To Be (an Influencer) or Not To Be...

That is... out of the question 🙅🏻‍♂️

I started my YouTube channel back before they were called channels, as my intention was to upload badminton matches of Canadian players competing internationally. I think I started around 2011, but I actually have some videos from 2009! Some athletes weren’t even born yet… 💀

I’ve dabbled in video editing, but nothing fancy as it was too time consuming. Generally, I uploaded raw footage of matches and as YouTube has a 5 second skip function, it wasn’t difficult to skip between rallies as needed. Fun fact: most of my matches only need 1 skip, whereas in international play, it needs 2-3 skips. 😅

I started to do some more video editing this year, as I came up with the idea that I could clip out interesting rallies from tournaments. This would be unique because clips would not be staged. I could also add explanations on Substack, and it could give visual examples to accompany my writing. My goal has always been education before entertainment, but sometimes the best lessons are also entertaining. 😌

However, sometimes life gets in the way and I can’t stick to a consistent schedule. I was trying to upload a YouTube short every day and post on Substack once a week, but I haven’t uploaded anything on YouTube for a while, and I didn’t publish on Substack last week. 😕 I’m not sure how the algorithms work, but it doesn’t really matter. My goal isn’t to become popular, but to help make the sport more popular. There are many talented people that are producing content that is entertaining, educational, and sometimes both, so kudos to them!

As for content from the recent 2024 YONEX ClearOne Thanksgiving Tournament, I’ve only recently uploaded the footage to my computer, but Yosia (thank you for playing 🙏🏼) has already made a highlight video! Please check it out and see how much faster he moves compared to me. 🤣

I will eventually get to uploading more content, but I think I need to reassess my priorities. MAYBE I could include some technical commentary in my videos, but it’s easier for me to write. Personally, I’m not good at retaining information from an audio form (e.g. podcast) compared to a written medium (e.g. blog or book). I also think there’s great merit in learning how to write better, which often means being more concise. Writing is the outcome of thinking, and concise writing is thinking that has been refined.

Let’s stop here for now then. 😉

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