 Yeah, I just don't care what other people think because it wasn't for them. And then just decided that, like, it wasn't falling off my little tiny stall. This is the Great British YouTubers podcast with me, Neil Mosse. It's great to have you here. Today we're going to meet Elle Meadows. Elle has been YouTubing for six years and has 55,000 subscribers. This is part two of our chat. And the first part is linked in the description below. Elle Meadows, is there something that other YouTubers do that you don't do? Post regularly, I don't post regularly anymore. I've definitely, like, I used to be a week, a post-weekly video kind of girl. And then I went on hiatus and I was going to come back and do the same thing. And I tried to do the same thing for about eight weeks. And then just decided that, like, it wasn't falling off my little tiny stall. Then I decided that kind of, you know, the weekly schedule, like the growing schedule really wasn't making me happy. And I couldn't see it unless I took on, I don't know, like assistance. There was no way I could do it. And is there is there anything that you would say to your 1,000 subscriber self? I'd probably say to my 1,000 subscriber self, pace yourself. Don't put your all into every video because it's completely unsustainable. I also say, understand who you're making videos for. I was constantly fighting against my branding, which was this teen and tween sort of market persona. I was making that content, but then secretly kind of hating it and hating myself for becoming, for being that person because it wasn't who I was. I wish I'd realized that I was just playing a very marketable character and that the more I pushed that, the further I pushed it and the more I embraced it, the more I would be able to build a brand. I hadn't realized that you can disconnect the persona you put on YouTube from yourself. It could be more of a character as a person, so for a lot of people, the persona is just an extension or an exaggeration of themselves. Whereas who I was playing, which was like a very Americanized English person, it wasn't me and I could separate that. I could see her as a character and a brand. And if I'd recognized that and put more energy into refining that brand, I don't know, I think it would have helped both my channel and my self-esteem because I would have recognized that this person wasn't me and that actually having this really strong branding is something that will really help you go far. That's really wise, Elle. Thanks. Should we take a break? Do you want to just have a little drink? Neil, the saddest thing is I'm going to finish my tea. I'd offer you some of mine. Oh, thanks. I've got really cold drugs. We're all good. And you too, at home, feel free to go get a drink. Join us. This sounds like really creepy for me. What is? I think you might have covered it abusively right there, but is there anything else that is the hardest part of being a YouTuber? Probably what goes on behind the scenes in the YouTube community. Again, I'm quite far removed from it now. So I started hanging out with people who are actually quite a lot bigger than I was just through kind of chance meetings and chance events. And I'm still friends with a few of them now. Or like, you know, a lot of them I haven't seen for ages. And if I bumped into them, it would be absolutely fine. But it's hard to know who's your friend and who's just hanging out with you because you want to take photos together and, you know, cross promote your Instagrams or whatever. Or if you only interact with someone on Twitter, not because you're friends, but because it helps your brand to be associated with them. I think everyone genuinely or most people genuinely want to be friends, but there is always that question mark under the friendship of is this real? Are we friends or is this just a cross promotion thing? It's a weird community when the power dynamics between people and like who has the most views, who's most subscribers or whatever, like those power dynamics are everywhere and people really buy into it. And it can really it really affected me and it can really damage your self-esteem. And this whole thing at conventions was there's always after parties. And if you I mean, we're kind of talking at least 20,000 subscribers here, if not way more like I was really lucky to be sort of where I was in terms of my social standing in the community at the size I was. I really I actually really enjoyed that side of things like the hustle and because I was good at it, but it's stressful because you feel like if you don't get into a party or like lesser somehow, you're not worth it. And that is really representative of what your experience can be or at least what my experience was. I think that being said, I really enjoyed the majority of it. There is just this recurring power dynamic at play and the hustle and the networking like you have to be good at networking. You have 55,000 subscribers, though. And you have 3.3 million views. One of your videos has got 1.2 million views. That must have felt pretty special. Um, it, yes, I know, like it was a really slow burner. Basically, it blows up every April 1st and gets like a few hundred thousand views on April. But I actually the first year that it happened, I didn't notice. I like because I posted it and I think it did like it was an OK video. The following year it blew up again and I didn't notice and I was suddenly like, oh, why is that video got like 400,000 views? Well, that was before I even had my channel monetized. So it wasn't like missed out on so much money. Yeah. And then every year from there, it's kind of like got on a few hundred thousand views and it kind of ticks along. So it's been really slow coming. Like you say, I'm like, oh, yeah, that video that's gone a million views. