Haters Gonna Hate

How To VLOG And Not Lose Your Soul

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Hello friends,
Happy Anniversary to us! Our vlogging anniversary, that is.

Our podcast is back after a hiatus while we hiked for six months. You will love this one about Why We Document Our Lives And Why You Should Too.

We posted our first vlog from Ecuador nine years ago, a daddy/daughter weekend away. Yesterday, we posted this vlog of our vow renewal in Cambodia. In between, we have shot and produced 728 vlogs that have us spanning the globe by way of our feet, bikes, an RV, a sailboat, cars, trains, planes, and much more. Most importantly, we have lived intentionally without compromising our morals and values to become YouTube famous, which has not always been financially in our best interest. Still, in the name of living our authentic lives and allowing our kids to do so, it was the best decision ever.

How To VLOG And Not Lose Your Soul

Ignore the hate—haters, gonna hate

The sooner you learn this, the better off you will be. If hate is coming, it means you are doing something right. Keep doing it.

The other day, I read a fantastic essay by my new friend and book coach, Margo Steines. She writes extensively about the body and parenthood and teaches classes in this area. I have taken two of her classes thus far—wowza. How does it go? “We don’t know, what we don’t know?” This phrase is becoming more real for me as I write deeper daily. Margo was getting some serious hate in the comments of her essay—vile and misinformed—and you know what? She was super chill about it.

We might ask ourselves how she could be so chill about it—years of practice, a book, and essays that have made their way to the real world. The real world has a lot of love and support, but also jealousy, know-it-alls, lazy folks, and all the yucky stuff. I did not know Margo in the early days, but I suspect she has grown a thick skin, realizes it is “them” with the issue, not “her,” and she knows her worth. The girl can write, and she owns that!

Please don’t give in to the hate; it will consume you. Create, don’t consume if the consuming is toxic.

Know your WHY for vlogging

Oh this one is good, mainly because when the shit hits the fan (and it will) you need to know WHY you are doing this! Or you will say “I’m done, it is not worth this crap.” Vlogging has a learning curve; it is hard, often riddled with hate, and most importantly, low-paid compared to the hours. You will need something so powerful that it will aid you in forging forward.

We have lived with a handful of WHYs, keeping us centered and on point. We have a WHY for exercising. A WHY for having children. A WHY for sending them to university. A WHY for full-time traveling: create a deeper family bond, educate the kids about the world out in it, and make memories instead of buying stuff. These WHYs have dictated every difficult decision we have ever made, including most recently our two-year hiatus from sailing the world for more land adventures, as it was not serving our WHY.

WHY are you vlogging? Dig deep. Make it profound. It must pull you through tough times and be the base for big decisions. We started vlogging to document our children’s childhood for them through video. When asked to do something that does not align with this or does not honor their privacy, we say no. We don’t have to get stuck in the “should we” or “shouldn’t we” as the WHY does the heavy lifting for us. And up until the present day, it has never steered us wrong.

Don’t compare yourself to other vloggers

Don’t try to emulate someone else’s vlogging style. Vloggers are regular people, not actors, and keeping up that facade will be hard. You are uniquely you. Do you. We genuinely believe there is enough space for all of us in this YT world, and who wants all the same-same?

Don’t do it for the money

Very rarely can you do something for the money and come out unscathed. Doing it for the money makes us feel empty and often compromises our morals and values, which makes us feel dirty. Vlogging is no exception.

There is a reason “wanting to be a YouTuber” is right up there, with professional football players and race car drivers, as the top career that youngsters want. It seems fun, glamorous, and $$$$$, although it can be both, at least the first two; it is unlikely you will get the trifecta. You have to do it for the love of it because most YouTubers do not make a living off it.

But, more importantly, if you want to make a lot of money as a YTer, it is possible; however, you will have to give up something and maybe even a part of yourself. It might be privacy, morals, values, your kid’s privacy, your body, and a handful of other things. It could be worth it to you at this age, but how will you feel at 70? How will the kids used for profit think about it at 30? Many “what ifs” need to be considered, first being WHY am I doing this? If the answer is to get rich, invest in real estate instead; you have a better chance. And I am speaking from experience.

