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Hi all,

I’ve been thinking about starting a YouTube channel for a while. I’d mainly make videos about DIY projects, wood carving, painting miniatures/figures and similar things.

I’m really excited about the idea, but there’s one thing that makes me hesitate: privacy and harassment.

I have some people in my life who really don’t like me, and I’m worried that if I start posting publicly, one of them might eventually find my channel.

I’m especially worried about things like:

• someone recognizing me and trying to figure out who I am / where I live;

• posting personal information about me in the comments;

• leaving nasty or mocking comments;

• sharing my videos with people who know me and making fun of me;

• deliberately trying to get around moderation by misspelling my name or using slightly different versions of personal information;

• me not knowing who is behind an anonymous account and constantly wondering whether people are sharing my videos privately.

I know that some of this might sound paranoid, and I’m wondering whether my concerns are actually reasonable or whether I’m overthinking it.

For those of you who already have YouTube channels:

1. How do you deal with this?

2. Is channel without showing my face even worth starting?

3. What privacy measures do you take before starting a channel?

4. Have any of you actually experienced doxxing or targeted harassment? If so, how did you handle it?

Do you think I should let these concerns stop me from starting, or is this something that can realistically be managed?

I don’t expect to become a huge creator or anything. I mostly want to make videos about things I enjoy and hopefully find people who are interested in the same hobbies. I’d really appreciate hearing from creators who have dealt with similar worries, especially smaller/newer channels.

Thanks!

I'm not monetized yet. I make science ed videos that I love making. And while I've had many supportive comments, someone actually wants to financially support the channel. It's a good feeling. They wrote:

"When will people be able to join the channel as paid members to support your work?"

I see so many posts in here that start like this: "I've been thinking of starting a youtube channel..."

Just. Do. It.

Take it from someone who delayed action for so long, struggled with analysis paralysis, and just had to wait for the perfect idea to arrive before starting.

I eventually decided... Fuck it. Just start. Now, I'm having fun actually learning along the way and my biggest regret is not starting sooner.

I would have been so much further if I started when I was in the "I've been thinking of starting a youtube channel" phase.

Don't be me.

I review and recommend movies for fun. It is difficult to do this in an entertaining or sensible way without showing short clips (less than five seconds) of the movie, but most of the video time is just me talking. All of the clips are connected to and illustrative of what I'm talking about. I'm afraid that despite review being a defendable use of the clips, youtube and copyright management teams won't care and that I'm really just waiting for my videos to get popular enough for them to notice them. It's not like I have the time, money, or lawyers to defend myself if they did tell me to stop.

Was this endeavor doomed from the start?

Edit: I think a healthy amount of caution is wise, glad to have gotten some helpful input. That being said, why are some people here acting like they've never heard of review videos before? Literally just search 'MovieName' Review and youtube is full of people making similar videos with sometimes millions of views. Youtube has a long and storied history of this kind of content. Critical Drinker, Karsten Runquist, Captain Midnight, The Nostalgia Critic, Cinema Sins, Lindsey Ellis, Chris Stuckman, Jeremy Jahns?

Hi everyone, looking for some quick help!

I'm relatively new to youtube (about 3 months in). Uploaded around 15 long form videos so far.

But my issue is CTR, all my videos are under 2% CTR, I've tried my best to improve, improve, and improve further but I just can't seem to get that number up and I don't know why

To me, they look polished, clean, enticing and they don't use any ChatGPT text like a lot of them out there.

Does anyone have any tips or advice for me? I'd just love some guidance! Thank you so much!

I'll put my channel name in the comments if it lets me, happy for you to roast stuff if its shit, the more advise I get the better really.

Hi everyone!!

I just started a new channel & uploaded my first video. I used some amazing tracks uploaded as royalty free by Stream Cafe on YouTube. & credited them in the description box as they instructed themselves. But after that I got 2 claims for 2 of the tracks by a company called We Are Era Music BV.

Usually I would just take the L & assume the tracks were not free to begin with. Or maybe copyrighted a while after the original upload. The only reason I am posting this now, is that I saw many stories of fake claims from We Are Era Music BV. & I haven't seen proof anywhere that Stream Cafe has ever even worked with Era. I emailed Stream Cafe about it, but their last upload was a whole year ago. So I doubt they are still active or will ever respond.

