What "slow growth" as a YouTube creator has taught me.

from a YouTuber who is nearing 10,000 subscribers after 4 years of consistent uploads

Seven years ago, I uploaded my first video on YouTube, appropriately titled “First Video.” Since then, it has been private, as I filmed it as a sophomore in high school, and I’d rather keep it in the depths of my archives.

As I write this, my channel has just over 7,800 subscribers and 146 public videos (not including the many videos hiding away in my archives). To some, 7k is not a monumental number in the creator space, but to me, it is my greatest achievement.

Over the years, I’ve truly trained myself to enjoy my channel as a passion project, not just a numbers game. It is an art form—a way to see and create beautiful things. It allows me a space to pour my creativity into and connect with other people over a visual diary of sorts. Curation is a word I like to use when describing my channel. I’m curating my thoughts, visuals, and life moments into a 10-20 minute video focused on the beauty of life and my thoughts. Never a representation of my life plainly and in full, but a representation of what I find inspiring, beautiful, or meaningful in life.

I’ve tried many different niches on my channel: beauty, fashion, lifestyle vlogs, travel, books, and advice. I’ve both jumped on trends and done something entirely based on my own ideas (which were probably still very influenced by trend cycles). I’ve genuinely had fun creating videos of all various topics but still had the goal in mind to find an area around which I could build a community.

My biggest inspiration and the reason I started my YouTube channel was Zoella, or Zoe Sugg. Her channel, specifically when she started switching her content over to vlogging, was my favorite form of entertainment as a kid. I still, to this day, love watching her vlogs. So many people grew up with her as their role model, and her vlogs felt like a FaceTime call (very parasocial, I know). I genuinely don’t think she even knows how much she has positively impacted so many teens and young adults through her content, but the lovely feelings I’ve experienced watching her content were something I also wanted to provide for others.

To give you an idea of my channel growth over the years, let’s get into a few date stamps:

January 2023: I headed off to my study abroad semester in London (was the location inspired by my obsession with the British vloggers of the early 2010s?…probably). I hit 100 subscribers after I uploaded my "Moving to London” vlog. For the first time, I had real people, other than my wonderfully supportive friends, commenting on my vlogs. It was the first time I felt like I was creating a community of people. I am so beyond happy that I filmed my study abroad experience, not only because it pushed my channel to grow but because I have visual documentation of so many amazing memories.

March 2023: I spent my Spring Break on the Amalfi Coast and in Florence. I uploaded a travel video for both, and the Amalfi Coast video went viral (or at least semi-viral by YouTube standards). The comments kept coming, the views increased by 10 every time I refreshed the page. I hit 1,000 subscribers. Then, I hit 1.5k. This is when I fully felt like I had found my thing. The thing that made me happy and brought in subscribers at the same time.

May/June 2023: Study abroad ended, and I was trying to figure out a way to keep people interested in my videos. I didn’t really know what I was doing. I knew that vlogs were working on my channel and that I preferred creating those to my other forms of content. I didn’t take a plunge and quit my life at home to keep travelling and getting deeper into that niche. I decided to create a “Summer in NYC” vlog series, which didn’t match the numbers of my abroad content, but still people were watching.

June 2024: I vlogged my entire Euro summer grad trip with my friends and released four videos dedicated to each of the cities we visited. I went into posting these with confidence that they would do well because they were based on the Amalfi Coast video from the prior year. And I was right. It hit that same sweet spot of the YouTube algorithm, except this time, I felt that people were resonating with my vlogging style rather than just asking for travel tips. Earlier that year, I had put hitting 5k subscribers on my yearly goals. I had no idea how I was going to do it, but it happened with these videos.

February 2025: My Camogli, Italy video started gaining views again and became my first video to surpass 100k views. I also hit 7.5k subscribers because of this.

YouTube has been a part of my life for a long time. It has been my source of happiness, my creative outlet that is entirely my own. I get to fully be myself on it and feel so much joy from the idea creation to editing videos. It’s something that is new territory for creators and viewers which is exciting. YouTube was a big part in forming who I am today from the ideas and creativity I was exposed to from a young age. Social media can be a scary place, but it is also a place where I finally felt seen as a brown girl and learned what I was passionate about despite growing up with a lot of limitations.

I know it’s not a numbers game, but I’ve spent this whole letter talking about growth and virality. The numbers at the end of the day do matter to an extent, but they don’t define my worth and ability to call myself a YouTuber. I’ve carried a lot of shame and denial around calling myself a “YouTuber,” but Merriam-Webster says nothing about views or subscriber count in its definition. What is important to me is building a community where people can feel inspired to see the beautiful things around us, have discussions about topics we are interested in, and connect with each other through our ideas. The content is what makes someone a YouTuber, not just the numbers.

I’ve recently realized I’ve had a scarcity mindset this whole time. I don’t think I was ever really ready to handle building a community as past versions of myself. I’ve been operating in an “even if no one watches, I’ll still create videos” type of mindset. I’ve indirectly told myself I’m not worth watching by defaulting to that thinking. It’s like planning for failure before giving success a chance. Yes, it is important to do this for myself and derive validation from myself in my creativity, but it is also important to believe I can be interesting to others. I asked myself recently what I think I am capable of in general, and I realized there are a few thoughts that don’t align with my dreams and ambitions for myself. I want to have these goals and visions of my future self and believe I can make them happen.

A few things that made me realize I was in a scarcity mindset:

• If I saw someone post a video around a similar idea I had, I would let go of the idea because it already exists.

  • Everyone has different experiences and perspectives to share. If someone else has had success with an idea, there is still room to share your personal thoughts as well.

• A newer/recently created channel was able to form a community so quickly, which made me feel like I’d missed my opportunity already

  • Someone else’s success doesn’t mean there isn’t any more room or chance for it to happen to you, too. Also, I believe you can never miss out on what is meant for you.

• If a video didn’t do as well as I thought it would, I’d consider it a failed idea

  • What if these ideas are building you to where you need to be? Any practice is a form of guidance in creativity. Also, who knows if a video could randomly be pushed by the algorithm later down the line? Maybe one person who viewed the video was able to resonate with it or enjoy it.

• I was always thinking small

  • I’m not sure I was ready in the past to handle a bigger subscriber base. Did I completely understand what it meant to cultivate a community with a large group of people? Was I good within myself to handle the inevitable criticism and hate that comes with sharing parts of yourself online? Did I truly believe I was worthy of people’s attention?

  • Another thing I’ve been seeing discussions around is that women aren’t encouraged enough to be loud about our achievements. I understand we shouldn’t put all of our worth in our achievements or overvalue them, but as a woman, I think it is really important to express your happiness and pride for the things that evoke those feelings inside of you. And we all need to celebrate one another because no one’s success impedes on your own.

Even now, after realizing all of this, it’s still hard to change these ways of thinking. It will change eventually; I truly believe that being aware of things is the biggest step in enacting a change within oneself. I’m going to put myself and my channel out there. This is one of the ways I’m doing it. I’m also posting all of my videos I release on my Instagram, not just the ones I think are good enough to show to people who know me. It’s always been hard for me to allow myself to take up space, but it’s something that I’m changing.

So here I am. I am officially stating that I am on the road to 10k subscribers. If you’d like to take a look at my content and subscribe to join along on my little journey, you can find my channel here.