Fearless Filming: Tackling Ten Common Vlog Anxieties Head-On

10 Common Vlogging Fears and How To Beat Them

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

All forms of creative expression that require you to put yourself out there for the world to see can be scary. But even though other forms of creative expression, like art and writing, may reflect something about the personhood of their creator, very few forms of creative expression seem to shine as much of a spotlight on who you are as a person as vlogging.

When it comes to vlogging, it is your face, voice , thoughts, and feelings that your audience sees and hears close-up. That is why vlogging can seem even more terrifying.

Below is a list of 10 of the most common fears people have with vlogging and ways to overcome them.

1. Fear of Looking Stupid Talking To Your Camera

It can be nerve-racking to talk to your camera in public, especially if your vlog set-up attracts a lot of attention (Casey Neistat’s famous rig consisting of a DSLR camera with a GorillaPod tripod and a Rode shotgun mic attached to it definitely attracts more attention than just your everyday smartphone). Despite a lot of vloggers suggesting that people don’t care as much as you think they care, it still is an activity that stands out, gets noticed, and creates curiosity, which is plenty to feel nervous about.

My advice is to start with shorter conversations with your camera in public and gradually build your way up to longer ones or save all your longer talks for when you’re in a more private setting. Short conversations may include one simple sentence about where you are going. Then, in another separate recording, in a different setting with different people, you can explain why you’re going there. If you’ve never broken up your speech like this for your vlogs, you might wonder if this will make your vlogs look disjointed. But this is actually a technique (below) that can enhance your vlogs.

As you continue to vlog in public more, you’ll become increasingly comfortable with it.

2. Fear of Being Judged by Others

After uploading your vlog online, the next thing you might worry about is being judged and criticized by anonymous haters on the internet. No matter how perfectly you present yourself, this will happen. But you will be ok.

You just need to be strongly grounded in your intrinsic worth and not take too seriously the judgments of those who don’t even know you. You can adjust your community settings on YouTube so that you have more control over others’ comments. But I suggest you just get used to others’ disapproval because it’s something that comes with putting yourself out there on such a public platform.

3. Fear of Not Being Interesting Enough

A lot of people fear that they aren’t interesting enough to watch. This fear stops many people from vlogging. Some people get around this self-doubt by focusing their content on something other than themselves. But people are so much more interesting than the tools and objects that they test out and review on YouTube. Even if you’re unable to secure the interest of the masses, there are bound to be a handful of people from all around the world who do find you interesting.

4. Fear of Your Lifestyle Not Being Exciting Enough

When you look at the vlogs of many of the top YouTubers, their lives appear so action-packed. It’s hard not to think that all vlogs are meant to be very stimulating. But if you believe that that is the standard for vlogs, you might either be discouraged and drop vlogging altogether or you might try too hard to schedule your life around getting stimulating vlog content. Neither is a good option. Face your fear of your audience getting bored and just go ahead and vlog your lifestyle just as it is.

5. Fear of Losing Your Authenticity

When you have the ability to control what others see, you may be tempted to present yourself and your life in the most likable way to avoid disapproval and rejection. But the further away from your true self that you fabricate your story, the more inauthentic you’ll feel. Embrace disapproval and rejection and understand that, no matter how perfectly you present yourself, you just can’t avoid disapproval and rejection. It’s going to happen no matter what! So you might as well present yourself just as you are.

6. Fear of Your Production Not Being Good Enough

Fearing that your production quality won’t measure up is another common fear that holds people back from vlogging. Just get started and put something together with the equipment and skills you already have. Loosen up a bit on your rigid high standards and experience for yourself that the consequences of doing your best with what you have are not so bad. You will develop your equipment and skills as you get more and more into vlogging.

7. Fear of Failing To Get Big

Getting a lot of subscribers is a common end goal for many who go into vlogging. This goal can seem impossible to reach with how crowded the vlogosphere has become with so many ambitious vloggers who are competing for views and subscribers.

How can you know for sure that you won’t be wasting your time and effort trying? The truth is… you can’t know for sure. But dismissing all of your time and effort as a waste just because you’re not at the end yet will take away from the joy you could have with vlogging. Rather than focusing on getting big, focus on enjoying the process of vlogging.

8. Fear of Being Distracted From the Moment

Whether you’re vlogging or not, living in the present moment can already be a challenge with a smartphone. When something exhilarating happens, many of us feel compelled to pull out our phone to capture it, only to experience that fleeting moment through a small preview screen.

Vlogging appears to take that to another level, especially if you’re using complicated equipment that takes more time to set up and if you’re trying to capture enough footage to produce an entire vlog out of one day. How could all that time devoted to capturing your footage not get in the way of your present moment?

