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How to Romanticise your Life: A Conversation with Honor's Diary
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In this episode of Chatsunami, I am joined by the wonderful Honor from the YouTube channel Honor's Diary to discuss all thing content creation! From her new book How to Romanticise your Life to the pros and cons of content creation, this is one episode you will not want to miss!
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Transcript
Introduction to Honor's Diary
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami.
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Chatsunami. My name's Satsunami and joining me for the very first interview of Season 5 is none other than the fantastic YouTuber herself, Honor, from Honor's Diary. So first of all, Honor, thank you so, so much for coming on tonight. Thank you so much, reversely. Hi, how are you?
00:00:40
Speaker
Yeah, not too bad. How are you doing yourself?
British Weather and Sports Chat
00:00:43
Speaker
I'm good, thank you. I mean, I'm boiling. I don't know about you, but we're having this heatwave in the UK and I'm just melting here and I'm just like, ugh. Oh I can totally re relate, see as someone from the north genuinely, I don't i don't know what the weather's thinking. One minute it's scorch, as you said it's scorching heat and you know you can't go outside with a jacket on and then two seconds later it's torrential rain. It is, oh it is, well is it right to say terrible weather?
00:01:11
Speaker
Wow, it has been terrible, I think. I mean, look at us being so British talking about the weather, the first thing. But like, honestly, I think having the coldest days and all the rain and now all of a sudden the heat, it makes it harder because it just hits you and you're just like, oh, my gosh, oh, wow. It's just one of those things. I mean, I'm sitting in a conservatory right now and the heat and that is really bad. So I'm just sweating here. But there we go.
00:01:37
Speaker
thank ah God, I can only imagine, because as I was saying, I mean, today it's been, and again, you're completely right, this is such a British way to open, isn't it? To be like, how's the weather today? Oh, not too bad, thank you. It has honestly just been flip-flopping all over the place today. It's been raining, it's been sunshine, and honestly, I'll be glad once autumn and winter rolls around and it's a wee bit cooler and, you know, then I can complain about it being too cold because... yeah I feel as if talking about the weather and complaining about it was an Olympic sport. I feel as if we would be up there getting the gold. Oh, yeah. We'll be getting gold, especially during the Olympics. It's just like, oh, we'll be very good at that. So just a wee behind the scenes peek for you lovely listeners out there. We are recording this quite early ahead of time. And as we're recording this, the Olympics are still on. It's been interesting, hasn't it? Oh, yeah, I know. I wonder who's won. Whenever I was listening, they'll know.
00:02:37
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure by this point the UK's got like, I don't know, 100 gold medals. We're at the top of the leaderboard. That'd be so nice. Yeah. and We like to be optimistic in the yeah UK, especially when it comes to sports, don't we? Oh, the football, the Euros. Oh my gosh. When it came to the final, everyone's like, oh my gosh, it's coming home. And it didn't come home, as always. I mean, how was the feeling down south for that? Was it really energetic all around? It was. So my boyfriend, he's a very football family. He's got all the football teams, et cetera. My family isn't, but when it comes to the Euros, all of a sudden my family's interested and we're like, ooh, especially when we're doing well. And it's funny because they felt like it was actually gonna happen and it didn't. So everyone just felt a bit neh the next day. But I guess you kind of forget about it and carry on. But then I'm not like the big football fan. So I don't know if I can speak for like big football fans, you know? So that's like a big really.
00:03:37
Speaker
Now I have to say I'm a little bit the same. If it's the World Cup or the Euros, I'll think, oh, you know what? I'll maybe check out a couple of games, but when it comes to the club games, I'm like, nah. The time for that has passed for me. Definitely.
00:03:52
Speaker
I mean, the worst part was my partner and I, when we were watching it, she wasn't really into football before the Euros. And then as soon as the Euros came on and she watched one or two games, she was like, oh, let's watch one that we're having dinner or whatever. And I thought, oh, God, I've turned her into a football monster.
00:04:11
Speaker
ah know It was also very awkward when I was like, oh yeah, let's watch the very first Euros game and it was Scotland against Germany. oh yeah You didn't need a crystal ball to know we were going to get absolutely beat, but
Exploring Honor's YouTube Journey
00:04:25
Speaker
fun times. But anyway, I feel as if that's the British quota of talking about sports and the weather.
00:04:30
Speaker
but that's the british part Now we get to the nitty-gritty whatever it's here for. Yeah, exactly. and So as I was saying before, you run a completely fantastic channel called Honours Diary which is, well, see to be honest, I find it a very cosy slice of life kind of channel where you talk about your day-to-day things. It just has such a pose a vibe to it. Before we go on to that and explain how fantastic your channel is, what was the inspiration, especially for your own content creation journey? And this is probably one of the prerequisite questions I always throw to people who come on Chat Tsunami because I always wonder, was it a product so of the 2020s when everyone was in and the house during lockdowns? Was it something you thought about before Covid or was it something you just thought of afterwards?
00:05:20
Speaker
So I've actually been doing YouTube since 2014. So it started off as 13, 14 year old me making YouTube channel behind my mom and dad's back because I was so young, I wasn't allowed. And I did gaming. I played a game called Movie Star Planet, which is a children's game. And I recorded a few things and I'm like, oh, I like this. Then I would spend a lot of time watching YouTube videos. And I thought to myself, I want to be a big YouTuber when I grow older. I gave up.
00:05:49
Speaker
And then when it came to lockdown, I started again, but it was on another channel and I did Minecraft gameplays. Again, I kind of went for the same vibe. It was cozy, cottagecore, very relaxing, just girly gaming on Minecraft, just to know how the whole community, it went really well. But then after a while, I didn't feel satisfied. I just thought, I'm getting a bit burned out with Minecraft. And I thought, I want to do something else.
