who have made my “career” on YouTube a success! I know that I still have lots of growing and learning to do, but I love it and enjoy doing it!

Now, if you’re also on YouTube yourself, you’ll know that getting subscribers is one thing, and telling friends, family and acquaintances what you do is completely another.

You know when you first meet people and you exchange the pleasantries, and someone asks you what you do for a living? In most cases, YouTube is a side job (Never call it a hobby - you might share your hobby on YouTube, but having a channel is having a business, and there’s a lot of work that goes into having one!). Some of us want to make extra cash on the side of our career, and that’s fine.

In my case, I was a full time stay at home mom and I wanted to share my talents and my thoughts and inspiration with the world, so my business was born.

I guess it really depends on who’s asking me, but sometimes I feel like people look down on me for saying I’m just a stay at home mom instead of a brain surgeon, a lawyer or a computer programmer or something. Even though I know I work 19-20 hours a day, I feel like it’s never enough. I guess that’s how I used to feel. Maybe in reality, I was just projecting my insecurities about being a full-time mom onto the people I was talking to, and letting myself think they were judging me for what I was doing, but really, I was judging myself.

In the end, I grew bored and I wanted to do something for me. Art is a big passion of mine, and as my kids get older and start entering into school, my journey on YouTube and my online career might change a bit. (Don’t worry! My planner’s will always be there, because that’s who I am and that’s how I live my life!).

So, when people ask me what I do, I tell them I have a YouTube channel but I’m also a mom of three young kids. Really though, my business is a lot more than just my YouTube channel. I have an Etsy shop, a blog and a website to maintain. Having two YouTube channels and the Instagram accounts to go along with them is no joke. Like I said earlier, doing the things - whether they’re hobbies, your job, your current activity, whatever - that’s the first part (and could take most of the time). The second part is the background stuff people don’t see when you have a channel. You need a computer, you need to know how to run software for editing, create thumbnails on a secondary software, etc. You are the financial expert of your business (yes, I do my own business taxes), the marketing firm, the editor, the creator, the creative director and the author.

There is so much involved in simply having an online business, that, unless you have a lot of money and hire out for everything, most people give up within the first couple of weeks of having a channel.

So when I tell people that I have a YouTube channel, and they’re not impressed, I make sure I tell them all the things involved. Then (usually) they’re not so quick to judge!

Sandra