Well, like all hobbies, activities, and passions, vlogging does take time and you’re going to have to accept that it does. You may not know it now, but after giving vlogging a try, you may discover that you really enjoy it. And if you do, you won’t worry about missing out on life just as a painter who happens to be in the middle of his painting during a sunset wouldn’t worry about the sunset he’s missing out on.

If, in the end, you realize you don’t enjoy vlogging, then at least you’re left with a documented piece of a memory that you can relive again and again, which can actually help you appreciate your past moments even more.

9. Fear of Making Others Uncomfortable

Even though you might have learned to enjoy and be comfortable with vlogging, your vlogging might make others uncomfortable. You can still vlog while respecting others’ boundaries by having a conversation first, before you start vlogging, around whether or not they feel comfortable with appearing in your vlog. You can then make sure to exclude those from your vlog who are uncomfortable with appearing in your vlog.

Sometimes, though, as much as you try to exclude certain people from your vlogs, they might still end up in your footage. You might even find out after you’ve captured great footage that people do not want to be in your video. In these cases, you can always censor their faces out in editing.

10. Fear of Permanently Leaving a Bad Mark

Anything you make public over the internet, including vlogging, comes with the risk of making a permanent mark that won’t go away, even if you try to delete your original content later. That can definitely be a scary thing.

Luckily, with vlogging, you still have a lot of control. In both filming and editing, you can choose to share whatever you’re comfortable with sharing with the rest of the world.

In post-production, you can use some video editing software to delete unwanted parts from the video clip, blur the video background , or adjust the video color. Filmora is such a video editing software that has been widely used by many YouTubers; you can download it now and have a try.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Inside Look: Understanding the V-Tuber Phenomenon

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Faceless creators, or people who do not show their faces in their films, have become more prevalent on YouTube. Although being a faceless artist allows you to have a little more privacy on the internet, some viewers like to see a person on-screen.

So, what’s the best way to win over both sides? However, becoming a virtual YouTuber allows you to have your cake and eat it, as well. Vtubing is similar to live streaming, only that instead of showing your face, your facial emotions and movements are recorded by a digital avatar. Vtubing has grown considerably more accessible, with a large number of people watching Vtubing videos on YouTube.

Moreover, Every VTuber is essentially a character. Whether they’re just being themselves on camera or acting out a backstory they made up, watching a VTuber is like watching an anime in and of itself. The avatars or characters provide VTubers with a lot of creative freedom, allowing them to create unique material.

Being a VTuber isn’t all that different from being a regular one in terms of technicalities. However, it would be beneficial if you still had a good notion of what you want to do with your channel. Even though the two activities are conceptually equivalent, VTubing has a little greater entry barrier due to equipment needs.

What is a virtual YouTuber?

A virtual YouTuber, or VTuber for short, is an online video maker or entertainment who represents themselves through a virtual avatar. This avatar is created using computer graphics (CG), and it frequently has an anime-inspired look. Most VTubers, as the name implies, utilize YouTube as their primary platform, while others do upload videos or host streams on other platforms (e.g., Twitch, Facebook Gaming, and so on) and are still referred to as such.

Vtuber’s Brief History

Kizuna AI, a Japanese VTuber, created and popularized the phrase “virtual YouTuber” in 2016. While she wasn’t the first to employ a CG avatar for video blogging, she is almost entirely to blame for the VTubers craze exploding in Japan and then the rest of the world in late 2016. Because Kizuna AI grew in popularity so quickly, new VTubers began to appear regularly. Some creators, who had already established their platform and/or displayed their faces on camera, created VTuber versions of themselves simply to jump on the bandwagon.

According to User Local, a Japanese data technology firm, over 10,000 active VTubers will exist on YouTube alone by 2020. Kizuna AI, who has the highest following of all VTubers on the internet at the time of writing, has over 10 million subscribers across all of her social media sites (YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and Bilibili).

Is VTubers the Next Big Thing in Video Content?

If you follow video marketing trends, you may have seen an uptick in animated videos featuring anime-style avatars. VTubers are the creators of this content, and it’s taking the world by storm. Top VTubers earn hundreds of thousands of dollars every month and have millions of followers. The industry, according to analysts, is on the increase.

In 2019, the overall number of VTuber subscribers climbed by 28%, while total views of Vtuber content increased by 99 percent, according to HyperSense. This may not appear to be a severe trend at first sight. Virtual YouTubers, on the other hand, are being used by marketers and corporations like Mattel and KFC to promote genuine engagement.

Top 5 Virtual YouTubers

The following are the top 5 virtual YouTubers. Each of their videos can be watched for a few minutes with English subtitles.