00:06:16
Speaker
Now I'm skipping to different pieces here but at the same time I was doing a university course and I do media production. So I do a lot of filming and I created a short film which was based on a very cute, cosy-like scenario of a couple going on a picnic in the countryside and I really wanted to focus on aesthetics.
00:06:38
Speaker
The absolute blast I had when it came to creating that, I was like, wow, this is what I love. This is what I want to do. But then I thought to myself, I don't really want to work in like the movie scene because it seems stressful. And it's like, you know what? I can't de-stress. So that's about like cozy.
00:06:54
Speaker
I'm the complete opposite. So I thought I'm going to make a YouTube channel again, but this time actually do what I'm doing now. And I would watch loads of YouTubers who have a sort of similar vibe, but not really. And I thought, well, I live in the countryside. I love the countryside life and just really slow, easy living and just living my best life, but in the most simplest ways of just living my day to day life. And I thought, I want to showcase this. And since I've done that, it's going really well and I'm very happy. I mean I've only been doing it for what like eight months, nine months and I absolutely love it. I have to say I think that you need to update your description on your, especially your Twitter handle because I remember reading it and I think you said you had over 500 subscribers and now am I right in saying it's over 600? Yeah, it's over 600. It's going quite quick. And I'll be honest, I'm not the best when it comes to remembering to update things. I know I need to update my bio on or the description on my YouTube channel. That's really outdated. So I'm gonna do that when I finish this. So thanks for reminding me. Oh, no problem. It's fantastic especially seeing when you have a milestone post saying that you've reached a particular amount of subscribers and
Growth and Content Creation Philosophy
00:08:07
Speaker
things. I have to say, I can see why because your content as we were saying before and this is going to be the word of the episode, cosy. You do have that vibe for sure. It's right insane you've got a lot of vlog based videos where you're going out exploring different places and such. Yes, I do. So recently, where I've been going holiday a lot, I thought, okay, I'm going around the UK quite a bit. I went to Wales, Cotswolds, they're all sort of my vibe. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to film this. And I did so and I wanted to create a very cozy vibe, like someone's coming along with me, they're going on holiday together and checking things out and just having and creating a nice vibe. So yes, I've been doing that and I absolutely love it.
00:08:51
Speaker
And is there any particular type of video that you prefer making? Because I know you do travel, you've done fashion ones as well, you've done ones about food and getting hauls from different shops and things. Like is there any one in particular that you say you'd prefer filming for? I think it would be the vlog content and I think that's basically because I have been doing it a lot lately. It's just because I love it and don't get me wrong, I enjoy doing like all the fashion and the hauls but you know that requires me to spend money and going shopping. and I do want to just be buying stuff for the sake of it. I just like buying stuff that brings me joy. So as much as I love to film those sorts of videos, I do really enjoy the whole vlog aspect because I can incorporate a bit of shopping and I can show hauls and stuff. Like I can do everything in one video. dedicated video rather than having okay this is one video I'm specifically buying so many things from one shop which is fun but I think the most impactful ones where you can really create and showcase your life and almost like people can feel like you're a part of your life like making friends in a way even though we don't know each other and I feel like I connect well when I do those.
00:09:55
Speaker
Would you say initially it was quite difficult to try and achieve that or would you say it came quite naturally? Because I know you said that you were doing your YouTube or rather you were on your YouTube journey since 2014. Would you say it came quite naturally when you finally started Honours Diary? Yes I do think it has come very naturally and again that's just because of my experience that I have had but I think also this is content that really resonates with me. Where I've done all this stuff in the past I'm like oh yeah this is cool, this is fun. I mean with my previous channel that did very well and I had thousands of subscribers I didn't fully resonate with it. At first it was like oh this is fun because I was just enjoying playing Minecraft at the time during Covid but after a while I was just doing it for the sake of it because I had all these followers and I just wanted to please them. So I just kept doing it until I just got burnt out. But for the first time, like since I recorded my first video, I was like, this is me. This is what resonates with me in this. I am truly happy when I post this content and create it. And I'm always brainstorming ideas and like, oh, I could do this, I can do that. And okay I have dry periods but I don't put the pressure on myself to constantly create every single day or like every week consistently. I do it when I have inspiration because then I feel like I put out my best content because just learning from the past I don't want to be burnt out and just doing stuff for the sake of it. I want to create content that I love and really truly brings me happiness because I know that I resonate through camera.
00:11:24
Speaker
as someone who's done streaming and podcasting and things and seen how a lot of people, and I don't know if you've seen this as well, especially when you were saying about your Minecraft content, that a lot of people feel as if they're real loaded into doing one particular topic. yeah Whether it's gaming or whether it's talking about a particular thing and as soon as they move on to something else, I feel as if it's quite hard for a lot of people that there's definitely a drop off but I mean you absolutely highlighted that perfectly there that as long as you're happy doing it, that's the main thing because do you feel as if a lot of creators kind of struggle with that? or yeah They've got a lot of trepidation to go from their niche that they've got a massive following for versus doing something that's making them happy. Definitely. I mean, I remember when I did my YouTube channel for my Minecraft gaming and I got to that burnout point and I was like, okay, I'm going to play Stardew Valley. Originally, I was getting thousands of views on videos. And when I did Stardew Valley, I had about 90 views. And I just thought, wow, so people were mostly watching for the Minecraft, which you know it's absolutely fine but I think this made me realise well there's no point in me carrying on with this if I'm not doing what I love. I know if I carried on yes I could have picked up but I just I kind of saw that as the point for me like okay this is that chapter that's ended. I've made the most out of it and I enjoyed it when I did it. I didn't want to just carry on for the sake of it because I know what will happen as I'll resent it and YouTube's always been a hobby of mine and that was starting to get to the point where it wasn't becoming a hobby so I thought I need to just stop this, have a break, just see where life takes me and again I just got to roar back into this and I'm doing better than ever statistically. Looking back at my analytics I'm growing at a faster rate than I have before so it's quite exciting like oh doing something that excites me is actually paying off as well. No, that's absolutely fantastic to hear though. Especially when you go into something that is new, but it's something that you're eager to pursue, eager to share with the world.
