The trail to digital fame is more competitive than ever.
Around 300, 000 new videos are uploaded to Youtube.com daily, and the quantity of channels using more than one million subscribers grew 74% since last year.

With competition on the surge, more YouTubers are drastically increasing their pace of publishing to stay relevant.

Taryn Southern, one of the early stars of YouTube, has experienced this mounting pressure.

Ten years ago, she could get millions of views posting only once every few months. Today, many YouTubers upload three to five videos each week — that additional posts for Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and other varieties of social media.

“At some point, you feel like you’re just recording your lifetime for others rather than actually living it for yourself, ” Southern told Enterprise Insider.

The 30 yr old digital pioneer has produced between 1000 to 1500 videos, reaching about 700 million views across the internet. Her route has almost half a million subscribers.

Southern began her career in the traditional media world.

Whenever she was 18 years old, she competed on American Idol but did not remember her lines in the semi-finals, locking her out of the final round. She then worked steadily as a TV host but sensed creatively unsatisfied.

So she started to post videos on YouTube.
Her first was “Hot for Hillary, ” a satirical love song for Hillary Clinton during the 2007 selection primaries. The video was indexed by CNN and MSNBC and got thousands of views on Facebook.

Within a few years, Southern was regularly writing and producing online content while she worked as an actress on shows like “New Girl, ” “Rules of Engagement, ” and “The League. ” At the time, it wasn’t yet obvious that she could make a living on YouTube.

And then, in 2009, YouTube started out a partner program which empowered the most used content creators — like Southern — to start to earn money by sharing in the revenue using their ads. Within just a few years, promoters commenced to offer personal sponsorships, and ‘YouTuber’ quickly became a professional job for popular creators.
Nevertheless Southern warns of a shifting landscape where person creators are feeling the strain.
Brands and big budget media companies have entered the game — including YouTube itself, which is investing heavily into producing and promoting their own original content.

YouTube’s algorithm has also changed to balance earnings needs and viewer preferences. According to Southern, this has still left many individual YouTubers sensation the whiplash as they try to solve for changes that affect their ability to effectively attain their own audiences.

“The only way to give food to the beast is submitting daily or creating multiple channels for niche platforms, ” Southern said. “You just feel like enslaved by the algorithm. ”

Several YouTubers have spoken out there, frustrated over sudden falls in views, revenue, rather than being able to attain the people who register to them.

Others have talked openly about the enormous pressure they feel to keep rigorous publishing schedules, whilst facing personal challenges like illness, newborns, even death and divorce. After all, a boss can be forgiving, but algorithms are not.
For Southern, the solution was going traditional, even if it intended losing engagement. A little more when compared to a year in the past, she minimize video submissions to give attention to her personal life. She saw a therapist, which she determined to share openly with her audience.
“I was producing three to five videos a week and artistically and emotionally exhausted, ” Southern said. “It experienced become a different game that has been no longer fun to play anymore. I’d had enough. ”

YouTube star and beauty businessperson Michelle Phan expressed similar sentiments in a newly released video explaining her 9-month zwischenzeit from the platform.

The southern area of has also bounced again — personally and appropriately.

She’s working on an album and producing a documentary with Academy Award nominee Morgan Spurlock on the continuing future of the human brain. She’s also creating VR content for children’s clinics and senior homes and is excited to continue exploring immersive media, for YouTube or otherwise.

Typically the media entrepreneur thinks that more social media influencers will likely produce a change in the coming years.

“Don’t get me completely wrong. It’s not impossible to build a career on Facebook if you are constant and adaptable to change. But for most of us, it may be also been a valuable lesson — we’re a guest in someone else’s home. You can’t control what you don’t own. ”