Even as a tot–and a very cute one–you can see how enthused I was to be dressed up and have my picture taken.

Did I actually think I was going to voluntarily put myself on YouTube?

I did.  And it was one of the more preposterous ideas I’ve ever had.  And that’s a mouthful coming from a gal who willingly decided to teach ESL for several years.  

Since loads of people make money on YT as a side hustle–and an equal amount of people actually have it as their main source of income–I pondered the idea of starting my own channel a few years ago.  Why not?  I consider myself amusing, charismatic, engaging, intelligent, and attractive.  Yes, I’m self-confident.  No, I don’t have self-esteem problems, which is shocking (and possibly offensive) to hear, considering women are supposed to be plagued with all sorts of issues surrounding their own worth and security. 

This wasn’t some kind of spontaneous notion taking root only recently: I thought I could maybe start my own channel quite a few years ago, footage for which I finally began filming in 2022, with the overall channel concept revolving around Vancouver and my imminent departure from this city as I made plans to marry an awful man and move to an awful town in Northern England.  

…common sense prevailed, of course, and right in the nick of time; I called a halt to all of it and thanked everything holy for my sense of self-worth and total lack of interest in constructing my life around what some guy wants me to be and do.  I’ve never done such a thing, and never will.  

That footage was all deleted, the silly concept evaporated, and in the last couple of years since sprinting far away from that suicidal scenario (with the aforementioned ex stalking, harassing, and psychologically abusing me during the entire time, only ceasing when I had to contact his local police department to open a case) I have been revamping my life in preparation for my 50s.  I can’t say I’m thrilled about turning 50 in December, but I am looking forward to making it a decade of meaning, progression, and positive transformation, considering my 40s have been virtually a flop.  Plenty of lessons were learned, of course, and I’m glad I applied that perspective to so many disappointments and so much wasted time, but there’s no question that I am delighted to stamp closed on this foggy, best-forgotten swamp of a decade.

After devoting myself to writing again this past year, with this blog being a comforting foundation to it all, I had this idea recently that YouTube might not be worth abandoning altogether.  I watch so much stuff on there; it’s my main source of entertainment on my Smart TV, and I can find virtually anything I want.  Despite the barrage of adverts every few minutes on monetized channels, YouTube is an invaluable time-waster and education-provider, the balance of which contributes to both mental wellness and cognitive development (just work with me here).  There are highly-professional independent channels on there, and there are jaw-droppingly amateurish ventures that still somehow manage to snag thousands and thousands of views.  If literally anyone can do this and make some extra pesos, why can’t I?

So a few days ago, after recovering from a cold–my immune system has steadily tanked ever since I was pretty much forced to get the COVID jab in 2021–I decided to take a few spare hours and do some filming.  My idea was to create a companion channel to this blog.  What a concept!  What could go wrong?  I have loads of entries and essays here that orbit around various elements of Vancouver, both past and present, and what would be more entertaining than taking some of those pieces and turning them into live-action videos?  For example, one of the pieces on here that consistently–daily, in fact, if I go by my stats–receives hits and has received more views than anything else I’ve posted here, is my piece on Brutalist architecture in Vancouver.  So why not recreate the photo shoot I did last summer for that bit of writing, except actually film it, accompanied by my unscripted commentary and some shots of myself shambling throughout the city as I went from edifice to edifice?  Terrific!  Then I could film something similar for my second-most-viewed piece about Davie Street, take another enjoyable stroll down Granville Street and make a video of it, and carry on just like that!  

I did, indeed, acquire a ton of footage for the Brutalism clip that was going to launch my channel, and came home, satisfied I had done a great job of capturing what I needed to capture but entirely unsure of how I was going to put together my inaugural video, because here’s a pretty big thing: I have excellent ideas for video edits and short films, but I have absolutely no idea how to do any of it.  None.  When I initially wanted to do that channel about leaving Vancouver in 2022, I did my best on an application included on my laptop called ClipChamp, and it was about the most frustrating, ridiculous, limiting thing I could have ever attempted.  Nothing about it seemed to reflect the quality of things I watch on YouTube, so that was out of the question.  I have since done some online research and amassed different opinions and suggestions on which applications are widely used for YouTube videos, but some of them are not appropriate for my needs (such as iMovie), and many of them require that you throw money at them.

Well, that ain’t gonna happen. For one, I already throw money at Microsoft for my goddamn Office 365 subscription–you can no longer outright buy it, you now are enslaved to monthly payments–and good old WordPress here just took $150 from me to maintain this “plan,” whilst still continuing to prod me to keep forking over money for features that would, in fact, make this blog much better for everyone involved, but which I refuse to do because, well, in a nutshell, go fuck yourself, WordPress.  And forget SquareSpace; they want more money than anyone for website hosting, and I’m not even a business: I’m just a writer who wants a nice, user-friendly place to post my stuff and maybe make a few bucks from it.

I’m not going to pay for video-editing software when I’m not not a video editor and don’t need anything flashy, complicated, or aimed towards the pros. This wasn’t something I wanted to invest any money in; at least, not initially.  I’ve seen single takes of bland people just sitting there, camera rolling for an entire twenty minutes or hour, blandly blathering about their bland lives and receiving thousands of views for doing so.  Why did I have to pay for some basic tool to merely put together a few clips that were actually interesting, hosted by a person (me) who at least had some charm?  Besides, the idea of further hunching over my laptop, fully aggravated at having to teach myself new video software, was grossly unappealing.  Therefore, this was the first concern that crossed my mind after I came home with a camera full of footage, and I decided to just upload it all into a folder onto my laptop and worry about it later.  

Well, why not take a look at that footage, first of all?

…and that’s where the whole “I have enormous self-esteem” certainty faced a Bolshevik firing squad.

