gossip_guy
VIP Member
Ruby, take a seat. As your official creative consultant, here's some suggestions:
It's been said here already, but stop calling them university vlogs. Uni has finished. You're not taking classes or lectures anymore. Clickbait is lazy. Sure, you're staying in a house physically closer to uni, but that doesn't make it a video about uni. I mean, Exeter also has a sewage treatment plant, that doesn't mean you're going to start including that in the title and thumbnail of all your videos now, does it?
No more routine videos. They're all interchangeable. Unless you've suddenly joined the navy or start working a night shift at the morgue (more video ideas?) then your routine hasn't changed in the past year or two, so we've already seen it. Please stop.
More Blakeney. She's cool, and when you're with her, you're more relaxed and having fun, and that translates to a more enjoyable video. Socialising is fun! I know, I know, you think other people are productivity vampires there to suck away your precious practice essay time and sabotage you, but think of it as self-improvement.
It's cool to take a break from studying to spend time with people your own age, you can learn and grow as a person by doing it and if you can get video content out of it, too, that's even better. It's also healthier for your impressionable fans to show them that taking time off and being social is fun, healthy and a core part of growing up. If they're calling taking a day off "brave" then this should be a massive red flag that you've been instilling unrealistic, unhealthy ideas in them for far too long. It's not too late to change that, for them and yourself.
You don't always need to cram everything into a short vlog and skim over things as fast as possible. If you're having a fun, interesting chat with someone, why not show that instead of a sped-up, 20 second silent clip? Seeing you as an actual person and not a joyless study robot makes you relatable and this makes for more enjoyable content. Everyone wins! 7 minute vlogs full of "we had fun times and then I did some stuff" is pointless content." You're an English Lit student, you should know the importance of "showing, not telling." And if you were too busy talking over your lecturer and correcting them that day to catch that lesson: Showing people something is more interesting than telling them about it. Show people what you did with your day!
Focused content. Pick a video idea, make the video just about that and give it a clear and accurate title. Right now all your content is the same, repetitive assembly line of random studytube clichés cobbled together with a lucky dip title of random, unrelated buzzwords shoved in the title. If you read the title of half your videos to me, I'd think you were trying to activate me as a Russian sleeper agent. "Study with me / Haul / Picnic / Cleaning/ Appendectomy / Daybreak / Furnace / Homecoming / Freight Car / Dark Cottage Soviet Winter Bronycore Academia #ad" should not be the title of a video.
Repetitive content is also dull as fuck. Dull as fuck does not translate to increasing amounts of cash. It leads to what we in the consultancy biz call "diminishing returns." You can hear more about that in my business lecture starting at 1pm. I've taken the liberty of signing you up for a VIP seat. It's in the front row and is slightly less wobbly than the rest. It's £2,000. You can't afford not to take it.
Separate your series and create new ones. If it's a vlog, put that in the title. Have haul videos be haul videos. Those are popular. Do not title a video "haul" video and then have the haul be a 4 second pitstop on a video journey of more unhealthy studytube tips and garden frolicking. More focused, clearly defined, complete video series on a more diverse range of subjects will broaden your audience and make your videos more interesting.
As people have said: Make booktube content. You're an English lit student and supposedly a bookworm. Make a book review series. Retool your book club disaster and have it be a monthly roundtable discussion video on your channel where you have more control over it and are more likely to stay involved. Make a book series comparing novels with their adaptations - there's new, popular adaptations coming out all the time and this is a chance for relevant, topical content. You're leaving money on the table by not broadening your audience.
Stop trying to sound like you're laughing/smiling the entire time you're recording narration. It's fake, transparent and kinda weird. I'm sure this is something you learned from an interview tips book or something, to smile when you talk, but if I started grinning like an idiot and giggling when talking about every mundane thing I do, like eating a sandwich, sitting in a chair or walking upright, I'd be locked in a padded cell. Regular human beings do not do this. You should be no different.
Put more effort in. YouTube is your main source of income. Have some pride in your work. Do a second pass of editing. Frame your shots (e.g., if there's a bedknob blocking your face for entire shots where you're talking to camera, this is a sign that you should have reframed for a second shot, or paid attention even slightly when filming and editing.) This is where watching a broader range of film, TV and YouTube content helps - you can learn all about shot composition, editing techniques and not having every video being an unchecked first draft tossed onto the internet (a lot like your book, but we'll get to that.)
Video content ideas for you:
"Ruby Reacts to Popular Culture She Missed While Shackled to a Desk for 21 Years." I'm serious. Make it. Include Blakeney as your guide to the native lands of "the real world." She's already introduced you to the "Serene" bar, The Queen's Gambit and clothes made for adults, imagine what other wonders await you! It could be fun for you and the audience. Reaction videos are hugely popular and this translates to cash. You know, cash: It's the stuff you've been getting from holocaust charities and spending on weird bonnets. No, Ruby, we didn't forget.
"Ruby Reads Erimentha Parker." Revisit your first published work and what you think of it in retrospect. Talk about what you regret and what you'd change. It's a chance to be self-aware and show people if you've grown as a person and an opportunity to poke fun at yourself. And you can think of it as one big ad for your book. We know you like those #ads.
"Ruby Deactivates Landmines" - Landmines are, like, the ultimate bully. Think of how heroic it'll be to stand up to them. And the element of danger will definitely bring in a crowd.
That'll be £40,000 and an 87% cut of your ad revenue for the next 10 years. Stick with me, Ruby, we'll get your floundering career back on track.
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Just...sit. We need to talk.
she really went into a monologue on how all the berries growing on a couple of brushes were gone by the end of fall, and how magical it was that so many passersby must have picked and eaten them, maybe made jam from them...
some of these people are so over the top. People just want her to run the group properly 