1. Kizuna AI

Kizuna AI is one of Japan’s most well-known and popular female vloggers, with over two million subscribers to her channel. She appears to be a pop star, but she is artificial intelligence, as she boasts. Since she began posting videos on her main channel, A.I.Channel, in 2016, she has gained a considerable following. On the channel, she discusses various topics and plays popular games. A.I.Games, a Kizuna AI YouTube channel dedicated to games, A.I.Games is also available. She is enthusiastic and honest in both good and bad ways, which is one of her best qualities.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4YaOt1yT-ZeyB0OmxHgolA

2. Kaguya Luna

Kaguya Luna is a popular Japanese vlogger who launched her Kaguya Luna Official channel in 2017. She is one of the Big Four VTubers, with over a million subscribers. Kaguya Luna is adored because she presents herself in such a way. Her videos are mostly made up of her free-wheeling speaking without any acting scripts. Her high-pitched voice is striking, and she is always active and talkative. She also performs as a pop vocalist in a live presentation.v

Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQYADFw7xEJ9oZSM5ZbqyBw

3. Hoshimachi Suisei

Suisei is an idol singer who debuted independently in 2018 before joining the Hololive group. She aims to perform onstage at the Tokyo Budokan. Her deep alto voice is ideal for covers such as Zombieland Saga’s “Saga Jihen,” as well as her original compositions such as “Next Color Planet” and “Ghost.” She also has a reputation as a sociopath, which was established after she violently backstabbed her fellow Hololive stars in a Project Winter playthrough.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5CwaMl1eIgY8h02uZw7u8A

4. Usada Pekora

This adorable little kitten is the most popular VTuber from VShojo’s English-language agency, and it’s easy to understand why her “Nyanderthals” like her. Nyatasha is best known for covering rap songs and going off on obscene tangents with lines like “It’s not about wiping my ass, it’s about sending a message,” despite how innocent she appears and sounds.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1DCedRgGHBdm81E1llLhOQ

5. Sakura Miko

Nyahello! Sakura, a shrine maiden with a theatrical demeanour and a dubious aptitude for video games, began her career as a freelance VTuber before joining Hololive. Her bombastic attitude is part of her appeal: she gets overly passionate about unimportant games, uses any excuse to stare up a female character’s skirt, and swears profusely in Japanese and English whenever she is frustrated. It’s never boring to see her shenanigans.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-hM6YJuNYVAmUWxeIr9FeA

What Does It Take to Become a Virtual YouTuber?

If you’ve been watching YouTube for a while, you’ve most likely noticed the VTuber trend, which began in 2017. Instead of displaying their faces, VTubers, or Virtual YouTubers, communicate with their viewers using an avatar. As this trend grows in popularity (and VTubers gain more subscribers), a lot of people are curious about how they do it. Here are answers to all of your questions on how to become a VTuber on YouTube so you may live out your virtual fantasies.

A high-end PC with enough storage space and a powerful graphics card is required for VTubers. A webcam that tracks motion and connects to your computer is required. The most prominent VTubers employ a blue screen and green room arrangement, which simply consists of walls with one color painted on them in the background of their vlogs so that everything looks to be happening inside an empty virtual area while they walk around.

Investing a lot of money in supplies or equipment for your virtual YouTuber setup isn’t essential, just like it isn’t required for any other creative endeavor. Buying such items may yield greater results if you know how to utilize them effectively but becoming a VTuber may be done for very little money, if at all.

How to become a virtual youtuber?

1. Selecting a Model

To become a virtual YouTuber, you’ll need a model to play the role of your online persona. There are several other ways to do this, but Live2D is the most popular among elite VTubers.

2. Make your model move

A model must be set up before it can move. In computer graphics, rigging is the process of generating and connecting a rig or bone structure to a model, which can subsequently be animated. When working in two dimensions, this usually entails dividing an image into the pieces you want to move.

You’ll want to set up a webcam to track your movements once you’ve created a rigged model. As a result, your model will adjust to fit you every time you move. Most VTubers only track their faces, but hand movements are becoming increasingly popular.

3. Streaming and/or Recording

This portion of VTubing isn’t all that dissimilar from creating regular video material. You’ll need something to record footage of your model as it moves in lockstep with you. VirtualCast, a free VR communication tool that allows you to be “anyone you choose to be” in a virtual world, may be used for pre-recorded videos. It does, however, necessitate the usage of a virtual reality headset.

Conclusion

● In 2020, the popularity of VTuber content surged. There’s no better time than now to become a virtual YouTuber if you’ve been thinking about it for a long. After all, the nicest part about VTubing is that it’s available to everyone with a smart device and a camera.

● As VTubers are always looking for authenticity, you can become a successful VTuber by sharing the things that matter. Keep an eye on VTubers with a large following and observe what they do. Seek feedback to help you improve your skills or ask for assistance if you require it. Create stuff that will pique the interest of others while also maintaining your own.

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What is a virtual YouTuber?