Can you learn anything from a vlog?

Vlogging, “video blogging” – fascinates me. Not the idea of me doing it – how it feels to watch a vlog, and what it might change long-term.

I started watching vlogs after I saw my kids watching them. We let our kids use the YouTube Kids app for a bit each day, and they watch popular blogs such as Shaytards and The Engineering Family.

I also watched every day of Casey Neistat’s vlog for almost a year and showed many of them to my kids. I was a long-time fan of Casey’s Youtube channel (it was my only subscription for years) after seeing a video about his functional office and hearing him complain about the way the intern had built one of his shelves. I loved the attention to detail, and recognized the desire to have everything you need within an arm’s reach.

The interesting thing about watching Casey’s vlog is that I legitimately missed it when I stopped watching. When I returned to watching it later I was surprised to see that his daughter had, as children do, gotten older. The sensation was one of seeing an old friend after a few years. But I don’t know the Neistats. When I heard that he had sold Beme to CNN I was happy for him in a deeper way than if I had read a blog post about a popular blogger selling his company. The bond was greater, the intimacy higher.

It used to be that we read each other’s blogs to see what was going on in other people’s heads and to learn from their mistakes. Blogs were the teachers and the quality of writing created influencers. Now we listen to snarky musings and jokes on twitter, and fewer people read. Video is the next wave of extreme followership, and it is very different than previous formats in a few key ways.

Intimacy and Authenticity

My new favorite vlog takes the camera home but also teaches: Nathan Kontny. The intimacy that this builds is strange, raw, and powerful.

When Nathan explores an idea related to his business, I’m listening. As a paying Draft user, I have read on Ninjas and Robots (his well-named blog), but his deep credentials aren’t why I’m listening.

His transparency on the vlog lends him the authenticity that you can’t get on a blog no matter how self-deprecating your “about” page is. He starts filming before he gets all cleaned up for the day and mentions how he has “parenting insomnia”, that his family is sick often, and mentions when his young daughter has a tantrum. While the fact that he is a father doesn’t seem related to his work, it somehow matters deeply. I’m listening to his stories because of the greater context I see of his daily life and family; honesty in one area indicates honesty in another. And he tells some interesting stories that feel more real within this context.

Long Term

I believe that vlogging is the way that the next generation of “influencers” will emerge. For software engineers, this might mean that the ones with the personality to pull off a daily vlog might have more influence than they do today. Should all developers go get haircuts and take that terrifying improv class? Probably not, but vlogging might turn into what doing a tech talk is now: a right of passage for those that want to move to the next level of influence.

There are some interesting implications here regarding personal usage. You can’t watch 10 vlogs a day, even at the 6 to 9-minute standard that seems to have been established there just isn’t enough time. So a winner-take-all system will develop in which you most likely watch one, and occasionally binge on the rest like TV shows. While Casey Neistat’s vlog was interesting, I found myself wanting to know more about Beme and thus eventually got tired of hearing about drones, skateboards, and pep talks and stopped watching. Something like Nathan Kontny’s vlog matches my interests more directly – daily stories of business or personal challenges that I find relevant to my life and work. I look forward to it every day.