Sometimes, students do more on YouTube than watch videos to ignore teachers during lectures.
After school, a small number of teenagers go home and boot up their recording programs to film videos for YouTube. Whether for fame, a platform, or just for fun, students enjoy this pastime of posting.
Junior Charlie Patton’s content focuses on “speedpaints,” videos that display a sped-up runthrough of how an art piece is created, with either music or commentary in the background.
“Typically, I’m in the realm of art content,” Patton continued, “but I do dabble a bit with gaming and commentary. I do find myself looking up to more commentary YouTubers like Danny Gonzalez and Drew Gooden.”
Uploading to YouTube can be beneficial. For one, it’s typically free to record and upload a video, meaning that people can directly post whatever they want. And as a switch-up from the free posting on TikTok, YouTube cherishes longer videos over short-form content for those who don’t want to split one idea they had into multiple parts.
“I think there’s usually a lot more effort put into YouTube videos,” sophomore Oliver Raymond said.
Raymond is a YouTuber who creates a variety of videos, including board game reviews.
“It shows a lot of the hard work that something like TikTok or Instagram reels doesn’t show,” Raymond continued. “Of course, I would like to tell everybody about it, but there’s some people where I’m like, ‘ehh, I’m not sure if I should.’”
However, not every student who does YouTube likes to brag about their channel. Some prefer to keep their channels secret, usually to protect their identity from those who know them in real life. They only let a few people know, like close friends or family members.
When some people find the channels that their friends own, they can poke fun at a change in personality online versus in real life, which leaves a lot of channel owners wanting to keep quiet to avoid being belittled.
A downside to uploading on to any site is that hate comments run rampant. Hate commenting and cyberbullying can be difficult when it comes to the already stressful life of a teenager. This is tacked onto the already tough tasks needed to be successful on YouTube: for instance, videos can only get ad breaks and therefore be monetized if they are over 10 minutes. Another issue is that copyright and DMCA issues can cause “channel strikes” to be added onto the channel, which work in the same way most other strikes do: 3 and you’re out. All this stress from YouTube itself, added onto the hate commenters, can cause channel owners to become discouraged and quit.
“I made a video commenting on AI art,” Patton continued, “and a bunch of AI tech bros were in the comments telling me to die and stuff.”
Patton went on to explain that they didn’t care about what he was saying, just that it was an “attack on AI,” which caused their heated comments.
However, for those who stay strong in the face of pointless and often artificial vitriol, uploading to YouTube can be a great hobby and a good way to get your art, gaming or opinions out onto the internet.
While it’s not exactly something you can record in the hallways during passing time, posting on YouTube can boost experience with editing and confidence, as Patton and Raymond express increased certainty in their content and plan to still upload to their channels even after their time at Norrix is over.