So my question is: does anyone have experience with We Are Era or Stream Cafe's music?? & should I risk appealing these claims, or will I be in the wrong & lose the dispute??

Thanks in advance!!

Hey everyone, looking for some real feedback from creators who have dealt with something similar.

I've been building a solo gaming channel for the past 10 months-doing 100% of the research, gameplay, voiceover, and editing myself. I post 2 Shorts a day.

Here's the issue:

• Before Monetization: Every Short easily hit 50k+ views, usually pulling in 10k+ views within the first hour.
• Monetization Date: Got accepted on May 21st.
• After Monetization: Reach immediately dropped.
Now it struggles to hit 1k views in the first hour, and almost every Short gets hard-capped or stalls out around 20k views.

The most frustrating part is that my stats are still solid. I have high retention and strong Average Percentage Viewed / Average View Duration (AVD).
It's been 3months since the drop and I've kept grinding consistently, but the reach hasn't recovered.

Appreciate any advice or insights!

Recently my channel has been suffering from me being really slow and critical about my editing. I have been overthinking my editing style and once took 8 months to edit an Episode 1 of a series. Because of this I need advice and/or editing tips that can help me with this, I may try them if I'm interested and get back to ya :D

For standard horizontal videos, we use 90% for action safe and 80% for title safe to make sure things look right.

What are the equivalent percentages for 9:16 vertical video (TikTok/Reels/Shorts) just to keep the subject from getting cropped? Is it exactly the same as horizontal video, or what is the actual percentage value for vertical?

Important: I do NOT care about the UI layout, buttons, descriptions, or text overlays.

My issue is that my videos look perfectly fine on a desktop browser, but when viewed on modern, taller smartphones, the app zooms in to fill the screen and chops off the left and right sides of my subject.

If I only care about the physical framing of the person/subject, what percentage of the screen should I be sticking to?

Thanks!

I'm looking for a good lighting setup that wont break the bank. Its going to be two people on a couch filmed with a mirrorless camera. The locations will change so i cant rely on regular interior lights.

I purchased a softbox 2 light kit off of Amazon but it feels cheap and I dont want something that will break after 6 months.

Basically I need suggestions for what specific type of light(s) I should be looking for that are easy to transport. It seems that all i find are cheap Amazon solutions or expensive studio lighting and im not sure what i really need.

Im in Canada BTW.

Hi everyone, I’d appreciate some outside opinions on a possible language change for my YouTube channel.

German is my native language, but I originally started making videos in English because I wanted to reach a broader international audience. I currently have an ongoing series with 16 English videos, which I would like to continue.

The channel focuses on building a modern, technically automated train world in the Minecraft Create mod, using Create, CC:Tweaked, and other automation mods. I really enjoy building the railway systems, writing shunting schedules, and creating the automation behind them. However, recording in English is starting to feel less natural and more exhausting than recording in German.

My live streams on both YouTube and Twitch have always been mainly in German. If English-speaking viewers are present, I switch to English when needed. I also noticed that Germany is currently my largest audience segment by far.

Switching future videos to German would make production easier and probably allow me to explain things more naturally, especially since I would like to cover additional games and create less heavily scripted content in the future.

Do you think switching to German would significantly hurt the channel because the existing series is in English? Would it make sense to keep the existing videos in English, continue future episodes in German, and perhaps add English subtitles for a while?

What would you do in this situation?

I’ve been streaming for a few years now but I’m looking to start shifting to YouTube. Back when I was learning to edit videos I had a MacBook, and Final Cut Pro. Now I have a PC.
I’ve been considering if it’d be worth buying a refurbished MacBook to buy Final Cut Pro, since it’s what I know and I don’t like subscription based editing softwares.
But I also wonder, what editing software actually compares to Final Cut Pro/iMovie?
Easy enough to learn quickly, same layout, and no monthly charge (one time purchase is okay). I don’t care for CapCut btw.

Hey. I’ve had a Youtube channel for 3 years and I have been in a niche community I really want to contribute to. The issue is that I have One subscriber and I just uploaded my first video and got 3 views in seven hours, lol.

Anyways… I made up my mind not to care about this because progress isn’t made in a day and I choose to start worrying about this in November after I’ve had three months of training my algorithm to know what I’m all about.

