Becoming A Content Creator

blue and purple sky with stars
This photo has nothing to do with this article. I just thought it was cool.

I went to sleep at midnight this last Friday night/Saturday morning and I woke up at 8:30. 8 and 1/2 hours of straight, continuous sleep. You would think that I would have woken up refreshed right?

I woke up exhausted.

I seldom remember my dreams, but I remember that night. I dreamt of work. Being on the truck, watching the bins go up on the claw and up the rail only to tip over and dump their contents into the shredder. Rinse and repeat, over and over.

And then I was dreaming that I was dreaming and that the alarm clock was going to go off soon and I would have to get up and go back to work. That was the worst part of the dream. I really thought in my dream that I had to get up and go to work. It created a sinking sensation in my stomach that almost woke me up.

It woke me up enough to realize that I had been dreaming, and that today was not a work day, today was Saturday. The sense of relief was so overwhelming that I almost cried. Later, I had yet another dream, and in this dream I dreamt that I rode somewhere on my motorcycle and when I came back to my bike, someone had stolen the saddlebags, the highway pegs, the seat, and the gas tank of all things. I’m telling you, I can’t get no relief.

Moving along now…

Tim Keefe has asked me if he could write some things and post them on my blog, as he figures that many of my readers would find what he has to say of interest. I agree with him and so he’ll be posting some of his writings on my blog as well as me posting my usual nonsense to you guys.

When I wrote Why You Shouldn’t Care About Karen, I gave not only that article a lot of thought, but I’ve been thinking about things in general that are also applicable to that article.

I’ve been a “content creator” (I hate that term) for over two years now. Some of the things that I’ve realized as time has gone by is that I don’t have nearly enough time to be a “content consumer.” With all of the different projects that I’ve been working on and all of the different things that I have been involved with, I don’t have the time to sit down and watch many other “content creators.” I don’t have the time to “consume” like I did years ago.

That’s mostly a good thing by the way. What little content I do consume has been thoroughly filtered for me by me. Am I getting something from it other than a dopamine hit? Am I learning how to do something? Am I learning a new skill or honing one that I already have? Then I’ll make the time to watch or read that type of content. If it’s just outrage or the same old, same old that I’ve already seen or read, I skip it and move on. My life and my time are too short.

Do you want to become a content creator? Here’s something that I’ve learned that may or may not help you out:

What do you want to do? Lots of guys hand out advice about finding specific niches and focusing on them. That’s solid safe advice, especially if you are looking to monetize and sell things. But what happens if you burn out, the niche runs its course, or you find you want to do something else? Now you have to create another channel on YouTube, or you have to buy another domain name and start another website. Nothing wrong with that if that is your thing, and if it is, by all means, do that. But what if you don’t want to “start over” again? What then?

That’s why I chose the domain RobSays.net. It’s about me talking about me. I can talk about things “red pill,” I can talk about things related to motorcycling, and I can talk about things related to editing and creating videos. I can cover it all if I want and I don’t have to keep making websites and starting over.

It probably isn’t a good way to monetize and sell things, but then again, I don’t care about monetizing and selling things. I create the content that I like and that I want. Since I’m not trying to monetize or sell things, I don’t need to keep an eye on the competition and see what they are doing.

There are plenty of guys trying to cash in on the “red pill” right now. Lots of YouTube channels that are all saying the same things and regurgitating the top guys. Almost all of them are doing outrage porn. It’s become saturated and boring. Different guys, different camera angles, different quality, same message. The top guys have it covered, I’ll just stick with them and honestly I don’t even watch a lot of what they have to say anymore because I’ve already heard them say it before. I guess this is what is called “Life After The Red Pill.”

I think when you decide to become a content creator, it’s ideally because you aren’t finding other people doing the stuff that you want to see, hear, and/or read. So you start making it yourself. I know I take great satisfaction in the videos and the blog posts I have made, even if I never watch or read them again, and in all honesty, I almost never do watch my videos or read my blog posts after they are published. I know what I said or wrote, why do I want to revisit it yet again? Also, my inner critic will come out and start pointing out the flaws and the mistakes and then I’ll want to revise and remake whatever it was, so that I can get it “perfect.” And we all know what happens when that happens…

Recently I’ve unsubscribed to a lot of channels on YouTube and same with a bunch of blogs that I used to read. I don’t have the time or the interest anymore, so it’s time that I move on from them. Some of the channels and blogs I have followed for years, others for a shorter period of time, but either way, it’s time to move on.

Whatever you want to do, do it authentically. I guess you can authentically regurgitate your favorite guru and rip him off, but can you really? Don’t bother answering that question, it’s rhetorical. I guess you can authentically talk about the latest outrage, but keep in mind that other guys have probably beaten you to it already and you’ll just be another channel or another blog talking about the same outrage as everybody else. Outrage gets tiresome after awhile and from guys I’ve been interacting with, they are looking for something different now. They are getting tired of the outrage as well. I guess we have all hit the stage of “Life After The Red Pill.”

