The video blog “204 Talk”,
featuring my roommate and myself has had an odd impact on me. We've only been
doing this for about a week, only filmed about five or six videos, and only
uploaded three, and yet in eight or so days, this video blog has had a huge
effect on several aspects of my life.
The
biggest aspect is my self-esteem. I have anxiety issues, so much so that I’m on
medication, so naturally, I see a therapist. I see her on a weekly basis, and
one of the things we've talked a lot about is my sense of self-efficacy.
Self-efficacy, for those not taking Psychology, is one’s perception of their
own abilities to do things. My sense of self-efficacy in most aspects of my life
is pretty low. (The exception being dance.) I don’t really know why my
self-esteem is so low. My parents have always been immensely supportive of me,
in everything I do, and I can’t really recall any severe bullying or teasing
growing up. (There apparently was a case at my summer camp, but I don’t
actually remember it.) Nevertheless, I've always felt different from everyone
else, and never quite fit in. (I realize that probably every single person in
the history of forever has felt like this at some point in their life.) I've always second-guessed myself, and not believed in myself as much as the people
around me believed in me. Instead of saying “no, you can’t cheat off of my math
homework”, I’d tell my classmates, “What makes you think I understand this? I
don’t know what’s going on.”, and at some point in my growing up, I started to believe
it.
It wasn't until I got to college, and started seeing a therapist on a weekly basis instead
of a semi-monthly basis that I realized just how low my self-esteem was. It
took a year of dealing with just anxiety to figure out that maybe most of the
anxiety I was feeling stemmed from my belief that I couldn't do the things that
were expected of me. I believed that I wasn't qualified to do the things I
needed to do. I don’t know how to make
my own schedule, what if I mess things up? What if I need a form or a piece of
paper, and I don’t have it? Those “what if’s” turned into “I cant’s”, and I
found that I was living my life in fear of always doing something wrong.
And
then my roommate and I got this bright idea. After watching the Streamy awards,
an awards show for web video, we thought, “what if we made our own videos? We've got things to talk about, why not?” So we did. We brainstormed until 1:00 or
2:00 in the morning, coming up with idea after idea, writing down everything we
could think of. We made a separate e-mail, a separate tumblr, a separate youtube
account, just for this video blog we hadn't started yet. And then, we started
filming. Our first video wasn't the greatest thing to ever hit the internet. The
original video was a little over sixteen minutes. Sixteen minutes of awkward, just
the two of us, sitting on the floor, talking about some of our favorite books. But it was fun, so we filmed some more videos,
just because we could. Because it was late, and we were on our own, and neither
of us felt like going to sleep.
It was
then that I found that I had a bit of a talent when it came to videos. I guess
you could say that between the two of us, I’m the resident “techie”, which I
find absolutely hilarious, because I don’t feel very tech-savvy at all. (I was
once put in charge of the web page for my high school beta club, not because I
was good with computers, but because my mom was good with computers. Needless
to say, I ‘resigned’ as web master very quickly.) And yet, I was able to turn
sixteen minuets of awkward into only seven minutes of slightly less awkward,
with a shiny new intro and everything. I was able to objectively cut out unnecessary
parts, the edits were actually pretty good, and I was really proud of what I
had done. We only got a few views those
first few days, and while it was a slight disappointment, we weren't really
that bothered. We weren't doing these videos for anyone else. We were doing
them because we wanted to.
We
filmed a few more videos the next week, and I edited them and uploaded them,
and felt pretty good about myself. We were both a little more comfortable with the
camera, and were a great deal less awkward than in our first video. Our favorite video is a video called “We Talk
Web Series”, where we both discuss some of our favorite web shows. That was
easily our best video. It was the third one we had shot that day, so we had
time to warm up to the camera, and we were talking about things we felt really
passionate about. I realized, while
watching that video, that this was a big thing for me. Here’s this kid (because
in my mind, I’m still a kid) with social anxiety so bad that she spent several
months essentially hiding in her dorm room, only leaving for class and certain
meals, and she’s recording herself and putting it up on youtube? For the entire
world to see? WHAT? It blew my mind. Don’t get me wrong, my issues with social
anxiousness haven’t magically disappeared. I’m still on medication, and I still
have to gear myself up for strange social situations, but for some reason, when
my roommate and I turn the camera on, when I’m editing and uploading these
videos, I feel good about myself. I feel, for lack of a better word, cool. I go back and watch those videos
and I think “Hey, I like what I see in this video. That chick’s cool!”
These
feelings of confidence only got better when we got our first comment. It was on
our first video, our least favorite, one where we were still getting used to
talking to a tiny lens on the computer. But it was a comment, and
honest-to-goodness real comment, and a nice one at that! One of our subscribers
(ok, our ONLY subscriber) had commented, saying that they liked the books we
talked about, and actually made a recommendation. The first thing I did, after
getting my thoughts for a response written down, was text my roommate.
“We got a comment on We
Talk Books!” I said.
“Hell yes!” she replied. “What does it say?”
So I
told her what it said, and mentioned that I’d already typed up a response, and
then I had another epiphany. I realized that I had a way with words. Since I’m the one who actually uploads the
videos to youtube, I’m the one who types up the little summary in the little
box under the video. I (mostly) come up with the titles, I write the summary,
and I’d just typed up a response to a comment from another human being. A human
being who had watched our video, and liked it, and actually cared enough to
respond to it. I realized, then, that I had a job in this web show thing we
have going, and that I enjoyed it, and that I was good at it. That I was doing something that other people can’t. And that did wonders for my self-esteem.
Because when I’m editing videos, when I’m sitting in front of my computer, with
my headphones in, and I’m cutting and slicing and rearranging, I don’t feel
like that little girl in elementary school, who felt so different from the kids
in her class, who was so scared that she didn't talk to her classmates. I don’t
feel like I don’t fit in. I feel cool. I feel qualified. I feel capable. And
that’s a big thing for me.
