I Should've Started This Years Ago

I recently began my graduate degree in social media marketing and I was shocked to find out how beneficial blogs are to personal brands and businesses, even in the year 2020. Before digging into my classes I had thought that owning a blog was a dying art. I was totally wrong! Besides social networking sites like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, blogs are one of the top ways to truly connect with people. So here I am, starting a blog in 2020. (What else do we have time for right now anyway? #Quarantine2020)

Although I have been performing original songs for the last decade, I feel as though during that time I haven't connected with people the way I intended. Honestly, I thought people would gravitate toward me like they do in my personal life. I recently archived my Tweets and read what I wrote for over 10 years. It was painfully boring and lacked my personality. I would write very vague statements in fear of offending someone or not being accepted. Even on YouTube, I would say pretty much the same thing in every single video.

"Hi, I'm Alyssa and today I'm going to be covering ________ by ________. I hope you enjoy!"

I started YouTube in 2009 when I was 14 years old. That account is long gone and super embarrassing. It definitely should never see the light of day. At 15 I started the channel that I have currently. When I was dedicated to posting videos in high school, I was able to earn half a million views and nearly 4,000 subscribers. With that moderate success comes SO.MANY.HATERS. I don't think I was prepared for what people were saying about me in the comment section of my videos at such a young age. People would judge my appearance or the way I was singing. It easily turned from enjoyment to dreading the video-making process. That's the reason why my video upload rate began to decrease and became almost non-existent by 2016. I was so tired of putting so much time and effort into videos only to be judged every single time. This is the main reason why I was always so terrified to live honestly. That's why I would resort to bland Tweets and prepared opening lines on YouTube. For years I was terrified to show my personality in fear of the comment section, but that stops today. I'm here to be authentically myself for good.

XOX,

Aly