Marketing Content Effectively
00:13:31
Speaker
Would you say it's been quite difficult in terms of marketing? Because and I'm sure a lot of indie creators, whether they're YouTubers, podcasters, streamers, they all kind of sighed when they heard that. the idea of marketing yourself, but do you find that quite difficult nowadays to try and put your content out there? Sometimes my problem is I don't want to be too in people's faces. Here's my video, watch it, watch it, watch it, watch it. I want to do low-key, so my way of marketing it is just creating stuff that people would save and enjoy. So I will post it on Instagram, I post it on TikTok, I do on X,
00:14:08
Speaker
slash Twitter. And I'm all right at it. I know I could be better. But I think, and I know we'll be talking about this later, since I've been publishing my book, I have been putting more impact into marketing myself, because I'm realizing like, oh, I'm not gonna make sales if I don't do this. So I am doing a lot of things. But I think my main thing that I've been focusing on is ah SEO and doing all the technical stuff to help push things to get views. And I find that helps as well. No, I'm totally with you there. It is quite difficult to put yourself out there in terms of you're not wanting to bother anybody when you said that you don't want to be in people's faces and things because I don't know about you but I feel as if there's kind of a final line between it that You don't want to be assertive and in people's faces because you're just going to put them off your content. But on the flip side, if you don't put yourself out there, then you're not going to find your audience. And it is just really hard trying to find that middle ground to be like, OK, here I am. You can find me here, here and here. But neither is it people throwing their links in your face. Because before we go on to talk about your book, which honestly, fantastic. Congratulations on that. Thank you. Have you ever had that before where people have DM'd you to be like, oh, I'm a, I don't know, YouTuber or whatever, come watch my videos and they've just posted a link and then never interacted again? Yes, I get that. Also, one thing I get a lot on Instagram because I kind of do like the influencing stuff, which I love to do. So I post a lot of outfit photos in the countryside. So I come across with the fellow influencers and stuff. And some are absolutely lovely. I've made friends with them and we get on so well. But there's others, and obviously I'm not going to name names, but they would message me and say, I've posted a photo. Can you like it, please? I'm like, yeah, sure. I don't hear anything again. I've posted another photo. Could you like it, please? And I'm like, OK, yeah. And then you're just kind of like, I feel a bit used because I enjoy having interactions with people like if someone messages me and, you know, if they say, could you like this, please, of course I'll do it.
00:16:10
Speaker
But then I'll interact, I'll start making friends, that's how I've made friends with people. I would message people, we'll just chat, and you know, we just interact with each other. But yeah, I feel like there are some people that do very much just, they're very brave, they're not afraid to just... consistently share their content to everyone. And I think because I get slightly bothered, because I just feel that I could be getting taken for granted, I do worry that I might come across in that way because I just don't want to make anyone annoyed because I guess for me, my content is all about positivity and making people happy. So it seems a bit hypocritical thinking about bothering people to promote my content.
00:16:48
Speaker
No, I totally know what you mean. Again, it's that middle ground of thinking, okay, how am I gonna present my myself, present my content? And as I said before, you know, your content is fantastic. Because, and this is gonna sound terrible. Me saying like, oh, you're positive, and then saying, now let me tell you about the negative side of this, because... it's not really as much anymore but it was especially when I was streaming and you would get people saying oh follow for follow and all of that and they would just spam you with their links or the youtube channels or it was just like a whole hodgepodge mix of things but then when you went to their channels they weren't really interacting with people and especially when you would go and you'd say oh I'm here for blah blah blah and they'd be like oh okay and then they would just never talk to you and you're completely right. I think it's something that a lot of new content creators especially have to watch out for with other influencers coming in and saying oh like my stuff and whatever but then expecting that and making it into a norm. Definitely. I know that also for follow for follow it's the worst thing you can do for the algorithms
00:17:56
Speaker
And I think I'm going into my job here because I'm a social media worker as in I do all the marketing and stuff for other brands. So doing Follow for Follow is the worst thing to do for the engagement because you actually get the followers. But the people who ask to follow you, they're not going to interact with your profile or it's very unlikely that they will again because they keep reaching out to everyone to get them to follow. So they're not going to be able to consume your content all the time. So it can kill the engagement and actually it can be worse off because the algorithm of its YouTube, Instagram, whatever, they'll see that you're getting all these subscribers or followers. But then they're like, oh, but no one's liking the post or watching it. So obviously it's not a good channel. We won't push it out anymore. Yeah, you can definitely tell the people who have bought their followers or 100% I don't know, it's just it's really bizarre to me that someone would pay for that amount of followers, but then when you actually look at their posts and they're getting, I don't know, three likes, maybe one comment, it is really surreal. And especially, and this is something that if you ever make a podcast one day, honestly.
