Is YouTube Risky as a Career? with Caroline Winkler: The YouTube Power Hour Podcast 363

“It’s kind of magical to me. YouTube is the place where I feel like I make sense for the first time.”

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Caroline Winkler grew up in a military family where she moved around a lot, but, but mostly grew up in the DC area. She went to NYU to the Tisch School for acting. Caroline acted in NYC for almost a decade, before she quit and worked in computer programming for 4 years, and she never thought she would do anything performance-related again. Her departure from acting was hard on her, making it too painful for her  to even watch TV or movies, but the only things she could handle watching were documentaries (non-acting) and Youtube. Eventually she thought, “huh… I feel like I could do that!”, and started her YouTube channel at the age of 29.

Caroline Winkler started her YouTube channel because she felt like she had nothing going on, but also nothing to lose. That was only 2 years ago, and since then, she has completely blown up! At the time, she was working full-time as a computer programmer and doing some freelance interior design on the side. 

When you’re first starting out, you’re not really a YouTuber yet… you’re someone’s friend who put a video online. Caroline was afraid of being embarrassed and regret putting her videos out there, but it immediately felt like a creative release. She never really had the intention of being a full-time YouTuber, mostly because she felt that if she aspired to do so, she would end up cursing or jinxing herself, and that scared her, especially after publicly trying and failing at acting. But when she hit those first 50 subscribers, she felt on top of the world. She started out doing 1 video a month because they were so labor intensive, and she even took a 6-8 month break for her own mental health.

“When it comes on so quickly and so extremely, it feels like it could flip just as easily.“

Blowing up on YouTube

For the first year or so of her channel, she kept a lot of herself and her personality out of her videos and strictly focused on the content. She was creating videos like the ones she was watching all the time, which were DIY projects and interior design videos. In January of 2022, when Caroline had about 3,000 subscribers, she decided to put herself out there for the first time.

She made a vlog-style video about apartment hunting where she showed a little more of her life and who she was, and it instantly performed better than her other videos. Her subscribers requested more, and the positive feedback almost gave Caroline permission to add more of herself to her content. This video did so well, it helped catapult her channel from 3,000 to 24,000 subscribers, which was an immediately different experience. The comment section was different, and it felt more legitimate to her and helped her feel credible for the first time. She even started getting brand managers reaching out to her to help connect and negotiate brand deals, and despite being the smallest creator on the roster, she was able to have these managers reach out to her because of her exceedingly high engagement rate.

Should you quit your job for YouTube?

The downside of growing so quickly and so extremely, it almost feels like it could disappear just as quickly as it grew, which can cause a lot of anxiety for creators. Caroline made the difficult decision to quit her job. After years of working as a waitress and after a failed acting career, having a job as a computer programmer made her feel like she finally had a legitimate career… why give that up now? But although she worked for a great company, she was miserable. She was coasting through her tech job, almost as if she were sleepwalking. Sure, it was “legitimate,” but it didn’t fulfill her, and when you are doing something that is such a bad fit for you day after day, it really affects you. So sometimes, the thing that’s scary is the thing that makes the most sense and that is the best decision for you. 

Caroline has balanced the feelings of anxiety and the precariousness of a career in social media by building an interior design clientele on the side to give her something to fall back on in the event YouTube doesn’t work out. 

“It was stupid of me to keep investing in something I knew wasn’t going to grow. I was just coasting.”

Finding your identity

For so much of her life, Caroline’s entire personal and public identity revolved around acting. So when she quit acting, she felt ashamed and she felt like she had failed. She was aware that people knew her as “the actor” and she had felt like she had failed at it, and from then on, she kept her aspirations private. She carried a lot of fear with her, and still does. She often wrestles with imposter syndrome, feels like she’s constantly having an identity crisis, and teeters on the edge of burnout, and I know those are things that all content creators can relate to.

When you are the product, it’s hard to find the balance between what people want and what you’re excited about. You just hope there’s some overlap between the two. You don’t want to feel like you’re taking orders, but you still need to make your audience happy to pay the bills. As luck would have it, one of Caroline’s biggest videos blew up the week she quit her job, and so far, it has earned her a whopping total of $49,000 and 3.2 million views! Talk about a sign from the universe!

Final Thoughts

For something she just sort of stumbled upon, it’s become one of the most fulfilling things in her life. YouTube has given Caroline a place where she feels like she makes sense for the first time. Her advice to aspiring YouTube creators? Well, for starters, don’t read all the comments after a certain point. Read every comment for the first hour or two after you post a video because those are comments from your true fans. But comments on old videos are like flipping a coin. While Caroline wishes she was impervious to mean comments, bad ones can ruin her day.

Finally, don’t do it if it doesn’t feel fun. If it doesn’t feel fun, don’t make the video, don’t finish the video, don’t upload the video. Scrap it and start a new one! If it doesn’t feel right, following through with it will never sit right with you.

“The balance that every YouTuber is thinking about is balancing what people want and what I actually feel excited about, and hopefully there’s overlap between the two.”

Mentioned in the Episode:

DC Apartment Hunting (5 apartments w/ rent prices + tips, escaping depression..)

You’re doing home organization WRONG

Week in My Life Vlog // LIVING ALONE + UNHINGED AF

Connect with Caroline Winkler

Caroline Winkler on YouTube

Caroline Winkler on Instagram

Podcast Music Credit: Boop by x50 @x50music
Music provided by Free Music for Vlogs youtu.be/o52xQkQWzyU

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