My name is Inés and I am the person behind Inesmellaman, a YouTube channel. I started uploading videos in 2010 and stopped doing so in 2018 without giving many explanations to my nearly 350,000 followers. I belonged to the first generation of youtubers in Spain and, like many colleagues from that time, I had a great time. But I also knew what anxiety was. In this text I am going to review all that period, and also how my life has been since I left YouTube. So I will start from the beginning.
I uploaded my first video on August 19, 2010. It is a black and white video in which I show cards with some of my secrets: "I have not smiled as much since I have worn a device" or "I have an obsession with hoods. I have them have to place everyone. " At that time I was 18 years old and I was starting Translation at university. As I did not get along with my classmates and I did not see my friends so much, on YouTube I found a space to let go, say nonsense, play the idiot, talk about the things that really interested me and, ultimately, be me.
I think I was like recording for a year without telling anyone; like I'm doing something clandestine. I couldn't imagine saying to my parents: "Dad, Mom: I upload videos to YouTube". The answer was that he feared me, "Child, I Yuque ?". Since my family did not know it during that first year, sometimes I had to go out and record myself on the street. Now everyone does it, but then it was very rare and I even had to hide behind the trees, because I was dying of shame if someone saw me and didn't want to have to explain. Of course, I have to admit that I was wrong about my parents: from the moment I told my mother he became my biggest fan.
It's amazing how our preferences change: recently I saw some of my first videos and, things that defined me, now they horrify me. For example, I would like to ask Inés from the past: "But why did you get so close to the camera?" Today, seeing him gives me cringe . But, beyond this technical question, the videos awoke me tenderness. Look at what the little girl needed to do to feel herself, I thought. But those videos not only made me feel good, they also liked people. In a video I uploaded on December 12, 2010, with less than four months as a youtuber, I celebrated the 500 subscribers. "I never imagined that I would reach 500 subscribers. It's just incredible: 500 people in the world watch my videos," she said then. What I did not imagine was that in early 2016 it would be celebrating 200,000 subscribers.
What were the causes of such growth? Personally, I consider that the keys that my videos aroused so much attention were the moment, the naturalness and the joke. As for the moment, there were not so many users uploading videos like now, so it was easier to get noticed. As for naturalness, during my entire career I did not prepare anything, everything came out of my head without a filter, which meant something different. And as for the joke, the good vibes of my videos made people escape from their problems for a while. Mine was pure entertainment. My content, for those who did not know it, was varied and easy: comments and personal experiences, tags, unboxings, video reactions, etc. The most successful were the videos in which he tried all kinds of sweets (from Japan, the United States, Germany, Singapore ...) and the so-called "clothines" (in which he tried on clothes from Chinese pages).
Another cause of my growth is that I started sharing content more regularly. In 2014 I finished my degree, so I took a gap year and decided to give my channel a boost. Until that date, I would upload videos when I felt like it: the same would be uploaded several over the course of a week, and I would spend a month without uploading any. But in 2014 I started uploading videos every Monday. Other youtubers posted them daily, so I didn't think it would be much of a problem either.
Initially, the changes were positive: I only had to prepare a video during the weekends while my community grew and the platform provided me with extra money. For me, 2015 and 2016 were my best years on YouTube. I consolidated my formats and enjoyed the good vibes that were breathed in my channel. I wanted to share so many things that I even opened a secondary channel, with even more personal and home videos.
And the problems come
But there came a time when things started not to be so positive. To this day I still do not know the specific reasons, but it was becoming increasingly difficult for me to start recording. Before turning on the camera, I remember that I was in a bad mood, irascible, negative and felt anxious. When I managed to put negative emotions aside and hit Rec, I enjoyed the video I was recording because I thought about how much my followers would like it. When I finished and I knew I had done my duty, I even felt euphoria. Although I spent little material time on YouTube, I kept going around in my day to day. I think it is impossible to be youtuber and disconnect, it is a constant rush.
