Coming to Terms With my Reticence About Vlogs...

I have to confess that I have a love hate relationship with video as a form of social media. Well, maybe not with video, as a whole, but with personal vlogs.

In some ways video is great — for example, if you need instructions for something or maybe if you're just bored and enjoy watching videos of kittens playing.

On the other hand I find it an absolutely horrible format when it comes to simply being somebody's "personal blog" and they ramble on at length with no particular goal... and you spend at least half the watching time looking at them setting up the equipment just right and tuning in this that and the other to their satisfaction.

This isn't really a criticism of just neophyte vloggers; it's an issue with some very experienced contributors, as well. Have a damn plan; save your followers 10 minutes of their lives!

The irony of all this is that some of my favorite YouTube channels are actually extremely long video recordings, on the balance.

For example one of the channels I subscribe to on YouTube is called Diary of a CEO and most of the interviews he creates last anywhere between 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 hours!

But they are very well put together and "on-task" and generally fascinating for the duration, as well as edited appropriately with decent sound quality and so forth.

I don't even create video, and I know (for example) that recording outside in windy conditions is going to cause a bunch of mic noise! It's not rocket science!

I think the problem I have with video as a format... is that for somebody just telling their personal story and recording an update about their day, it's an extremely time-consuming format.

Here's the thing, I grew up in an era where we learned something called "speed reading" and the amount of content you can cram in a 10 minute video I could likely read as text in a matter of two minutes or less.

This, of course, means that we have to take into account that much of my life is dominated by the fact that I don't have much time on my hands... so somebody who goes on a 20 minute ramble about something that could be said in a few sentences serves very little purpose other than annoy the hell out of me!

Maybe that sounds unkind, but a lot of the time it feels like content creators choose whatever medium seems easiest to them, rather than what's going to offer the best production value and be enjoyed by their end readers/viewers.

And no, I didn't go to film school, or anything like that!

At the same time, though... I understand and recognize their growing popularity of video and vlogs, so I'm coming to terms with them and learning to "get over myself!"

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

How about you? Are you a fan of video and vlogs? Or do you prefer "still" content? Do leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)
Created at 2023.05.27 00:37 PST
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