Channeling my passion as a content creator

By Nina Dym | She/Her/Hers
Sacramento and Boston
Videographer

I first started making Youtube videos when I was in 4th or 5th grade. I started off making music videos with my friends, then shifted to making short craft tutorials on how to make things out of clay or duct tape. In middle school, I fell in love with makeup and religiously watched tutorials, hauls, and reviews on Youtube. I wanted to be just like the girls I watched on Youtube, so after getting home from school, I would sit in front of a camera and talk about all of my makeup, swatching lipsticks and eyeshadows up and down my forearm. Most of those videos never made it onto the internet, let alone past the editing phase. I loved filming, but I didn’t get serious about uploading to Youtube until much later.

The next ten years would be a constant cycle of wanting to get serious about making a channel, uploading 2-3 videos, then getting lazy and giving up until the next fresh start of a new year or summer motivated me to try again. Yet, after so many failed attempts, the thought of having my own channel never left my mind. It wasn’t until the summer after my freshman year of college, I sat myself down and realized just how ridiculous it was that all these years I wanted to make Youtube videos but I was standing in the way of myself. I realized that no matter how much I feared being ridiculed by others and how much I dreaded putting in the effort it takes to maintain a channel, they were never enough to dim my passion.

So I went to work. I started making videos that summer, took a long pause during the school year, then started up again when I was sent back home due to the pandemic. The difference this time was that I didn’t feel like things had to be perfect, I just kept creating. I don’t think my content is perfect and there is still a lot of work to be done, but I’m proud of myself for getting past the mental hurdle that kept me from expressing myself the way I wanted to.