What Minecraft Did To Me and My Channel

Hey there everyone! It's a bit of a sad one for you today, so bear with me. I haven't really been able to get these feelings out verbally, so writing them down may help.

Minecraft. The game that began mine, and many other gaming YouTuber's channels. It has been (and still somewhat is) one of the most popular games on the platform.

I started playing Minecraft after watching my favourite YouTubers going on their adventures through their series, building Jaffa Cake factories, and just in general, having fun. I loved the game when I started, it was thrilling exploring all that it contained. Over time, the game got more and more exciting with the addition of so many new things. 

In 2014, I created my channel. Almost all of the content was modded Minecraft. I loved it. Gradually, I began to build a small audience of loyal viewers who would come back to each video and say "hey, I liked this!". It was a great feeling, and I was very very happy with it. Towards the end of 2015, myself and my new group of friends had begun playing a lot of Minecraft minigames, as a result, almost all of my videos became minigames, rather than modded. This resulted in my audience growing faster and then in March/April 2016, I participated in my first season of UHShe. These things all rocketed my view counts and subscriber counts up, and I was feeling amazing, on top of the world.

By this point you'd probably wonder "well, what could possibly go wrong?". Well, of course, the very thing that happens to most humans when they do one thing consistently for too long. I grew bored. I couldn't think of any new creative ways to enjoy the game, and to be quite honest, I just wanted to play modded Minecraft because that's what I enjoyed. It was clear by the view counts on modded Minecraft videos that my audience simply didn't want it. But you can't keep doing something you don't enjoy, right?

So I began posting more and more modded Minecraft each day, in the hope that most of my audience would eventually switch over and would be happy to join me on adventures that lasted a little longer.

It would seem I was highly incorrect.

My performance, views etc, plummeted massively. I didn't know what to do, to be quite honest. Watching what was my dream come true, slowly going backwards, felt like someone dropped a pile of bricks on my heart. I lost all of my motivation as a result, and lost all enjoyment in Minecraft. I began to upload videos of other games, ones that still brought me joy and excitement, ones that still made me feel happy. This of course, since my channel was previously predominantly Minecraft, really was the final blow that knocked it out. I had single-handedly killed my own YouTube channel in the space of around 6 months.

Now I am at this point, where what's left of my viewership tell me "just play whatever you want to play, we will still watch!" and that makes me feel wonderful, but still sad because I have lost so much after working so hard. I have no idea what I should do, what I want to do or what I'm going to do. I can't simply bring back the Minecraft, because I tried the occasional video, the viewers are already gone. 

I wish I had the knowledge on what I should do next, but I don't. I wish I had the ability to spread the joy and positivity in my videos like I used to, but I don't. I wish I could make things better, but I don't see how.

I think that's the hardest part, feeling so powerless, like I have no control over my own future, or what has been my dream for so many years.

Thanks to those of you who continue to support me, I love you and you mean the world to me. I am sorry for my negativity in videos and in general. It is just so hard to feel happy when the one thing you try so hard for, crumbles beneath your feet. I feel powerless, and perhaps I'm not, but I've yet to find the power to fix this. The truth is, it's not Minecraft's fault, it's mine, but it feels hard to accept that.

I just hope I manage to figure this all out. Until then, have a great day/week.

Talk soon,

Bea x