00:19:00
Speaker
be wary of podcast bots and promoters because you'll get these people who'll email you or message you and say, oh I'll promote your podcast for you know a ridiculous amount of money and we'll give you quote-unquote organic followers and whatnot. It's a dangerous game to begin with but I've heard of horror stories where people have done that then they've refused to pay them consistently so then what the people who have gave them the bots and things will do is that they'll mass one star their show, they'll give them bad reviews and just utterly review bomb it to oblivion. It's a silly thing to do but I suppose if you start now and you see an easy way out to begin with I suppose people can be tempted but now you're completely right once again, it's definitely not the way to go. And I feel so old saying that, you know that
Honor's Self-Help Book
00:19:55
Speaker
way? yeah i get that Yeah, you know when your parents used to say like oh hard work and determination and everything and you're like yeah sure sure but honestly those words are so true when it comes to content creation and things. And speaking of hard work and dedication, yeah
00:20:11
Speaker
This is my segue into talking about your absolutely fantastic book, which when this episode comes out, it should be out on Amazon, called How to Romanticise Your Life, which love the title. I love the cover as well. Thank you. So would you like to tell the listeners at home a little bit about this book? Okay, so it is a self-help book and basically the whole title is How to romanticise your life, the ultimate guide to living your desired reality. It's funny because when people ask me saying, what is this book about? I'm a bit like, it's about a lot of things, trying to sum it up can be quite difficult into a sentence, so I'll do my best to explain it. But what I like to say to people is when you think about your dream life, Automatically, you think about getting married, having children, getting your dream job, buying a house, travelling the world, which don't get me wrong, all of these things are amazing and can attribute to us such an amazing life. But actually, think about how you're living your life right now. When you get married, you have one day of a wedding and maybe a honeymoon period. After that you're living your day-to-day life.
00:21:16
Speaker
when you have your dream job. Yes, it's exciting when you first have it, but then you're living your day-to-day life of whatever you're doing for your job. And all of a sudden you realize that life can become very mundane. And there is a big crisis where people feel like, oh, I'm not living my best life. I've been doing all this and I'm not satisfied. So my book teaches you how to live your best life, but it's all about the techniques and things that you can do to make right now what we would class the mundane and it helps you find the magic in it.
00:21:43
Speaker
So doing day-to-day things that actually, when it's night time, you look back every day and you think, wow, I've had a really good day today and I feel like I'm thriving and at peace in life. So basically, the way I guess I could describe it, to help you find the magic in your mundane life. That's a perfect summary. Yeah, it's quite hard. I think I'd use that quote actually. Now thinking about it, I'm like, oh, that's a good one. I've been making it to that. That'll be going in all the reviews, won't it? Oh, yeah.
00:22:08
Speaker
First of all, it's an absolutely fantastic achievement because it is no small feat actually putting those thoughts into well into words and then of course publishing them through, is it at the Kindle Store? Yeah, Kindle Direct Publishing. So a physical copy will come out and a Kindle version will obviously come out. But it's easy because for doing it through that way, it's print on demand. So I don't have to worry thinking, oh my gosh, 10,000 books being printed out. I've got to make sure I sell them Amazonese money. like There's none of that worry. It's quite nice. Oh no, it's an absolutely fantastic service. And before anybody says that I'm praising Amazon too much, this episode is not sponsored by KDP or Amazon. You know, Amazon, if you're listening and you would like to throw a wee bit of money our way, you know please feel free. but
00:22:57
Speaker
No it is, it's an app absolutely fantastic service. Just out of curiosity though, what inspired you to go that route and decide that you were going to write this book? Because as we've been talking about before, you did an absolutely fantastic job with your channel and everything. So what was the turning point for you that you thought, right, I have to write this book, I have to share these tips with the world about how to romanticise your life?
00:23:23
Speaker
So, funny enough, we're going into some of my other avenues. I've lived quite a life. I've done loads of things, so let me jump into it. About two years ago, I was, well, I guess I could say I had a bit of a spiritual awakening. and I was a tarot reader. I did coaching for people in, like, the spiritual realm.
00:23:41
Speaker
all of that and is basically covid and doing that and i just had loads of realizations about life because i was very aspirational i had a lot of goals and i wanted to do a lot of big things and i achieved some of them so for example starting a business i was always wanting to do that and i set that up for myself and i had a list of aspirations like earning a certain amount of money etc and i was getting that But my problem was that I wasn't feeling satisfied. I was getting those things and I was just like, oh yes, once I finally do it, my life's gonna change. And then it didn't. I mean, it did a little bit, because I was doing the new thing, but it wasn't that big dramatic thing where I thought, now I'm going to be happy and live happily forever after. It was just, oh, now I'm running this business now. That's just my next day-to-day life.
00:24:26
Speaker
So I went down this bit of a quest and I guess obviously because of Covid we were all stuck indoors and it was a very difficult time for loads of people. I was very fortunate that I didn't lose anyone during Covid and because I lived in a countryside and I thrived at being at home I quite enjoyed myself even though we were still limited and I guess that is the silver lining that I am in such a fortunate situation that I was able to enjoy being at home. because I had loads of activities I could do. I could do gardening. I could do lots of creative things. And I realized how I was living my day-to-day life during COVID. I realized this is my dream life, just doing all the things that I love to do. And I didn't have the big job and, you know, I didn't have all those big things. It was just those moments where I was doing things to bring peace to myself and just living my day-to-day for the joy and I realised oh wow this is actually the sort of life I aspire to. So I feel like having these juxtapositions in general really inspired me because as I was going through my journey I knew there was lots of people when I was doing university, everyone's having aspirations and you know there was also the struggles of university getting used to coming back in after being stuck at home for over a year. It was a big adjustment and everyone was feeling anxious and it was just a very odd place to be in and
00:25:41
Speaker
It just inspired me to write that book because I've always loved writing. I've been so passionate about it and fun fact, I wrote my book while I was doing my university dissertation. So I was doing two big projects at the same time and it did make me realise, okay yes, I do have a message I wanted to put out into the world so I've now officially done it and wrote that book.