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. What tiny improvement would you make to YouTube if you had the power or the ability to? A scroll function like on Facebook, when you can just scroll and it recommends you random stuff, you don't have to pick from a list of suggested videos. You can just scroll. That'd be great. If I had to change something about YouTube culture, it would probably be that we reward that the YouTube algorithm would lean more towards like valuable content or educational content, meaningful stuff. I feel like something we haven't even touched on this video is like criticism. I think criticism doesn't generally bother me just because I am under no illusion that there is going to be ways that my work can be improved. And so if you go in being like, oh, well, this is good, but it could be better. But, you know, it's it's part of a process. This is a stepping stone towards better content. When someone comments like, oh, I didn't like this. Firstly, it's not a surprise that there was something that someone could not like because you had already anticipated there being flaws. But also you can then sort of turn around and say like to yourself, not to that and be like, yes, there is inevitably this flaw in this content. But why do I care about your opinion? Because are you an expert? I think it's so much more important to value like industry professionals and your peers and people whose opinion you would value in day to day life and specialists, experts. Like value their opinion on what the flaws of your content might be or ways you can improve might be. Don't necessarily care so much what just a random person thinks you could improve on or what a random person thinks. Like if someone criticizes me personally and say like, oh, I don't like this thing about your physical appearance, I could just be there and be like, OK, I mean, I don't either. Or that's your opinion, but don't bother me. You know, or thanks anonymous avatar. Yeah, it's just that thing of like if you go in knowing that your content could be better, you could be better. Basically never assume that something is perfect because FYI, perfection is a myth. Then it's really hard for anything to kind of catch you off guard and upset you because you're already aware of what issues there could be. I feel like I'm at a point now where I want to make content that I would want to watch or content that I would want to show my friends. And so actually it I've kind of gone full circle from making content for myself to making content purely for a consumer back to making content for myself and my friends. And that's a place where happiness is more attainable and satisfaction is more attainable because you're only making something for yourself. And I feel like lots of people say that and I never really grasped it until now. Yeah, I just don't care what other people think because it wasn't for them. By all means, enjoy or not in or don't enjoy this content. But actually, I made it for myself or I made it for my friends to watch or I made it for my family to watch or, you know. And so it isn't so important that people other people enjoy it. Is there anything any closing thoughts or anything that we haven't covered that you might like to share? I don't know about you, but it really freaks me out that the most common what I want to be when I grow up from kids is a YouTuber. How weird is that? It used to be like what, a princess, an astronaut? That was a YouTuber. That's crazy, guys. Just crazy. I think like as a society, we need to go back to valuing quality over quantity and sort of focus on, I don't know, I'm very big on skill mastery and original thought or attempted original thought, creativity, intellectualism, like I like to learn, I like to make, I like to grow. And I feel like with YouTube being as popular as it is, there is the opportunity for it to be such a positive platform where people can learn and share and make and turn a profit doing that. But there's also the risk that it can become incredibly like vapid and vacuous. And I think that's something we should collectively try and avoid. Oh, I see what we haven't done. We pose for a thumbnail. Yes. Can you come close to the camera? Yes. You have my permission to just put that in at the end. And please hit the subscribe button below. If you want to see more great British YouTubers, there's a playlist and a podcast. All the links are in the description below. I'm Neil Mossey and I'll see you on the very next Great British YouTubers.