1. Privacy, it’s all about privacy!!!

Many YouTube influencers trade privacy for popularity. They take videos of their workplaces and their houses, tell stories about their private lives, and show off their children. But there is a danger in exposing your privacy. Let’s take the example of TechLead, who makes videos about his life as a Software Engineer in Silicon Valley. We all benefited from his thorough, detailed, and critical view about the ins and outs of the tech world, especially about the tech interview process. But sadly, he was outcasted by Facebook. Facebook did not only fire him but also banned his facebook account soon afterward. They even go the extra mile of blocking him from creating any new accounts with other email addresses. As a result, some people go the opposite way, they show their public appearance but try to be very cautious of what they are saying, looking to please everyone and not create enemies. 

2. Anonymity brings honesty

For me, I take a different approach. I want to start my very first blog mainly as a tool to share, and I want to remain honest about my life, sharing with you every detail, thoughts, and opinions. I also plan on writing some very liberal views about gender differences, which might be considered too embarrassing to tell people in my social networks. That’s why I plan to keep this blog completely out of my friend and work circle. I will probably create a new Facebook page named ‘Swap Brain’ to promote the blog.

People might think that anonymity will take away the authenticity and reliability of my blog, but that is not true. I believe that people get convinced more by consistency and integrity. Which means, if I tell a coherent story from my background to my opinions and plans, people will find trust in me. In the end, thanks to being anonymous, I would be able to provide the readers with more transparency and honesty. Since this is my first blog, I also want to experiment on readers’ tolerance and openness. In the future, I plan to migrate to another domain name and will delete some of the old posts that I deem to be too sensitive. Stay tuned for more intimidating content and enjoy while my blog is still fresh!

3. I am not a visual person …

Contradicting to being a girl, I am almost color-blind. I say “almost” because I can only differentiate between very basic colors: red, pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. During my schooling time, whenever I mark up the text in my books, I usually prefer using a pencil rather than an army of colorful markers. When I was younger, I used to pick clothes in black and grey, since I thought that they better represent my character. Interestingly, last year I had the chance to do a free eye checkup. There was a test where the doctor showed me different bars that are slightly slanted while asking me to pick the most parallel pairs. There were many other similar tests, but I ended up keeping answering that all of them look the same to me. The doctor suspected that I had astigmatism or retinal problems. He ordered a retina scan but still couldn’t find any anomalies. He kept saying “This girl is so strange!” … Well, I guess that it just has to do with the way my brain is wired. Guess what? I just couldn’t care more about colors and forms…

4. But I did score well for literature at school

But I did score well in literature during my schooling time (in my country of origin), and thanks for that, I breezed through the education system with flying scores. Now as I write in English, I still receive messages from friends who say that they like to read my short posts on Facebook. I know that I am not native, and I never took any formal courses in English literature, so I have nothing to prove myself against in the English system. However, I do know the most important test for a blogging nowadays: the Google SEO (Search Engine Optimization) score. So, instead of trying to please ‘native’ readers, I would rather spend more time creating content that can reach wider to the international crowd.

5. Ownership of the platform

The are other considerations about ownership of our own platforms, the ability to re-edit, and monetization, which you can find out more on other blogs.

That’s it, I just want to elaborate on some of my personal reasons not to start a YouTube channel. You can check some other pros and cons of blogging vs Youtubing in other blogs.

Let me know about your personal preference in the comment section!

Cheers and let’s keep blogging.