This post is in response to Gina's (Scrappinology) YouTube video posted today. I had way too much to say about this in the comments section, so I thought the best way to say it was to create a blog post and link it from the comments section under Gina's video.
Firstly, thanks to Gina for making me go back and re-live the good old days :)
So here goes...
I just want to add my two cents worth here. Let's break it down people. Remember 'the good old days' when people actually shared their knowledge and their love of crafts - before all the 'show & tell' videos started appearing. We'd participate in swaps so that we could have a piece of someone's art to admire and examine the techniques used so we could attempt to create something so very different to our own style. This is how our styles grew.
So how did these people get such a huge following? By
people subscribing! Doing giveaways on behalf of their SUPPLIERS. So as a human
being it is part of our nature to imitate others. So we then think that if we
get a lot of subscribers maybe we could be selected to be on a design team? So
we then do a giveaway to get MORE subscribers? Why not go and buy some things
to giveaway (I won't eat this week), then I'll get more subscribers, and so on
and so on.
I gave up on watching HAUL videos because I got so jealous of what a lot
of crafters were able to get their hands on so readily and cheaply.
Some haul videos are letting us know what company has a sale on, deals,
bargains, etc, but as I do not live anywhere near these stores I just
cannot bear to watch them LOL.
Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of deserving crafters
on design teams and businesses market their products any way they can to keep
their business running. I'm just saying that it's easy to get caught up in all
this.
I personally have almost 400 videos here on YouTube. The
only reason I started making YT videos was because I was a member of Marion
Smith's Girls Gone Scrappy group of which Kathryn (the scrapbeach) was a
member. Kathryn then started her Scrapbeach Ning site so that we could have a
place to chat (Gina, you also were here at the beginning), upload pictures of
our projects from swaps organised through the Ning site.
I gained enough courage to do non-talkie vids which
developed into 'talkie' vids LOL. I have always tried to SHARE ideas, I never
sell anything. I have done giveaways at certain 'milestones' and currently have
a giveaway vid on YT. I have always said that I would never stop showing 'how
to' videos, start to finish projects, etc. because when I first 'found' YouTube
and all the great crafting tutorials, it was those tutorial videos that helped
me create projects I never thought possible.
So to all the 'newbies' out there, there are still some
of us oldies left who actually want to SHARE their love of crafts to this amazing online
crafting community. Yes we 'copy' but I would like to think most of us
acknowledge the person from who we learned the project or technique.
On a negative side, we've had a few instances where people have come on with sob stories and lied their way into receiving 'RAKs', at the moment we've got others talking about libel and copyright infringements!!! Get real people - it's not about who does what the best - it's about SHARING this love of our craft that keeps us here!
But YES YES YES Gina, I long for the good old days, but I'm glad most of us have grown during the years :)
Smiles
Jen