This feeling was probably due to a host of reasons. On the one hand, the more subscribers I had, the more lost I felt. Sometimes you want to please others so much that you lose control of things. You live in fear of boring your audience and getting tired of you, but on the other hand, people don't usually like changes. I give the example of a nonsense that is sufficiently illustrative: during my eight years on YouTube, I recorded with different funds: my parents' house in Madrid, the house where I spent my Erasmus in England, the houses I was moving to in Granada ... Well, the bedroom at my parents' house, where I recorded for the first five years, was painted green. When I moved to Granada, some of my subscribers were upset that something that was part of my identity had changed, so for a season I put a green cloth behind me to continue being "the old one." I honestly never knew how to manage these things. Should I do what I wanted even at the risk of disappointing others, or should I let outside opinions shape me?
It also changed my perception of the comments. It is true that my community was always very good rollera and that I did not become the meat of haters . But there came a time when the negative comments, even if they were very few, began to weigh on me. For example, when someone wrote: "Buuuu, you're not funny, dedicate yourself to something else." People often comment lightly, without thinking about the consequences of their comments. It is as if they believed that nobody is going to read them and they have a free way. But if a person receives them at a bad time, of course they can affect them. I think this is all about being behind a screen. These people would not say the same thing to the face or, at least, they would not say it the same way. I can't imagine anyone at his trusted bakery saying, "The bread these days is so much worse, what's the matter with you?" I think that in person we think more about the consequences of our comments.
Not to mention this other type of comment: "I've been following you for years and you've changed, you are no longer what you were." Take, of course. The worrying thing would be that he was exactly the same at 18 as he was at 25. Both we and our interests change, and in life we stop being compatible with some people to be compatible with others. Even if I had been the same during my eight years on YouTube, other users would also have stopped liking them because they and their tastes would have changed.
We have to learn to relate to our digital selves. On the fact of changing, I am not particularly proud of my most famous formats now, which, as I said before, consisted of trying on clothes from Chinese stores and eating kindergartens in front of the camera. Currently, I feel more comfortable shopping at local stores and only when it is strictly necessary, compared to the incitement to consumption that I did before. And as for the insane products, now I know what they produce in our body and would not encourage their consumption. But I'm not going to beat myself up either, because those videos are the testimony of how I was then and help me see how I have changed.
Also, I never knew who to lean on. On television, for example, being a traditional medium, it is easier to find references that warn you about what it can mean that you start to be successful and teach you what to do. But we had no one to ask. First time youtubers learned by trial and error. When advertising campaigns started coming out, I was super happy that brands trusted me, but at the same time, I had to have a lot of factors in mind, like my responsibility. I rejected alcoholic drink campaigns, because although my audience was around twenty-two years old and I could legally consume alcohol, they also saw me as minors and that didn't seem responsible to me.
When thinking and recording videos became a real martyrdom, I started uploading them every two weeks. The attentive reader has surely noticed, but, in my case, my relationship with the platform can be understood by attending to the regularity with which I uploaded videos. "Maybe I can manage everything better if I make YouTube take up a little less time in my life," I said to myself at the time. But after a year with that frequency, I recorded a video explaining that I would start uploading videos only when I felt like it. In that video I couldn't imagine leaving YouTube all at once; I had been part of my life for 8 years and I really thought that I would reconcile with my life as a youtuber. But that video would end up becoming the second to last on my channel. On February 26, 2018, two months after having decided that it would no longer be an "obligation", I uploaded what would be my last video, trying on clothes and without any parting message. "See you in the future. Only Jesus Christ knows when," he said at the end, jokingly.