Look: there are people who are extremely photogenic, but aren’t much to take note of in person.  There are those who are not captured well on camera, but when seen in person or filmed while in motion, are very magnetic and attractive.  Then there are people who are very appealing in person, but when seen in a still photo or moving in video, are barely remarkable. 

I fall into the latter category.  What a revelation!  

It was extremely difficult to sit through the many, many clips I filmed; I don’t think I’ve ever done such a thing.  First of all, there was my speaking voice.  It’s common knowledge that most people cringe when they listen to recordings of themselves, and for good reason: it’s actually a foreign voice, and when you realize it belongs to you and that’s what people hear when you open your mouth and start forming sentences, it’s shocking and even kind of embarrassing.  Unless someone has a distinctive way of speaking–nasal, high-pitched, vocal fry, rumbling baritone, monotone, slowly, quickly–we generally don’t pay too much attention to the way people talk.  However, knowing it’s you making those sounds, and those words, in those ways, calls forth the self-conscious critic.  Okay, well, it did for me.  Christ, that’s how I sound? I’m not as funny as I think, I go off on dull tangents, I don’t like the way I shape my vowels, I’m very low-pitched and deadpan, I make endless pop-culture references that would be lost on most, there are several “uh” and “um” pauses as I gather my thoughts because I’m speaking far too quickly to be smooth…and all of this as I’m walking, marching, across bridges and major city streets and through alleyways and approaching my target destinations, trying to catch my breath as I walk and talk and get distracted by the guy with Saskatchewan plates blasting ZZ Top from his convertible and, overcome, hollering “YEEEEEAAAAHHHH!” from the driver’s seat (totally true story on West 7th and Cambie). I don’t want to listen to me engaging in several unrehearsed, unplanned soliloquys!  Who would?!  I need a script!  I need well-practiced voiceovers, although I have no idea how to do that on a video-editing application I don’t have!

Then there’s the visual element, which was the worst.  Look: I do think I’m a lovely woman.  I’m nearly a half-century old, but I take care of myself, I have good genes, I have nice skin and a decent body, and I’m always appreciative when men check me out (although this only happens when I leave my neighbourhood, since I live in the gay capital of western Canada; to the men here, I may as well be stuffed full of sawdust and propped up in a chair for all the fawning-over I receive).  I’m not that happy with my teeth, because I have a little bit of age-related crowding on the bottom that needs to be remedied with Invisalign–and I just don’t have six grand to plonk down for 1.5 years of dental restructuring–but overall, I’m really not too bad for a lady who battled alcohol abuse for a long time and hasn’t had any cosmetic work done.

However!  Holding up a camera at an unflattering angle in the stark daytime, no filters or lenses to soften or flatter my appearance, wind occasionally whipping my hair around, certain turns of the head emphasizing some loose neck skin or a not-totally-taut jawline, the meagre amount of makeup I decided to wear looking like Cirque du Soleil face paint in the harsh light of day, my constant blinking, my inability to look anywhere steady for any length of time (constantly glancing around at crosswalks to look out for Vancouver’s typically-insane, rule-eschewing, erratic drivers; always looking left and right at what’s around me; not sure of whether I look at the camera screen or the tiny lens; flipping the view around so it’s filming what I see in front of me then back to me again)…it was, quite simply, a horrible experience.  I peered at myself through splayed fingers on my face, criticizing every last element of my physical appearance and how I come across as I speak, in disbelief that anyone at any time had ever deigned to walk and talk with me without abject embarrassment, convinced that people who spend time around me do it out of pity.

Who needs this?

I don’t even like still photos taken of me; why on earth did I think throwing myself into any of these videos was a good idea?  

I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself: Well, Nadya, you don’t have to film yourself, genius.  Focus on content and get yourself off the camera.  Right.  I thought of that, too.  Except I’m a nobody who wants people to watch her YouTube channel: OF COURSE I have to be on camera.  My thumbnail needs to include me.  I need to introduce what I’ve uploaded.  I need to be the subject, the narrator, the active participant in what I’m sharing.  You have to be a part of your YouTube content when you want engagement and viewership–unless you’re doing some kind of compilation video–and there’s no way around it.  It would be a channel that complements this blog, this quite personal blog, so obviously I have to be part of it.  

No thanks. And besides, that crazed ex I mentioned somewhere above?  He would watch every one of my videos and attempt to leave extremely rude comments on all of them under various sock accounts.  TRUST ME.  Sad but very, very true.  Why put myself through this?  Why toil and sweat and curse over editing this visual Brutalist piece, upload it to YouTube, gobble my nails over whether or not it’s good, get very little viewership, dodge people’s feedback if there were any, fret over how unphotogenic and annoying I come across, and then eventually delete my channel altogether, rendering everything a stressful waste of time…

I know myself.  And that’s the precise trajectory of how my YouTube channel would go.  Therefore, it’s not going to happen.  And the only sensation I get from admitting this to myself, and to you, is one of tremendous relief.  

I don’t have time to indulge in such a project, anyway.  I am busy enough as it is, and I’m a writer, not a video host.  Besides, I’ve still got the first draft of my first-ever book to complete, and that is my life’s major project.  Once it’s all done–and as countless published authors claim, your first draft is utter trash and won’t resemble the finished product in any form–I will then have to begin the process of a book proposal.  This is fine; I can do this.  I can do this with ease, in fact, compared to uploading a stupid fifteen-minute video about Brutalism in Vancouver onto YouTube, which would only cause me self-loathing, sleeplessness, and wild insecurity.  It would take a very unwell person to willingly fling themselves into such a negative experience, and I am happy to report that I am doing better than I have in years.     

…apart from watching myself on video, that is.  I might have to beg an Ativan off my Dad when I see him next.

Love

Nadya