How and when did your YouTube journey begin?
My first channel was created in 2011. I used to post videos about dolls. I eventually started watching Bethany Mota and my life changed forever. At first I just watched her videos, got inspired, but continued filming the doll house videos. Unfortunately, I lost the password to the doll channel, which was kind of successful for a Namibian channel. It had 3000 subscribers and 70 000 views in total. Eventually I grew up and instead of playing with dolls, I played with makeup. Hence, I decided to make a new channel about makeup and lifestyle, just like Bethany. At the time, I was in a negative head space and found comfort in talking on the internet. Initially, my channel was just a copy of Bethany’s, and it had no particular purpose. That was until a girl from England had messaged me and said that my videos helped her escape from her tragic reality. I felt so honored and thought, “Wow, have I really impacted this person so much?” and that became my motivation. To make my viewers smile and inspire them.
Even though you receive positive comments on your work, you must receive some criticism as well. How do you respond to that?
-I like to see what type of criticisms they are. I love constructive criticism. However, some are just full of hate and honestly, my self-esteem is too high to even care about the hate comments. I know of YouTubers who block haters and delete hate comments, but that’s not me though. I don’t even respond to them. Besides, there’s always at least one or two of my subscribers who respond to the haters for me, I literally haven’t had a hate comment that had no response by my subscribers. Regardless, fighting hate with love is the best policy and I’d rather give the other cheek.
For all the young creatives looking to start a YouTube channel of their own, what advice would you give them?
-Don’t do it for the fame, as it may take years to achieve it and you might not enjoy the process while at it. START NOW! Don’t do “sub for sub or spam” or force others to view your videos, take it easy and slow. Be yourself! Do not waste time acting like another youtuber or celebrity. What makes many youtubers grow is how unique they are.
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