At the time of quitting, I discovered that he suffered from anxiety. At that time, if someone told me nonsense, I could fall apart. Or it was okay and suddenly it was wrong. I wasn't aware of how badly burned I was. At the Agnes of that moment, I would tell her to go to a psychologist. I do not know if if I had put myself in the hands of a professional, I would have followed more time on YouTube, but it certainly would have helped me to manage it and not torture myself as much. It would also have helped me to know that what I felt in those moments is more common than I thought, that sometimes we push ourselves too hard and that on many occasions the mind is our worst enemy.
I am satisfied with the decision I made, but I should have taken my followers more into account. I planted in them the hope that I would continue to share content and "abandoned" them without explanation. Deep down, I was aware of the impact that my march would have on them, because I had lived it as a follower of other youtubers. It is similar to when your favorite singer retires or a series that you have followed for years ends. But I didn't know how to do it any other way, I just did what I needed at the time and I knew that stopping uploading videos was going to be an incredible relief.
On Instagram I endured a few more months, until August 2018. As I received many comments and messages asking me if I was ok and if I was going to return to YouTube, on January 28, 2019, almost a year after I uploaded my last video, I posted a photo with the following description: "Hello, shells! Thank you very much to all of you who are worrying about me. I am alive and super happy, but I no longer share it on social networks. I hope you will be calmer with this photo. I send you a giant kiss! " My current biography on Instagram comes to say the same: "Live and kick outside social networks." Posting these messages did me good, because I knew they would reassure my followers.
See this post on Instagram
Hello, shells! Thank you very much to all of you who are worrying about me. I am alive and super happy, but I no longer share it on social networks. I hope you are more relaxed with this photo. I send you a giant kiss!
A post shared by Inesmellaman (@inesmellamanyt) on Jan 28, 2019 at 9:24 PST
Life after YouTube
Indeed, in the last two years I have continued with my life and have used social networks passively without publishing anything. Sometimes I think of YouTube as a sentimental breakup: at first you can't imagine your life without that other person, but time passes and you may realize that you no longer need it by your side. It's about creating new routines. I remember my first trip alone after leaving the platform. Before, when I was traveling alone, I thought all the time about what curious things I could record for YouTube. And suddenly, it seemed very strange to me that everything I saw was going to be just for me. Those of us who have exposed ourselves so much have to relearn to feel for ourselves, to live without showing it.
In my transition to life after YouTube, it also helped me a lot to have kept a "normal" life off camera. Beyond my gap year, I always kept my job and my friends. My channel was just one of the many parts that made up my life (professional projects, income, partner, friends, leisure ...) and was independent from the rest. I imagine that leaving social networks must be much more traumatic for a person who has made his life revolve around them. Leaving it, in that case, instead of a breakup should look like a duel.
In fact, I watch YouTube less and less and a few months ago I unsubscribed from many people I followed for years. Social networks have changed a lot (like all of us who use them). It is normal for the people of 2020 not to do things like the one of 2012. Before, the publications were more informal and natural, and reflected more "real life". I like to lead by example, so if I'm not interested in what is shown today on social networks, instead of saying anything to influencers , I'm the one who stops consuming that content. I honestly can't imagine what my channel would be like if I opened it now. With the current professionalization, I would be the symbol of the cutrez. Mine was pure improvisation, without script or additives. Although I'm not so focused on what there is now, I see that so many things are no longer left to chance.
I don't want it to appear that YouTube only brought me bad things, because it also gave me many good ones. The most important were my followers, those who laughed with me (or me), accompanied me for years and managed not to throw in the towel before. If you are one of them, thanks for so much.
The thought of recording something new has ever crossed my mind, but it took me seconds to realize that I really didn't want to. Now I can't watch my old videos without thinking about what was behind it. For example, if I watch a video that I know I really liked recording, it amuses me. But if I see one in which I know that a few minutes before turning on the camera I had a peak of anxiety, I relive how bad I was and feel sorry. YouTube was part of the forging of me. Now, at 28 years old, I surround myself with the friendships I have chosen and with them I can be myself, something I could not say when I opened my channel.
Text written by Álvaro Llorca from interviews with Inés L.
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