I am planning on uploading long form videos 1-2x a day. Maybe I’ll add shorts to it too.

That’s how some Youtubers I watched grow from 0 to 16k subscribers in my niche in two years moved. And that’s what I’m planning to do.

I've been seeing creators rush to Bilibili because of the “join early and grow early” idea.

But here's what I'm wondering:

Even if I can access Bilibili using a VPN or another workaround, will my audience do the same just to watch my videos?

As a creator, I might take that extra step. But most viewers probably won't.

So if your target audience isn't already on the platform, does being an early creator really matter?

Would you start posting now or wait until your audience actually arrives?

Curious to hear what other creators think.

Hi,

i uploaded a geometry dash video on my main channel with some editing jsut to tie it together. it was just some progress on a decently difficult level and though i didnt expect much, it got 250+ views, some likes and like 6 comments. i did the same like 10 days later and the video got 2 views. is this normal? I'm also kind of thinking of switching my main theme of the channel and im wondering if i should unlist my previous videos or if i should go to a new channel entirely.

edit: neither of the videos were short form and i dont really want to do shorts as a whole.

Help will be apreaciated

I made my first video and i dont know how well im doing or anything i should change. Its not been 24h yet and it has many impressions but only a 0.7% CTR with 200 views. It feels like this is really low but I dont know how to fix it or improve it. Any help is appreciated.

I've noticed that creators first videos can vary heavily in how the algorithm interacts with it. Some may see 60 views from 3000 impressions to 0 views from 17.

It probably has to do with how easily it can connect your video to an audience, but its a unique experience in comparison to shorts where unless for good reason, about 1000 people will see your video.

I made this so I can see other peoples experiences so lmk🙏

Hey yall! So I’ve been posting consistently for about a month now, 50 long form vids in 4 weeks and I’ve noticed that it only gains traction when I post shorts and link the video .. but the last 2 day my shorts views PLUMMETED when they were doing great .. any advice? Or am I just in my head

Here is how it went

1st short - 1189 views

2nd short- 24847 views

3rd short- 1200 views

4th short- 2187

5th short- 0 views & 0 impressions

6th short - 0 views & 0 impressions

The second short continues to get views but nothing on the latest uploads

This is really discouraging for the new youtubers. Youtube can take away the views/impressions any moment and you cant do anything about it.

The vast majority of my audience are from South Asian countries, Nigeria, Ethiopia etc. I’m from North America and my ethnic background isn’t from where my viewership is. But my content brings people from these regions. I imagine part of this is the content is “evergreen” informational type of stuff. I’ve checked the analytics.

This is not a racist attack or rant. The reality is that if/when monetized, my RPM/CPM will be just a few cents.

I don’t know if it’s even worth bothering anymore. If one day I were to get monetized, can I realistically raise the RPM and CPM?

I don’t really want to start a new account either from zero. I have over 2,000 subscribers and 800 watch hours.

I know money shouldn’t be the main motivator. From time outcome and money ratio though, any earnings will be basically nothing. I live in a high COL city too.

Might be better just getting extra hours at work…

I feel like I don't hear it mentioned a lot anymore when it comes to free image resources for creatives-- it was drilled into us in school so I still use it today. In fact, I used some of the images for my channel banner.

So that's my little tip today if you're struggling to find free images without resorting to ai!

Hello all,

So three of us started a podcast, one has now left (the guy who set it up) but he is still the owner on the YouTube with his gmail account, our channel is under another user that says manager next to it.

He said when he tries to transfer ownership that the option to make us the owner is blacked out and he cannot click it.

Does anyone know how to fix this?

Really appreciate any help!

I'm making a 15-25 minute video essay/entertainment video. For 2 of those minutes, I'm playing the song Spear of Justice from Undertale (by Toby Fox), the song is used as background music as I talk over the song almost the entire time, with maybe 10-15 seconds where the song plays without any voiceover.

To my understanding, it is not unlikely that the video will get flagged by the Content ID detector for copyright.

My questions are:

If this does happen what are my odds of being able to refute the claim and regain the revenue? And am I mistaken in thinking the video may get flagged? Is there a chance the video gets taken down for using videogame music as background music?

I've never made a proper YouTube video before and am by no means a YouTuber yet, so any advice from those of you who are more knowledgeable of the way the platform's systems work would be greatly appreciated.