00:26:03
Speaker
Now that is absolutely fantastic though and you're completely right, I feel as if a lot of people during the lockdowns, those in fortunate situations, myself included, managed to find those creative outlets and kind of a direction because and this is something that I think I've talked so about previously but I do feel as if totally with you there when you were talking about earlier how there's a predetermined set of milestones that you get put on you when you're younger. You go to uni, you go get your job and everything, you get married and you repeat the cycle and everything. Yeah it's quite interesting that there is so much more to life
00:26:46
Speaker
There really is. I think we can get a bit lost. I think work has just been a big emphasis. You sort of live to work, almost. I mean, I started a new job and I'm working full time now and and I'm lucky I can work from home. And and I just see people say, like, for example, my boyfriend, he works long hours and I just feel like He comes home, he's tired and I just feel like there's so much beauty in this world that I feel like we miss out on because a lot of people are focused on doing things just to survive and I just wanted to write something that could help maybe just ground yourself into the moment and just realise all the beautiful things that are around you and actually realise you know what there's a lot we can work with even if we do have a short amount of time just to help make life feel that little bit better. I feel as if it's a very important book to come out as well. And I'm not just saying that because you're on and also the fact that your PayPal donations also come through. yeah
00:27:42
Speaker
But it's mainly because I'm sure you'll probably agree on this whenever you go on to, whether it's Twitter or Instagram, choose your social media of poison there. But you always go on and there's always something quite negative there. I know. I'll log on like YouTube and it's just the news. That's the first scene that comes up. It's breaking news. This and this happen. You're just like, oh my gosh. But then there's loads of positive things that have happened. and You don't hear about all the positive things that's happened in this world. It doesn't get showcased, maybe rarely. Yeah, because it's that old adage, I suppose, of all the scares and everything and the negativity. That's the kind of things that sell which is just so sad to see, to be honest because even with some of the episodes of Chatsunami where especially when we did Simpsons Month and we talked about the rise of the Simpsons and the positives, in that episode it didn't do massively worse compared to the next one which was all about the downfall of it but judging by the analytics people were
00:28:48
Speaker
far more interested in and the negative side than they were about the positives and I feel as if that is, I mean obviously I'm not the first or last person to ever do that because I've seen YouTubers before test that where they do a positive video on something in the negative and always it's the negative video because it's that kind of case I suppose. If it's something relatively light-hearted like a bad video game or a bad TV show it's a case of like schadenfreude where they just want to get happiness out the misery of this particular media. But as you said, then you've got the news, you've got yeah other news about social media stars and things. It's just this kind of thing of well of negativity and it is quite difficult Tuesday positive at times. So that's why I said what you're doing, whether it's the book or especially the YouTube channel, is something that's very welcome to Well, I was just thinking i like, yeah, I wanted to create something positive because negativity is addictive. It's known that it's addictive. When you start going down that rabbit hole of seeing something that's negative, you want to look into it more and you're like, ooh, I look further and all of a sudden you're just like sucked into this thing of negativity. So I wanted to create something that would help you grant yourself and be present and basically it teaches you to realise when you're getting into that pattern of like oh I'm getting into a pattern of negativity I need to stop myself and just ground myself in this moment and focus on something positive. Would you say as well that seeing terms of social media algorithms and things as well that when you're scrolling that if you see or even glance a negative thing that it can, like as you said going down the rabbit hole, it just that really tries to draw you to that. So one of my biggest problems that I'm having at the moment, where I've first done my new job, I am borrowing my boyfriend's laptop and he has MSN and I need to just like, it's like the default browser on the internet explorer. so I go on it and the first things I see are the most clickbait negative titles and there are times where I'm looking about it like see the latest outbreak of this and this is the new pandemic or this and this happened it's just like oh my gosh and luckily I can ground myself like no we're not going to click this it's probably just some article that's just been spun around into something I've studied journalism so I know how it works
00:31:07
Speaker
but I do have to really stop and tell myself don't click that because you're going to go down a spiral of just negativity because you're going to want to know more information. Because if you hear about things saying this is a new pandemic, the likelihood is it probably isn't. But they're just trying to make that article so it gets views. People want to click because it's something that we relate to at the moment because of what we've been through. So it can be difficult because it does target people's weak
Handling Negativity Online
00:31:33
Speaker
spots. If you have something that slightly triggers you, if you see that title, there's a good chance you're going to really click on it and look at it because you want to know all about it so you feel like you have control of the situation. And for a lot of my research, that's why people look at negativity because it gives them a sense of control, knowing all the details so they know how to process their emotions and what to do next.
00:31:55
Speaker
Seeing all honesty, I can't imagine your content would get any negative attention, but have you ever had to deal with that yourself in terms of when you're putting your content out there and let's face it, you get people who are just miserable for the sake of being miserable and that's coming from someone who's Scottish here. I could spot them on my own from home.
00:32:17
Speaker
But yeah, have you ever had to deal with that? Yes. Luckily, not so much recently. The latest comment I think I've had that wasn't really hate, but it was just a bit nasty, a bit odd. It was, I can't understand you. And I'm like, OK. Then I have had stuff in the past where I was, again, doing my spiritual stuff, especially the tarot readings. I would do those online for people and the amount of negative attention that brought, which I was expecting because it it was such a taboo thing. But that was just a fun little hobby I did anyway. Then when I did my Minecraft YouTubing I did have some issues then. I had a person who actually stalked me which was very creepy. I had their message or they emailed me saying oh yeah I see you live in this place and I had a full panic thinking oh my gosh how? Like what? Luckily that got resorted but yes I have had my fair share of negativity but
00:33:12
Speaker
I've kind of learnt to just blanket. I guess I do the thing of kill them with kindness because I know that if I just comment back and say, boy, how dare you, blah, blah, blah, blah, they'll just retaliate. That's what they want. They want your reaction. And people comment because they're hurt.
00:33:30
Speaker
Hurts people hurt, that's what they're saying is. I just know that if they're saying something horrible, they're saying it to me because they feel bad about themselves and they need to do something to make themselves feel better. Because I know with my content, I want people to feel good. In a way, I kind of have that mindset of like, okay, if I get a negative comment, they're getting out their system, I can delete it and they can go on their day and I can go on with mine. And I think that's just the best way for me to go about it really. Otherwise I will just get sad.
