Tuesday October 5, 2021
7:00 a.m. Green Guest House
Mae Sot, Thailand
My Sukhothai dream is fading again. I got so involved in my Learning Curve videos (and one other project) that I ended up far too tired to hit the road. Then it started raining again. So, I’m still here. But the dream is not completely dead. I can still go tomorrow morning. In fact, that is still my goal. And with that in mind, the most important items on my schedule for today are cleaning my bathroom and clearing out the fridge, doing laundry, getting a haircut, charging batteries and preparing technology, and packing. It’s not so bad to leave tomorrow, to be honest. It basically means that my Sukhothai trip has changed from a week-long expedition to more of a long weekend:
Day 1: Ride to Tak City or Sam Ngao (Wednesday)
Day 2: Ride to Sukhothai (Thursday)
Day 3: Explore Sukhothai (Friday)
Day 4: Explore Sukhothai (Saturday)
Day 5: Ride back to Mae Sot (Sunday)
And on Monday at 9:00 a.m. I have my appointment at the vaccine clinic.
And that’s fine. There is no need to get greedy with this trip.
Considering the amount of work I did over the last few days, I didn’t really accomplish that much. As I mentioned the other day, the time commitment of all my various projects is generally much greater than I anticipate. One day, for example, I shot the Learning Curve video about using various microphones with the Pocket 2 camera inside a quiet room. I set up the Pocket 2 on a table here in my guest room, and I cycled through all the various microphones. That took much longer than I had planned. But I was successful, and I learned a lot. I then edited the video and uploaded it to the new Learning Curve channel. The channel now contains a total of eight videos, and there are three subscribers.
A funny thing is that YouTube channels were traditionally judged according to the number of subscribers it has. That was a very important metric. And it is still talked about a lot, and a large number of subscribers is a clear indication that a YouTube channel is popular. However, it doesn’t really matter that much anymore or provide much useful information. YouTubers themselves often mention that when they look at the stats for their videos, very few of the people who watch their videos are actually subscribed to the channel. In fact, the reality is quite the opposite. It’s often the case that ninety percent of the people who watch any particular video are NOT subscribed to that channel. Non-subscribers make up the vast majority of the viewers of any particular video.
This tendency is so extreme that subscribing to a YouTube channel is now seen more as a mark of approval than anything else. If someone watches a video and likes it, they will then subscribe to the channel as a kind of reward for the YouTuber. You often see comments like this: “Great video! Subscribed!” The idea is that subscribing to the channel is a treat for the YouTuber, a reward for doing a good job. This person may never come back and watch a second video on your channel, but they subscribed anyway as a kind of gift and token of appreciation.
I’m sure there is a complex web of factors behind subscriber count becoming less significant. However, I imagine a large part of it is that the YouTube algorithms have become so powerful and important. The YouTube algorithms will populate your YouTube feed with videos it thinks you will like based on your history of previous videos you have watched. And for that, it is irrelevant whether you are subscribed to that channel or not. Being subscribed to that channel is surely taken into account, but I know that I am subscribed to a large number of channels whose videos never show up in my feed. YouTube never suggests them to me. Their algorithm pays more attention to the videos I actually watch rather than to the videos that I say I want to watch. I find it to be an interesting comment on human nature. It’s like asking people what movies they like, and they list a bunch of classics and other examples of great cinema. But you might find out that though they say they love film noir from the fifties, they actually spend their weekends lost in an endless series of Adam Sandler movies.
A person might be subscribed to all kinds of educational and “important” YouTube channels, but that can be more for show. In reality, they indulge in cute animal videos and late night talk show excerpts. And YouTube knows their deep, dark secrets and feeds them the content they really do like rather than the content they say they like through their subscriptions.
I spent another full day on a new project. To be honest, I don’t know if I will follow through on it or not. It all started after I wrote that long story about looking for the lost microSD card here in my room. I assumed that at some point, as I was shooting a kind of life update video for YouTube that I would at least mention that small adventure if not try to tell the story in a short form. But then I got to wondering if I couldn’t use what I already wrote about it as a kind of script. After all, I wrote the entire story out in detail already. Why not take advantage of that? I wrote that story with such passion and energy and detail because it was going into a letter and into my journal. But I really like how complete that story is. I pictured telling that story on stage as a kind of funny monologue. And with that in mind, I set up a camera here in my guest house room and, after careful editing to remove overly personal details, I read it aloud complete with hand gestures and drama. I really enjoyed doing that. I then went on to do the same with the gecko in the hem of my shorts story and the vaccination story. This project also quickly spiralled out of control, and I spent the entire day reading these stories on camera. My voice is actually quite worn out today. I don’t know at this point if I will actually edit and post the videos themselves. We’ll see how things go.
That project actually sheds some light on a conflict that I feel between shooting video and writing. Writing is much closer to my heart than video. And when you write, you naturally communicate better and more fully. Talking into a camera or even a microphone, unless you are a trained actor, results in a less complete story. I’ve always known that. I had direct experience with that on my trip to Ethiopia when I switched to keeping a journal on tape inside of on paper. And the recorded audio journals have a drastically different tone compared to the written journals. I don’t know if one is worse or better than the other. But they are certainly different.
I finally got around to posting a video I shot of me unboxing the DJI Pocket 2 camera. I posted that video yesterday. And I think my next project for today will be to open up that video on YouTube and reply to some comments. I have been so busy the last month that I haven’t been regularly replying to comments as I used to do. I just haven’t had the time. Once I do that, I will shoot another Learning Curve video. This one will be about the buttons on the Pocket 2. I’ve been thinking about the buttons and learning a lot about the Pocket 2’s various physical controls, and I want to record my thoughts while they are still fresh.
I had an interesting revelation this morning related to that. I actually woke up this morning thinking about what I would say about the buttons and how I would organize my thoughts for the video. And I was about to jot down some notes on one of my phones. And then I remembered that a couple of months ago, I stumbled across a powerful voice recording app called Otter. It occurred to me that a good way to organize my thoughts for this Learning Curve video is to speak aloud, just as I would in front of the camera, while having Otter record a transcript. As I’ve mentioned, there is a distinct quality difference between writing and speaking. And if I write a series of notes as a guide to the video, my brain has to then take those written notes and transform them into spoken words. And my writing brain organizes thoughts differently than my speaking brain. So I wondered if making notes for this video might be more efficiently done through speaking aloud while Otter makes a transcript. Then the notes I have might be arranged more properly for speaking. My brain won’t have to adjust on the fly and change my written thoughts to spoken thoughts. The written thoughts will actually have been created by the speaking part of my brain. And it might all feel more natural and result in a more efficient process.
More than that, I had this idea that I could have Otter recording a transcript while I’m actually shooting the Learning Curve video. Otter would be saving a full transcript of everything I actually say while recording the video. That could be useful in many ways. My technology brain is on fire this morning with all kinds of interesting thoughts and ideas.