07/05/2026
The Creator’s Dilemma — Trusting the Advice or Trusting Your Gut?
As I delve into You Tube creation, I keep hearing similar advice:
If you want more 'hits', post short forms, post often, hook fast, keep it moving.
Part of me wants to follow the advice and 'win'. It offers a misleading sense of control. But in a forum that deals in billions, getting a hundred+ hits is chickenfeed. So don't do it in the hope that the algorithm will 'reward' you.
As well, the quieter, stubborn part of me doesn’t trust the advice, because I know how easy it is to lose yourself in the chase. Then you start shaping your voice around performativeness, not substance.
I loathe it when a project I care about gets ignored by a 'machine' that never cared in the first place. In truth, it makes me hesitate to use the advice. Besides often the advice itself is merely put before you as 'click-bait'. So isn't it better to trust your gut?
Because opinions are - well you know the adage...
For example, I understand that short forms make sense (if you want clicks).
They serve people who are tired, overloaded, stretched thin. Yes, a clear idea delivered in under a minute can land at the right moment and shift someone’s day. But it also will get lost in the deluge of similar soundbytes and slogans we are exposed to minute by minute. I don't wish to be anyone's dopamine high.
Then I'm wary of becoming someone who creates for 'the algorithm' instead of for actual people. Why should anyone sand down the edges of what they want to say just to fit a format? I don't want to wake up one day and realising 'the algorithm' has better boundaries than I do. Besides, 'the algortihm' might change it's mind as frequently as it changes its underwear.
So I’m sitting in the middle of the creative's dilemma:
Do I trust 'the advice': the formulas, the rules, the “best practices”?
Or do I trust my instincts. — the part of me that wants to speak slowly, clearly, and without being performative?
I know the answer, but to be honest, I haven’t delivered on it yet because I've been learning the ropes. But at least I've started to work out that credibility lies in using the format without letting it use me.
(image by Gemini)