00:33:58
Speaker
No, I'm totally with you there. First of all, sorry you went through that, that just sounds absolutely terrible, but it feels as if there's... and again, maybe this is just how you could slap it on like a thing you tang up on the wall to say there's too much negativity in the world and things to feed into it, because I'm completely with you there when you were talking about you kill people with kindness. And I know that's metaphorical. yeah yeah and Because the amount of people that I've seen, I have to say, even when I've put like a stupid comment about something and, you know, somebody takes it far too seriously and whatnot. And I have to admit, I've just gotten in the way of unless, you know, they're very aggressive or whatever, or just over the top, I tend to ignore them or even if they're moderate in terms of or it might just be a misunderstanding, at least I can talk to them. But I don't know. There's no real victory there. there isn't Because at the end of the day, that person at the other side of the computer, either they're going to be a troll or they might even just be having one of the worst days of their life. And I think it's something that a lot of people nowadays, they don't really consider when they go online. It just seems as if because all of our communication now is instant and you know you can just throw out a tweet, you can throw out insults whenever you want, which for legal reasons, please don't do that. yeah don't
00:35:23
Speaker
but i'm getting flagged down by my right panda lawyer in the corner saying don't don't yeah that it seems as if there's just a lot of negativity because of that because of world events because of this and that you know but would you say personally being someone who's also been on the internet for a while would you say things have kind of gotten more negative over time yeah i think it has honestly i think since covid in general it was a lot for people to deal with And I think since then it has got a lot worse and not even just online for people in general as well. I mean, and I'm going off track here. For example, my mum, she works in a shop. The amount of difficulty she has with customers with their impatience and just shouting lots of abuse. She now has to wear cameras everywhere. In case someone gets really bad, she'll have to press the camera to turn it on and her proof and all that. It's just it's crazy that we're coming into a world like that. And yeah, I definitely think it has got a lot worse.
00:36:20
Speaker
I mean, that's absolutely crazy that she has to do that. I have to say, I've seen it a lot online that people have complained about people not having as many manners nowadays and things like that. And I have to admit, coming out of Covid initially, I was like, maybe it's just over the top and it's just like one or two bad experiences, you know? And then when you actually see it, obviously I've not been in that kind of situation, but you do see a lot more people who are very cart with one another, they're very sharp, or they're more likely to ridicule something rather than prop them up. Something that was really surprising to me when I got into podcasting was the fact that the indie podcasting community for definite with the most part is one of the most welcoming communities you could ever have online, where you have all these kind of sub communities as well that are just propping everybody up, they're supporting each other and everything. And it's just that it's weird to see that almost like a micro society as it were. i know And then you look to real life and it just seems quite, I don't want to say depressing, but it does seem quite sad to see things go like that. But see in terms of the YouTuber Hindi community and especially for the book community on Twitter and things, would you say they are quite positive in terms of promoting one another? So I'd say yes but you do also get the negativity as well. I think the thing is is there is some sort of negativity which I guess is sort of standard and that's when it comes to book critiques. So obviously you're going to get people who have discussions about the book and you know you do get nasty comments about the book saying oh it's the worst book you've ever read it's no point reading it blah blah blah and that's just their opinion you know that's okay. But
00:38:08
Speaker
sometimes people can get very defensive and it can just cause issues and I do find like no matter what community you're in, fandoms, anything like that you're always going to get arguments and controversy and then you get people saying oh you've copied me from doing this or I remember having a comment actually when I was promoting one of my books it was on TikTok and they said oh you've copied blah bla blah blah blah blah and I'm just here like I've never heard of this person before So I got panicked thinking, oh my gosh, what is this? So I researched them and actually know our books are nothing alike. But it's just strange that I didn't invent the idea of how to romanticise your life. It was popular during Covid, like to romanticise your life, because it was the sort of thing people were doing. I think people just assumed that one person has an original idea and everyone else is copying that idea. if that makes sense or if you do something similar it's like oh my gosh you're blatantly copying and it's just like well actually you just have some similarities but there's loads of differences as well so it can make things a bit difficult because people just get so defensive as well and yeah it can be quite difficult. I've seen the exact type of fans that you're talking about there I mean, I witnessed it first hand. Funny enough, I know a lot about the Star Wars community. That can get very toxic as well. There's the Disney fans who love it when since Disney had taken over. But then you have the side where they absolutely hate Disney and they hate the sequels and the amount of arguments there is over them. And I'm just like, how can there be so much negativity in a space that's meant to be positive, where it's just an amazing universe? It's insane to me, but I don't know. I guess people just thrive on that in a way, because like I said, it's addicting. I have to say, when my co-host and very good friend Andrew and I, we did a Star Wars month for the podcast.