Whatever you do, do it your way, in your style, with your own voice. That’s authentic.

So if you want to become a content creator, start there. Start with “What do you want to do?” Start with something that you would like to see or read, or hear and you aren’t finding it anywhere else and then create that. And be authentic with it. Show who you are in your way of creating and presenting your content.

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The Race To Being Relevant

athletes running on track and field oval in grayscale photography

It’s a “race” to keep making content. Whether I’m writing here on my blog, making YouTube videos, being a guest on the various shows that I’m on, or uploading something to my audio podcast, it seems like it’s an on-going, never ending process.

You put something up and you hope it “sticks.” No likes, no retweets, no shares, no comments? It’s dead in the water for whatever reason. This never stops and it never ends. Social media, blogs, and maybe the whole of the internet itself is designed this way.

All new content is at the top, pushing older content down the list. Look at news articles. Look at videos on YouTube. I can even look at my own blog posts and see it. Twitter, Facebook, it doesn’t matter, it’s all run the same way.

You want to stay in someone’s time line? You have to keep producing. “Tweet or die,” is how I’ve heard it said. You want your blog to get more views and more traffic, you better be posting on a regular basis, and not just daily either. Think more like hourly. Nevermind learning search engine optimization, key words, and other assorted hashtags.

There are people on YouTube that put out well edited videos several times a day. I’m not sure how they are doing that. All I can imagine is that they have multiple people working on multiple things and that they have a “system” of sorts, or a template that they use. If it is only a “one man operation” all I can imagine is that the person doesn’t have a day job, and doesn’t really have a life outside of content creation.

I can’t do that. While I enjoy content creation, there are only so many hours in the day, and I have only so much energy to devote to it. Life itself comes first.

Every day that I get on the internet and create some form of content I learn something new. Whether it’s how to do a “L cut” edit or add in B roll footage, or it’s just the fact that “Hey! While I was cranking out 2 minute videos, I gained a handful of followers.”

My views on this blog have gone up over time since last year. Part of it I like to think, is that I’m putting out “better” content than I have in the past. Or maybe it’s more relatable or relevant. I don’t know for sure on that one, just a guess and it’s me fluffing myself a little bit. I also know that I’m writing more frequently than I did when I first started out.

In the very beginning, I did 4 posts for that entire year. In 2019, I wrote at least two posts per week at a minimum. This year is shaping up to go the same direction. So far it’s been two posts per week.

Why not more? Why not daily? Why not multiple times a day? I don’t have the time or the energy for that level of work and I want my material to be somewhat decent. I guess I could go on and type up 20 words, throw a couple of random pictures in there somewhere and hit send, but would it really be all that good? Probably not. I know when I go to read or look at something, I don’t want to waste my time on shit that isn’t relevant to me.

There are guys that are “Professional Tweeters” on Twitter. They have large followings, like hundreds of thousands of people, or more. I’m sure that some of them have people doing their tweets for them, and I’m sure there are some that do it all by themselves. Can you imagine sitting around all day, loading automation software with tweets so that you are constantly bombarding the time line? I imagine that for some of these people it can be very lucrative, but I guarantee you it’s cutthroat competitive as well.

There are guys who have figured out “the system” when it comes to Twitter and they have literally written books and designed courses on it. One of the things that they recommend is that you use statements that “polarize.” Think of something like:

“Abortion should be made illegal.” Or, “No one should be able to own a firearm.”

You’re going to get a lot of engagement with something like those two statements, whether you tend to agree with your own statement or not.

It’s funny to me watching some of these guys taking the idea of a polarizing statement and going full retard with it.

“If you watch movies you’re a fucking dweeb.”

“People that have LinkedIn profiles are fucking stupid.”

“I only bang 9’s and 10’s.”

I laugh when I see these guys go full stupid doing this. I realize that they are trying to polarize and get engagement and I’m pretty sure they all bought so-and-so’s book on getting engagement and followers on Twitter. But they missed the point.

The point is to say something that is polarizing, not something stupid.

Stupidity as polarization will get you muted at best and blocked at worst, plus you won’t get any engagement, at least from me. Say stupid shit once, okay, fine. Say it twice? That’s a mute from me. It still somehow keeps showing up in my feed after that? Block. I don’t have time for that idiocy. The best part is that some of these guys are trying to create a brand for themselves and sell something. Guess what dumbass? No sales for you. At least not from me. You just lost a customer. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one either. How’s that working out for ya bud?

In the race for relevancy, quantity trumps quality. You want to stay on the top of the feed you better be churning it out and producing.

I would rather stick with quality myself. Maybe I won’t build an audience as quickly, but then again the audience that shows up for me tends to stick around for the most part. Thank you to those of you who have, you know who you are. Then again, it’s never been a popularity contest for me when it comes to my content. I create it primarily for me and then share it with you and if you get something from it, that’s a bonus.

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