Find your community

This can mean viewers, long-term friends, other vloggers, etc. Find your people. People you can talk with when having a hard day or to blow off steam—someone who gets you, the industry, vlogging, or all three.

Don’t read the comments

Let’s say that one again. Don’t read the comments (at least in the early days of vlogging). I know there is a bundle of amazingly kind and supportive people in the comments, but 1% of haters are also there. We have made amazing new friends through our channel, trips, and coaching clients. But we had to learn the hard way. As a newbie vlogger, I caution you to skip the comments. We all want to see how our work is received, but trust the process. Create, do not consume, at least in those early days. It will eat your soul out otherwise.

One of you sent me a link to an Appalachian Trail thru-hiking vlogger and a little message about how another hiker was mansplaining/bullying her. First, this is disgusting and unacceptable behavior, but it definitely happens. This man is known on the trail as “the hiker god,” a self-proclaimed 18-time thru-hiker. I was eager to meet him on the trail as I got all the John Brierley warm and fuzzies, and imagined what a kind and giving soul he might be. A chance happening brought our paths together during our 2024 thru-hike. He was a pompus ass. No more air space for him here.

If you are getting hate, don’t give it any airtime. The vlogger above is new to vlogging and has not learned boundaries, the closing comments option on YouTube, calling him out by his name (Warren Doyle—I will do it for her here), and then moving on. It takes time to learn this and hopefully it happens before it sucks out your soul. Any airspace and frustration given to keyboard bravery removes your happiness and brings negative energy into your space. Don’t do it.

Know your story

Know the story of the vlog before you shoot. Know the story of the channel before you open an account. Why should people care? You can have crappy equipment, but you can’t have no story. Think deeply about what you want your viewers to take away. What is the point of this vlog? The series? The channel as a whole?

Don’t lie

With a decade of experience as full-time travelers and almost the same as vloggers, we have met a lot of vloggers and travelers on the journey. It is one thing to lie to oneself, but lying to your community is wrong, and lying while holding space with your children is doubly bad. We have known people to lie about their education, income, years of traveling, past, future plans, etc. It always astounds me “why” people lie about trivial things like how many countries they have traveled to.

Our “go to” is not to lie, but we don’t need to, as we do what we say. We have held such a hard line when it comes to lieing that even when we would tell our kids “can you say that again,” because we wanted to document their thoughts, they thought that was not authentic so we would need to say on the vlog “we asked them to repeat it,” as a disclaimer.

This also means not endorsing products you don’t use or have not tried. A sure way to lose your soul is being in influencer pushing crap that you don’t believe in.

And filming people when they are sharing intimate thoughts without their knowledge is a hard stop, no! We see this a lot.

FINALLY…

Have fun

It is supposed to be fun.

I hope this helps those of you who are considering vlogging, but also gives those interested in what it looks like behind the scenes a glimpse. It is mostly good, or we would not have continued doing it all these years later. However, we made a conscious effort in a very “you are only as good as your last vlog” field not to lose our souls or our kids’ souls along the way. It was not always easy, and temptations lurked, but overall, I am incredibly proud of our ability to see beyond the hype, FOMO, and always put our kids (and our) well-being first.

Have a fabulous rest of your week.

xoxo,
Jess (Sunshine)

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PODCAST

The podcast is back and it feels so good. This week we talk about the Pivots we have had to make. Some others I think you would really like are Teaching Our Kids To Fight For Democracy with our daughter Avalon and Journey Through The Appalachian Trail with our son Largo.

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VLOG

We renewed our vows in Cambodia! We are only a handful of vlogs away from being caught up to present day with vlogs, finally. Thanks for your patience. If you are new here, just a little explanation. Largo (son) and I (Jess-mom) took six months to hike and daily vlog our Appalachian Trail thru-hike. Will edited our daily vlogs and posted them which caused us to get behind on other vlogs already shot during our time in Asia. If you want to binge a fun, crazy and adventurous series you can find it here.

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To learn more about us, our mission, and our business, you can visit us at WorldTowning. To view our most recent group trip offerings, head over to WorldTowningvoyages.com. If you want to book a coaching session to realize your travel dream, schedule it here. If you're going to follow the travels of our WorldTowning family, you can find us on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and The Why Matters Podcast.