00:39:56
Speaker
in researching that was an absolutely, it was a wild journey because we did the three tragedies, we did like the prequels which were widely hated in the 90s and early 2000s, we did the originals which are widely beloved and then we did the sequels which, oh my gosh,
00:40:17
Speaker
have to say, I feel as if we were very balanced in how we talked about it, but going into how much hatred that the actors and actresses got and everything, it was just absolutely horrific. I know. It's the same with the prequels. When the prequels came out, it had the exact same response. Everyone hated it, like Jar Jar Binks having a ridiculous character. People hated it, but then as time went on, the children who grew up with that, with the prequels, it's adored now. Everyone loves the prequels. So I reckon in 10 years time the sequels are going to be loved as well. Oh absolutely. When the new trilogy comes out that'll be the next kind of target. It's changed. That's something they don't like. Anything that's changed people just freak out because they just love what they grew up with. because I have to say, and that's something that I'm getting mighty tired of right now, is you know the um amount of grifter channels and things like that? The ones who they'll pop up with a very, very stupid thumbnail when they'll say, oh look, this thing that people like, you know, I don't like it. And you're like, OK, cool beans. But they use are very much the same script, the same... I know. Just the same words and the same buzzwords. I see the words in media literacy. know, you know what that makes me think of? I don't know why, the thought just popped into my head. I actually missed the old days of YouTube. Back in the day where you'd have really just simple videos and people doing it for fun. They weren't high budget, it was people sitting in their rooms like, hi guys, I have this and this is blah blah blah blah blah. It was just simple, it was fun. Now it's either really high quality or it's almost like that in like a studio. I don't know, it just feels like that homely feel whether YouTube's are relatable, that's just gone. It's all now getting views, getting clicks and it's the factory produced to just be another TV show almost like that and I miss the at-home aspect of YouTube. Well in the girly industry, I don't know if you know know much about that but it will be simple videos as like what's in my bag or look at my collection of this and it's so simple or like this little challenges like chubby bunny challenge and all of that and I miss the simple times of YouTube and I do try to bring that little aspect back into my channel but these days like you were mentioning with the clicks and people just do things for clickbait and yeah it's a definitely different time now and I do miss the old nostalgia well I guess I get nostalgia from some videos where I look back at it and like wow I miss it when it's like that
00:42:47
Speaker
You're completely right though because even if thinking back to it there, it is weird because when you thought of a YouTuber, you never in a million years would have linked them to a TV show, a movie or or anything. I think the point where it started breaking down was, you know when they started releasing their own merch? yeah whether it was books or make-up ranges. Was it Zoella or something we had? yeah Was she not charging a ridiculous amount of money for a make-up calendar or something? Yes, it was an epic calendar. All it came with, I would say the value of the stuff that came with was about £10. You'd get like the odd nail file, which costs about £10p. And it was just little bits like that, which was just so overpriced. And I know it's not just heard, there's a lot of products that YouTubers have released that it's just so overpriced and it's just like, ooh, this is a bit sketchy. At least then you could kind of, I mean, obviously it's not right, but you could at least chalk it up to, okay, this is new territory, how are you going to mark it? This internet celebrity who most people might not know because, you know, not everybody was on YouTube at the time, but... Exactly. ...themities, it's just, if you're really, really popular, you know, you're PewDiePie's and, oh my God, I'm saying PewDiePie, he's off the internet.
00:44:05
Speaker
I still watch Trudy Pie. I love his content. He just does slug stuff with his kid and it's just the cutest hulseness thing ever. He is honestly probably one of the better examples of the success story in terms of he's done his gaming content then he got married and you know now he's just filming as you said just documenting his life. Same with a lot of other former gaming creators. I don't know if you've watched the I think it's Game Theory. Oh yes, I've heard about Game Theory, yeah. Yeah, the main host for that matpat, he was the iconic person who would always come on every episode and do the whole, but that's just a theory. But then I want to say he became a producer for a musical or something in London. I could be wrong with that, but he was part of something for that. you know, because he left his channel and he just said, oh, can they do this? Now I was invited to do this. And it is really interesting to see all these bigger YouTubers that they've had their time in the spotlight and then they've kind of stepped away and then they're just really doing what they want to do. Yeah. as opposed to the one two are kind of terminally online. I think that's more into streamer territory but even then you get them on TV and things. Would you get surprised anymore when you're watching the news or whatever and you see a streamer or a YouTuber pop up? No. I'm just like, oh, good for them. Thank you. Oh, look, having an online celebrity. I mean, I remember when I was watching a celebrity get me out of here and there's been YouTubers on there. And it's just like, at first you'd be like, oh my gosh, this is insane. But now they are in lines of celebrities. I mean, KSI is a good example. Look at him producing music. He's boxing. Yeah, they're just all doing stuff. You know, he's got Prime, that doing really well. He is in line with like being a celebrity. Same with loads of other YouTubers. They are becoming celebrities and they're now just becoming something a lot bigger than what it used to be. Like YouTubers just used to be people that just made videos online. But now they're like a whole personal brand where they are doing all sorts. Like YouTube is just one tiny part of everything that they do. It's a really weird person. It is. It is. I know. Especially, I know that's very reductive apologies. It's just, as you said, going from that kind of cosy, homemade feeling for the early days of YouTube and now everything has to be like a massive reduction, as you were saying. Do you feel that way as well with your stuff? Because don't get me wrong, your stuff is absolutely fantastic and it is very well shot, so I don't want to insult you by saying comparison but do you feel that way as a YouTube creator that there is a pressure to keep up with? I wouldn't say high cutting technology but would you say there is a pressure? So I'd say there is like an industry standard that you would have to do in order for like your content to do well. So I do find there is a pressure in aspects but I know there are plenty of YouTubers, at least in my niche, to kind of do similar to what I do already. So at least I know that I'm doing enough
00:47:10
Speaker
i don't have to feel like, oh I need to have like this big budget studio. I don't need that. I just need to showcase my life. I think sometimes the only thing that I feel like I have the pressure of is making my life interesting. Sometimes I feel like, oh I've got nothing going on and maybe I'm shorter money so I can't really go shopping somewhere to, I don't know, do a vlog of me shopping somewhere. I don't know. but there is that pressure with the actual content because you know I do live a normal life and yes it makes a good video once but I think doing it every week it's not the same so that's why I like to mix things up so sometimes I do have a lot of content sometimes I do the fashion etc. It is good to have that mix so I don't feel I guess burnt out or really struggling to get ideas of what to do but I do think it is getting that right balance and I don't want to fake my life and do things completely out there just for the sake of views and for making a video. I like to do things as and when and fit it around my life but Because I guess, you know, it's honours diary. It's my diary. I don't want to change my life for the content. This is just a diary. of My life are the things that I do. So yeah, I think I just have to keep myself present and grounded. Like people, or I'm showing content of my life. People don't need to see me living the most extravagant life where I go to these five star hotels and ride the Lamborghinis or Whatever. Sometimes it's nice just to watch a cosy video of someone's normal day, just something that's that bit normal, because then it's relatable. And I think we need that sometimes because, you know, with social media, everyone shows the best part of their lives. You see all these YouTubers that are successful and they have the big houses, especially the vlog ones, they have the fancy cars, they have this and that and all the designer stuff.
