Hi friends, it’s Zinnia.
So, I want to come back to YouTube.
But a large part of me really doesn’t want to.
But I want to want to come back to YouTube.
So I’m going to try and figure out how best to get myself to that point.
YouTube as a platform and a community wasn’t always the way it is now.
I’ve been here for almost 10 years, and when I was getting started, this place was
very different – and so was the way I made use of it.
At first, I would try to do two or three videos a day, or at least a few every week.
And they would be about pretty much anything I felt like talking about – any current
issues, any random thoughts that came to mind.
I had a very low threshold for what I felt was worth sharing.
Eventually I fell into my groove of doing commentary videos about atheism and LGBT issues,
and for a while this worked fine.
I was getting a lot of engagement, and even though this meant more trolling, on the whole
it was generally positive.
It was a good routine and this was a comfortable place to be.
I was happy being here.
But then things started to change.
I started transitioning in 2012, and back then, the environment here wasn’t as just
plain bad as it is now.
People were happy for me when I came out.
There was encouragement and support.
This place hadn’t yet been entirely taken over by let’s-play streamers and their manchild
followers pouring in from related videos to harass me for being a trans woman.
It wasn’t full of Nazis with an audience.
It hadn’t yet been taken over by right-wing charlatans like Blaire White who lie about
science, and when you correct them on it, lie about you.
When you have this god’s-eye perspective on how an entire community engages with your
work, it’s really jarring to see the shift over the years from being supported as a trans
woman to being attacked by people who just saw some meme about helicopters, who now seem
to believe that the simple fact of trans existence is some new and outrageous affront to them.
It wasn’t always like that – people didn’t always treat me like this.
And that was incredibly dispiriting.
I still tried my best to work with this – I tried to up my game, I started putting out
Gender Analysis videos that were so strongly grounded in research as to satisfy even the
most devout adherents of science and reason.
But things just weren’t the same.
This place used to feel like home.
For years, YouTube was basically everything for me online – anything else was secondary.
But it’s not like that anymore.
What are you supposed to do when the community you’ve spent so much time on starts treating
you like an unwelcome alien?
Over time I felt myself gradually separating from YouTube – but for the most part, YouTube
left me.
So for a while I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly I want to do here.
The truth is that refining my presence into detailed essays, extensive research reviews,
and measured responses to the most outrageous provocations was making me feel boxed in – especially
when all I wanted was to tell people to fuck off for the way they treat me.
What I see happening is practically everyone trying to push me to make myself small here,
and me just going along with it because I’m feeling pushed out anyway.
And I don’t think that’s going to work for me anymore.
If I’m going to make being here work for me, that won’t be how I go about it.
I’ve been thinking about the places I do consider a kind of home online, and for the
past few years, that’s been Twitter.
Twitter gets to see me at my most undiluted, and I share pretty much anything on there
– any thoughts that occur to me, opinions on issues of the day, interesting finds that
are worth sharing.
I’m kind of abrasive on Twitter, and more than a little vulgar, and I start fights pretty
regularly about all sorts of things.
Twitter gets to hear about me having sex, or trying drugs, or telling Trump and his
jackass family to go fuck themselves.
Basically, Twitter feels like home because I treat it like home – I’ve made it into
a place that’s comfortable for me.
It’s not perfect, and there are horrible people all over the place, but I’ve somehow
managed to strike a balance where what I get out of the platform is much greater than what
it takes away from me.
So what if I took all that and brought it here?
What if this can be my place to have a very low threshold for what’s worth sharing,
to tell everyone about my day if I feel like it, to have a hair trigger for telling people
to fuck off when it’s warranted?
If I want this place to feel like home, I need to act like it.
Maybe I can make YouTube a fun place again.
And maybe then the endless torrent of hostile bullshit won’t weigh so heavily on me.
Everything I’ve learned about YouTube suggests that frequent, brief engagement is key to
using the platform effectively – short videos, daily videos, as often as you can manage,
even if they’re about nothing.
So I’m going to try and get my sea legs here again.
Maybe I’ll talk about whatever research I’m currently working on.
Maybe I’ll talk about shady nootropics supplements.
Maybe I’ll just dress really provocatively in every video.
Whatever I do, I’m going to try to remind myself that people show up here because they
want to see me.
They want to hear what interests me – they want to hear my perspective, my attitude,
my voice.
You know how some really clueless people on the right keep saying “let Trump be Trump”?
It’s a terrible idea because of who he is – that’s the last thing he needs to do.
But it’s definitely what I need to do.
I need to let Zinnia be Zinnia, and that’s how I’m going to try to be here for you
again.
But mostly, I’m going to try to be here for me again.
YouTube, I'm gonna make you my home.
So, thanks for watching, remember to like, comment, subscribe, and support my work on
Patreon!
See you soon!