You Too Can YouTube

 

Barely a week goes by when someone doesn’t ask to be sent the entire stocked range so that they can use their five subscribers to send vape company turnovers into the stratosphere. Do not laugh, it is almost highly probable that Auntie Joan, Granddad Kevin, Lucy from down the road, Pikey Dave and Jazz2000 have huge buying power and are incredibly influential in the vaping community.

What is incredible about these requests is that they come from reviewers with amazingly high video production standards. Clicking on the links they supply is like being taken into worlds co-created by Steven Spielberg and James Cameron – with maybe a hint of Alan Parker.

When you combine awesome reviews with the comments you can see why vendors feel compelled to give away products for nothing. Or, as Pikey Dave writes after one scintillating two minutes and nineteen seconds: “Innit tho lol yeh wooo”. We’ve touched on this before but with the huge growth in the number of vapers here’s a detailed brief for anybody considering making a competent review online.

Location – Location – Location

Do not worry that you don’t have direct access to Pinewood Studios. Why not film your reviews in the toilet or maybe that cupboard under the stairs? People are clamouring to witness your hideous taste in home decor, the unwashed pile on the sink behind you or that photo of you and Pikey Dave being arrested in Poundland. On the other hand you may think this is a brilliant moment to show off the old computer Auntie Joan never uses now and the tablet you got for Xmas – put those in the background and the public will naturally assume that you work at Jodrell Bank or GCHQ. This is a mistake, vendors will believe you are too rich and should buy your own things for review. Likewise, some vapers may labour under the misapprehension that you are in league with the MRHA and have seized control of their webcam.

Maintain Your Focus

Remember, this isn’t about the product. Many successful Youtubers make this schoolchild error and invest in a decent camera in order to obtain boring close-up shots that reveal the fine details. Who needs that? These videos are about you getting free shit and being able to talk aimlessly for as long as you want without interruption. All anyone wants to see is a badly out of focus lump of metal being held in front of a badly out of focus hand – keep them guessing, keep them keen.

When Only The Best Will Do – Don’t

Do not buy the best equipment; this stuff will ruin it for everyone. Viewers will be able to see what you’re talking about and who needs that? Stick with the camera on your phone or the laptop. The only deviation from this advice is that you should invest in a selfie-stick. There is a gaping hole in the reviewing community for someone who can talk about things while holding a camera that is constantly moving. Be prepared to think outside the box.

Peaks and Troughs

Life is a rollercoaster so there’s no reason why the review shouldn’t be as well. Spend time getting Grandad Kevin to make a flashy set of intro splash screens for the opening. Augment them with music that is a) pounding, b) something only you and deaf people would like and c) finishes abruptly just as the song gets going. The opening credits need to be the high point of the experience so that everything can go crashing downhill rapidly.

Juxtaposition

Black and white, hot and cold, up and down…life is about opposites so what could be a better follow on from a tight, loud and visually terrifying opening sequence than for you to speak in a monotone or so quietly that people turn their monitors up to full?  Nothing, that’s what. Imagine you are giving a talk about small stones to the massed ranks of the Grimsby Rock Appreciators & Small Stone Fanciers Society – this is the mental image you cling on to. Talk like you do when asked how you are, that monologue where you actually drone on about your backache and foot fungus to a bored and disinterested acquaintance in the street. Put inflection into you voice only for those bits that are teenager-like statements but spoken as if they were a question.

Shine A Light On Me

No. This is something aliens do when they come to abduct people. Light is the enemy – ask any self-respecting member of the Galactic Empire or new First Order. This is where sticking to your guns with cheap filming products enhances your production values. Just in case that atomiser briefly rushes into focus a suitably dark room will render the viewer unable to see it. Providing a great visual service is not important, this is work to help a community, a calling greater than nurses or serial killers have.

A Right Stitch-up

Yep, we all saw the newspaper. We know that the only reason you and Pikey Dave were caught was because someone grassed you up to Poundland’s overweight security guard. But take that feeling of being framed and translate it into your filming. Who needs the video to occupy the whole screen with landscape format when it’s all about painting you in a portrait? Hold that phone upright and make sure you left a big, fat fingerprint on the lens. Filming in portrait mode doesn’t just make your review unique – your channel will be flooded with six people (more than doubling your views) pointing out why this is a crime greater than that perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge in the Killing Fields of Cambodia. Framing is everything.

Atmosphere

The only thing better than straining to hear someone drone on about a mech mod is trying to hear them over the sound of a washing machine or a train. Or anything at all that makes it impossible to pick out a single syllable. Consider relocating to a house next to Heathrow. Failing that, get Auntie Joan round to watch Celebrity Big Brother while you record.

Supported Ever More

The final advice to be furnished is that you may wish to give consideration to: think about getting a mate involved. It could be that you are simply too chipper, talented or too interesting and this won’t do. If this is the case then you need Pikey Dave to sit next to you wearing a hat at a jaunty angle. Give him the responsibility for speaking while you wave things in front of your face and nod.

We hope this will help you in setting up your channel and look forward to receiving your begging letter presently.

*All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.