00:48:57
Speaker
and people watch that and they want that but it's not relatable so I try to bring an aspect of just showing my life that is similar to other people's lives and just showcase it and just show the beauty in that so people can look at my videos and be like hey my life is like that and the way she shows it is very pretty so it means my life will be pretty too that's kind of the hopes anyway at least for them at my content Now honestly that is so important because it is something that I feel as if and especially in terms of the bigger content creators as well where as you said they are showing snippets of their lives but they're showing and this is something that one of my previous guests had brought up as well that on social media you're only really getting the highlight reel.
00:49:43
Speaker
yeah of someone's life, you know, you're not getting the good points, the bad points, the in-between because, and again, I think that's the unfortunate thing about social media, that if you're too negative, you're going to drive people away. But if you're too positive, and I don't mean your content, but more toxic positivity yeah territory where they just refuse to accept the reality of things and youre they're like, oh no, smiley faces everywhere. And you're like, oh my God,
00:50:11
Speaker
It can be difficult. I mean, I know when I do my videos, I do push out my voice and I do smile. I mean, I'm happy, but like you do put up a bit of a act just to make sure it's engaging, but not to the extent where it's like a bit creepy or very unnatural, you know? So yeah, I definitely do think with everything, there is a balance. You need to find that otherwise it can come across in the most strangest way or it just doesn't rub right on people. So you do have to try and get it perfect, I'd say. And honestly, I think you're doing an absolutely fantastic job of that. I think so. Honestly, there's a lot of negativity, especially as we were talking about there, people who are posting, oh, this is what I did today. And you know, it's like they've gone to this extravagant place or whatever. And that isn't going to be everybody's experience. And I mean, especially for myself, there's no way in hell I'm getting in a Lamborghini any time soon. I mean, plus this podcast is audio only anyway, so that would be such a waste.
00:51:09
Speaker
But honestly, I absolutely love the message that you put across for your channel. I think it's such a great message. It is something that a lot of both creators and viewers have to hear more of. And yeah, honestly, it's just absolutely fantastic stuff. But as a final question though, what is coming up for your channel in the future. As we talked about, you've got your book that's currently out, How to Romanticise Your Life, which is on Amazon. You've also got your YouTube channel, Owner's Diary. So what kind of things are you hoping to do in the future? I mean, as it comes out in October, so hopefully all the autumn content, all the coziness and things inside, so I'm hoping for that. But I don't know, you know, I just go with the flow. If an idea inspires me, I'm just going to go for it. But I'm definitely going to keep going. I'm definitely just going to enjoy life and just share it with people. I know there's so many things I could plan and have all these big ideas. And I used to do that and it can get a bit tiring sometimes. I think now my focus, instead of having these huge goals for my YouTube, I'm just like, okay, you know what? I'm just going to do what makes me happy. I'm just going to post what feels good for me at the time. And people can just come along for the ride and we just see what happens. Because I think sometimes if I have these big goals, I will be a bit like, oh, I didn't achieve it. Or like, I'd feel stressed out or something. And you know, I did have all these big girls back in the day and when it didn't happen, and it was a bit like, oh. So I think just expect more coziness, expect more positive vibes. And you know, I will be investing in the quality of my content and just making it better because there's a quote that actually I had Mr. Beast say about his
Improving Content with YouTube Advice
00:52:55
Speaker
content. And he would always say, his biggest tip for YouTube is when you post a video, make sure your next one's better. And then after that, make sure your next one's better. And always think about how could you make your next video better? at mindset when I create. So I guess just think about the thing that I'm going to offer is what I do already, but much better. And just showing my journey of how life goes wherever that's going to take me because it's my diary. So you can just come along with it because it's a diary, you know, sometimes when people they just write stuff in their diaries, that's an absolute mess and they're crying their eyes out. I mean, I won't be doing that, but I'm just showing my life. If it gets messy, then I guess I'll just show that. So yeah.
00:53:32
Speaker
Honestly, that is such a lovely message to end the episode on. So, honour, thank you so, so much for coming on tonight, India. Discussing your work, discussing your book, discussing the channel. Yeah, just discussing all things positive with yourself. Well, thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed this. It is a pleasure speaking to you and yeah, I just really enjoy myself. I'm so grateful to be here. Just before we wrap up, where can these lovely listeners at home find your content? So they can find it on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, slash X, whatever you want to call it. And obviously my book, it is all on as diary. So it's quite simple, same name everywhere. You can just find me on the socials and yeah, I'll be there.
Episode Wrap-Up and Patreon Shoutout
00:54:16
Speaker
If you want to check out more episodes from ourselves as well as other great interviews, this one included, then you can check us out our website Chatsunami dot.com um as well as all good podcast providers. I also want to thank a panel around Patrons, Robotic Battle Toaster and Sonya. Thank you so so much for supporting the show and if you too would like exclusive content, behind the scenes, early access and so much more bonus content then you can check us out at our Patreon page patreon dot.com forward slash chaten ay But until next time, thank you all so so much for listening, stay safe, stay awesome and most importantly, stay hydrated. Welcome to Chat Tsunami, a variety podcast that discusses topics from gaming and films to anime in general interest. Previously on Chat Tsunami, we've analysed what makes a good horror game, conducted a retrospective on Pierce Brosnan's runs James Bond, and listened to us take deep dives into both the Sonic and Halo franchises. Also, if you're an anime fan, then don't forget to check us out on our sub-series, Chatsunani, where we dive into the world of anime. So far, we've reviewed things like Death Note, Princess Mononoke, and the hit Beyblade series. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then you can check us out on Spotify, iTunes, and all the podcast apps. As always, stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.