should good work speak for itself?
on giving your work a fighting chance & the tension of the artist vs the algorithm
hi :) my name is mylene & i am a content creator who shares what i’ve learned in my 20s and ups and downs of navigating a creative journey. i told myself i’d commit to writing one essay per month on whatever has been top of mind for me as a way to capture more of my 20s. this is essay 3 out of 12 so if you’d like to read future essays feel free to subscribe <3
Something I’ve heard people say often is: “good work speaks for itself”. This is something I’ve questioned throughout the month of March and it led me down a bit of a rabbit hole.
If you’ve ever wondered how many videos are uploaded daily to YouTube, your eyes might widen like mine did when I saw the number.
20 million.
Every day 20 million videos are uploaded to YouTube.
That’s roughly 720,000 hours of new videos per day or 500 hours of content every minute.
What sparked my curiosity in this number has been the past 3 months of dialling in on more long form content. The longer I explore and experiment in the YouTube realm, the more I uncover and learn with each passing month.
the quest to make ‘good work’
In March I finished the 4th episode in my new series: The Dare Series, where I am documenting 15 dares I must complete before I turn 27. With each video, I find myself constantly thinking about how I can improve my storytelling for the next episode.
Some days I’m met with frustration, wondering why I’m even trying so hard at a series that hasn’t gained significant momentum yet.
Some days, I’m motivated by this gap that sits between where I hope this series grows to and where I am now.
And other days (most days), I’m simply just happy to get to put effort towards something I enjoy.
The thing about creating (or putting effort into anything really) is that we often think we’re owed something in return.
You studied for weeks so you feel like you deserve an A on that exam.
You worked hard so you feel like you deserve a promotion.
You spent multiple all-nighters on a video so you feel like it deserves thousands of views.
Whether or not any of these examples resonates, many of us have hidden or even explicit expectations tied to effort but the reality is for most things in life we are owed nothing.
Just because you studied for weeks, doesn’t mean it was the right material or the most effective way to study. Just because you worked hard at your job, doesn’t mean it resulted in ‘shareholder value’. Just because you stayed up editing, doesn’t mean your video is suddenly better than everything else online that is fighting for peoples’ attention.
This isn’t to say ‘don’t work hard’ or ‘don’t even try’, but rather when in doubt, take the time to look at things differently.
It’s not necessarily that good work doesn’t guarantee results, it’s that most people are working hard on the wrong thing.
talent vs platform
I often think about something a friend told me a few years back in regards to the fickleness of YouTube.
“Even the most talented filmmaker or director you know could post a video on YouTube and not get many views.”
This thought always hits for me as it’s a reminder that talent and skill are not measured by views or engagement.
That filmmaker or director may shine in the film and television world but not in the social media world. This doesn’t mean they’re any less talented, but perhaps that they’re not sharing their skills on the right platform or that they need to think of their skills differently to fit and adapt to a new form.
In the YouTube realm title and thumbnail are supposedly everything (I say ‘supposedly’ as there’s still a small delusional part of me that wants to prove maybe that isn’t the case or be the exception). A filmmaker can make a good film, but suck at titles and thumbnails. We often see the filming and editing part as the crux of any successful video because that is the end product itself but if people aren’t curious enough to click in the first place then they’ll never see how good your video is.
expression vs distribution
If you’re like me, you’ve probably spent hours or even weeks on a YouTube video only to finish it and groan at the thought of making a thumbnail. As creatives, artists, or however else you identify, there’s always an ongoing tension between what you want to create and what others want to see or what will perform well. We create as a form of expression and sometimes the idea of thinking about your audience/the algorithm feels like a small betrayal of why you started making things in the first place.
When I first started creating, thinking about titles and thumbnails was always my least favourite part. I saw it less of something that is part of the creative process and more of something that you try and optimize for clicks after the fact. Because of this view that I held, the idea of thinking of the title and thumbnail before the actual storyline felt like making things for the sake of content rather than for the sake of art.
What I’ve realized as of recent is that by holding that opinion I was essentially perfecting the room and ignoring the door.
What I mean by that is: ignoring distribution doesn’t have to take away from your art, paying attention to it can make it more accessible. If that video you spent hours or weeks on is ‘the room’ and the title and thumbnail is ‘the door’, then taking the time to ensure the door is easy to find and just well-crafted as the room itself becomes common sense.
making good work speak for itself
“So, if you’re good at making titles and thumbnails then your videos will perform well?”
Not necessarily. Similar to how earlier I mentioned that most of us have expectations tied to effort, just because your video has a solid title and thumbnail does not guarantee that people will keep watching. People might click more, but will they stay is the real question. If we flip the analogy from earlier, it’s like having a really nice door only to walk into something you totally didn’t expect.
Going into April I’m now testing out having titles and thumbnails as part of my creative process rather than as an after thought. This means that in addition to trying to make the storyline/the edit as good as I can, it’s ensuring the packaging has an equal amount of thought and care put into it.
It’s not me trying to make Mr. Beast-like thumbnails or clickbaiting people into watching my videos.
It’s not me choosing content over art.
It’s not me letting metrics define what is good vs not for me.
It’s me expanding what I consider part of the craft and accepting that wanting to be seen is part of being an artist, not a betrayal of it.
Instead of being frustrated at titles and thumbnails as an afterthought, I’m reframing things to think of them from the start as a vehicle to help guide my storytelling and make it even clearer.
At the end of the day I do believe that good work can speak for itself but in the YouTube world (& probably other worlds too) this is true only after you’ve given people a reason to listen.
Anyways that’s all for March’s reflection, I’ll see you soon for the next essay but until then I have some titles & thumbnails to think through :)
~ m
Beautifully said Mylene. I love seeing a new essay from you pop up in my inbox 😍 As a small creator who is just starting on social media I totally resonate with the feeling when you spend ages on a video and feel like it should earn views, which is inevitably disappointing when it doesn't. I'm in the process of learning and accepting that that I don't need other people to like my work for it to be considered good, as long as I am proud of it. Each post is someone continuing working on their skills and enjoying it so no effort is in waste. X