Being a student in college is possibly one of the hardest things one could go through education wise. There are so many challenges students face in college like deadlines from multiple classes, making time for studying and finding some way to fit rest somewhere in between all of that. My college experience so far has been like many others with the exception of one thing, I am also a Youtuber.
Inception
As a child throughout middle school and high school, my sister and I would watch several Youtubers online like DashieXP, Thecomputernerd01, and FoseyTube. Watching them sort of inspired us in a way. We used to record little segments on my laptop of us just goofing around and later watch them back over and over again. In our minds we were viral sensations. Who would’ve known that several years later at the start of my college career I would have my own Youtube channel.
My Youtube channel, Griffoutt, was officially created on Sept. 19, 2015, literately three weeks after moving in for my freshman year. I didn’t want to be that person who is always mentioning their channel to anybody and everybody. I was really shy about it and only really close friends knew that this was something that I was doing. Starting my college career at Cabrini provided me with an opportunity to try new things. I took that opportunity and ran with it by going out on a limb and literally putting myself out there for the entire world to see essentially.
My reason for starting the channel was simple, I thoroughly enjoy making people laugh and I also wanted to make memories in college. I wanted my channel to be different and set apart because that’s what I strive to be, different and set apart. I want to provide quality comedy that people can enjoy without having to resort to profanity or lewdness. I didn’t have anything but an iPhone, a MacBook, basic iMovie skills and a goal. I was determined to at least put out one video every week because I felt that consistency was key when it came to building a Youtube channel. My channel features things like vlogs, challenges, news reviews, advice and most importantly skits.
Doing skits was always something that I wanted to get into on Youtube. They are the pride and joy of my channel. Some of my skits are parody’s of popular shows and movies when I was growing up like That’s so Rayshon (That’s so Raven) and College Musical (High School Musical). My mom has always had a passion for drama as she was one of the heads of the Drama Ministry at our church and it is safe to say that her passion has definitely been passed down to me. I took her passion and amplified it and made it my own. Half of the time I try to make most of my skits as relatable as I can. The more relatable it is, the more likely someone is to remember it. All of the other times the skits are about whatever pops into my head. I’ve even had a skit about a report card stealing ninja. Imagination has no limit.
Setbacks
Deadlines
It didn’t take long for me to realize that brainstorming, making, editing and uploading a video every week would not be plausible for me. Dealing with deadlines of college along with my own personal deadlines for Youtube was overwhelming. Pressed to meet my own personal Youtube deadlines, I would make videos I wasn’t truly proud of and upload them just to get a video out that week. I wanted to push out new content every week but I started to get less and less ideas along with less and less free time to create them. New content every week turned into every other week and that turned into once a month.
Loss of support
I have always had the support of my parents and family but friends is another story. There was one time during the first semester of my freshman year where me and a friend of mine had a falling out. It was to the point where we didn’t speak anymore. This affected my Youtube because even though in most of my videos I am my own camera person, she was my go to person for recording when I needed someone.
Damaged equipment
A friend was not the only thing that I lost during that time period as I also had to replace my MacBook. I was in my dorm one day eating Cup-of-Noodles for lunch and about to get ready for class. I am a tad bit clumsy and I accidentally spilled my noodles on my open laptop. I can’t even explain the panic that came over me. I tried to see what the Apple store could do for me but unfortunately spills are not covered in their protection plan. A collection of these three setbacks and more, caused me to take a two-month hiatus from Youtube.
I did not let those setbacks hold me down for too long as I was right back at it at the beginning of 2016. I continued to improve and develop myself as a content creator. I would look back at older videos I have done and take notes on what I could do better.
Recognition
As a digital communications major, many of the things I learn in one class can be easily applied to another class. For example many of the things that I have learned in social media marketing has transferred over to my advertising class. For me many of my education that I have gained from being a communications major has made a positive impact on my Youtube channel. I took video production and there I learned more about Final Cut pro and studio cameras. That enhanced my editing skills and paved the way for me to actually record my videos on a real camera instead of an iPhone.
One of the most important skills I’ve learned was from journalism. That class taught me that the best stories are timely stories. That means that its better to cover a story when it’s happening rather than three months later. I took that concept and applied it to my Youtube. I would make videos about topics that were very recent and well known and put my own spin on it.
One example of this would be the recent viral video of the #hurtbae. The original video featured two ex’s talking about why they broke up. I saw the video and immediately thought of ways I could put my own spin on it. My version of the video was out four days later. I shared the video on my various social media websites and the response I received back was mind blowing. My video received over 1,000 views on Youtube, over 189,702 impressions and 21,000 views on Twitter along with 205 retweets and 350 likes.
Even some of my fellow students from Cabrini saw the video and recognized me and now want to feature in some of my productions. There are some professors who now know that I make Youtube videos. I’ve even made some and turned them in as projects. In the beginning I was really shy and didn’t promote my channel at all. It was like I was living a double life. Now I can’t get away from it, it’s become a part of who I am.
