Aspiring Content Creators: Create More, Consume Less

 This article was published in my WordPress blog on November 16th 2019.

The last time I have posted on my Instagram feed was on 23^rd October, which was 22 days ago. A few days before posting that image, my mind got into a glut and built up of utter confusion and chaos due to various things that were bothering me.  Lost in those myriad thoughts and confusion, I went on a small spending spree, but somehow I controlled myself and ended up purchasing things that I actually needed. Instagram seemed to depress me further with lucid posts and wonderful experiences of random people on the internet, which eventually confused me even further; it seemed as if everyone was having a fantastic time and enjoying fantastic experiences. I took a break from Instagram and ended up on another behemoth… YouTube! Most of my focus was on the new go pro 8, the iPhone 11 and motorcycles, after a few days, I started adding on the genre of motivational, inspirational and hustling videos. The hustling videos were the one that had its immediate impact on me; I ended up losing sleep which kept me drained during my office hours. With all this rampant consumption of media and all these thoughts in my head, my sleep quality deteriorated a lot. The second negative impact was that I felt like I needed better gear to produce wonderful content (to show off to the world). I felt the need for a better phone so that I can capture amazing snaps and non-shaky videos whenever I couldn’t pack my heavy DSLR, my 2 year old phone felt like a worthless piece of equipment to me. Which eventually led me to the decision of buying an iPhone 11 or an 11 Pro; it meant that I had to shed out almost INR 60,000 or more. I had a discussion with my friend in the US, who agreed to bring me a phone; the stage was set and I started checking out cases for my new phone. Luckily that is when my rational minded angel asked me “do you really need that phone?” … you know, my wife is just brilliant when it comes to rational decisions like this. Listening to her advice, I thought about it and started researching about the phone and whether I can make do well enough with my current gears’. I found out that I will never be satisfied with the sensor quality of a phone camera because in the back of my mind, the reference point will be always that of a DSLR  and moreover I had a gimbal for my phone which I rarely used.

At this point I started searching for content that was made on devices that were considerably cheaper than what I own, I also came across a lot of videos that sends out a positive message that gear does matter when things become professional, but in the starting stages of your creator journey, it is more than enough to keep creating content with what you currently have in your hand.

Once again I started taking more and more snaps and videos just for the pure joy of it and I seemed to enjoy it. All these photos were captured on my OnePlus 5, which would cost 12000 or 13000 INR on the second hand market now. I never had the intention to share these photos when I took them, but I felt the need to tell this story more and, what better way to do it than to showcase some images I captured. I think the problem with aspiring content creators is that we tend to consume content much more than what we create.

All these snaps were captured in and around Tirupur, Tamil Nadu, India and edited on the phone itself using Snapseed. (Instagram link to the post: https://www.instagram.com/p/B471HR6gumG/)

I really appreciate those of you who have spent some valuable time of yours to read my thoughts. Thank you so much.