(Chit-Chat) No Passion or Direction, Niching Down, I Don't Trust My Judgement (Or Yours) (Patreon)

No Passion. No Direction.

I don't know what I need at this point. I think I'm facing a chronic bout of creator's block. But it didn't start recently. I was talking with my boyfriend earlier about how stressed I have been feeling about my work. I don't feel confident in anything I have created recently, with the exception of my recent collaboration. And you know what? I remember feeling so much joy when writing that script. I remember texting a friend around midnight just reveling in the pleasure of writing stories again.

But everything else? Best Friend and Her Cat? Dom GF? Skincare? Clingy Wife Pulls You Back Into Bed? The passion isn't there. And I know why. I know the reason why. Those audios are just products. They didn't come from my soul. I created them because I thought that you would want them. I did what I thought you wanted. And perhaps you did want them. That's great. But is that what it means to be an artist?

How should it go? Should I create what I want, and you support me because you like it? Or should I create what you want because you support me?

Niching Down

And most of the time, I don't even know what you want. And it is really important that I know what you want because if I post an audio that you don't want, the algorithm suppresses it, and people outside of my audience who do want that content will never see it. From what I've read on my anonymous feedback form, you want simple, wholesome, flirty, realistic audios. That is what have committed to providing. I've niched down.

Niching down is not always a choice. I wish I never had to niche down. I wish that each of my audios could have a chance of being circulated no matter the genre or topic. But if I have an idea that I am passionate about that I know is outside of your taste (girlfriend, best friend, wife) and spend a week recording and editing and having a ball bringing it to life, can you guess how that video will perform? YouTube will squash it because it will have a low click-through rate. (Think Two Nurses x Doctor Listener). I've seen this happen to other YouTubers. Let me give you an example.

There is another ASMRtist, Dani ASMR, that I've been watching for a few years now. Dani acquired many of her subscribers by posting ASMR reviews of OnlyFans pages. Her first review blew up, and she posted more due to popular demand. But because her new subscribers wanted OnlyFans reviews, they did not watch her other ASMR videos, and the YouTube algorithm therefore did not circulate them. In one of her chit-chats, Dani expressed her frustration with being unable to grow without posting an OnlyFans review. She eventually took down many of her reviews, but the damage had been done. Her subscribers still preferred that content. Since then, she has been growing but very slowly.

ASMR Lia has a similar story. Her first spit-painting video gained millions of views. She then posted more spit-painting videos that were wildly popular. But in a now-deleted chit-chat, she expressed frustration that her non-spit-painting videos were not being circulated and that she felt trapped in the narrow spit-painting niche.

I am terrified of this phenomenon. This is why I have not posted another tomboy audio. Tomboy audios are not my favorite, yet they are always most popular on my channel. If I can help it, I will try to prevent myself from being trapped in that niche.

What is my ideal niche, you ask? No niche at all. One of the things that I love most about roleplaying is that I have the freedom to be whomever I want to be at any given moment, and when I want to be someone else, I can be just that. 

But the YouTube algorithm likes consistency, and I must consistently post what my subscribers want. Even here on Patreon, I feel I must cater to you. Your support is my only income. You joined to access exclusive content that you enjoy, and if I post content that you do not enjoy, you will leave.

So for the past few months, I've been trying to align my content with your taste and only your taste: girlfriend, wife, and friends to lovers roleplays with simple, realistic stories. I learned a while back that most of you are not interested in fantasy and sci-fi roleplays, and for the most part, you avoid yandere.

But today, someone mentioned that they want more variety, and I wondered if many of you feel that way too. So I'm back to questioning everything.

I Don't Trust My Judgement (Or Yours)

A great deal of the stress that I've been feeling about my channel is also related to my audio quality. I've spent days trying to rid an upcoming audio of that wretched squeak. You know the one. Do you? That piercing squeak. I've spent hours fumbling with a dynamic equalizer, undoing, redoing, and ultimately scrapping. You claim on my roleplay request form that there are no issues with my audio quality, but I cannot be the only one that hears the squeak. Or am I?

I am paranoid that there is an issue with my audios that no one is saying out loud. This is why I created my anonymous feedback form. Remember my older audios? I look back on those, and there are rarely complaints in the comments. There is praise. But no one told me that I was screaming in those audios. No one told me that the background music was too loud, that my acting was horrid. When I click on those audios, I immediately cringe because the flaws are as clear as day to me now. But back then, I had no idea. Why didn't anyone tell me? And how were those audios pleasant to listen to?

I figured that it was because they did not want their username attached to criticism or did not want to embarrass me in the comments, so I created my anonymous feedback form. But I barely receive criticism there as well. In fact, many listeners noted on the form that I should not change a thing about my audio quality. Do you guys really not hear what I hear? Yes, I have tried different headphones.

Oh shoot. You know who this reminds me of? Doja Cat, my favorite music artist. She went on a Twitter rant last month, stating that her albums Hot Pink and Planet Her were mediocre and that her next album will feature no pop. I remember feeling extremely disappointed by these comments. I could not understand how she could deem Planet Her, my most-played album of 2022, mediocre. Need to Know and I Don't Do Drugs are gold. How could she not see that?

And she has made it a point to note that she is moving away from "mediocre pop," which is what I most enjoy, to rap and spoken word. Again, I am very disappointed, but I will still listen because I tend to like her fun style of singing and rapping.

And admittedly, I wish she would not explain herself as much. She should simply release the music that she enjoys and express herself as she sees fit. Art is art.

Wait a minute.