Looking forward to future videos. We need more millennial and gen z participation and social media content about this hobby to keep it going... and to bring rare plants into larger demand. With the collectathon mentality behind some younger folks (see SplorKeLZ's pokemon-inspired text, "gotta catch 'em all") and increasing houseplant hobbyism since COVID I can see this becoming a much bigger thing.
Appreciate the kind words!
Yeah for sure, it's always good to have young people in this hobby!
But it's tough when everybody is an Ipad kid now.
Oh trust me, I know, I am a millennial and got to watch the decay first happen in real-time. The burden is real, you want to talk about these fascinating plants or other hobbies and everyone rolls their eyes and goes back to talking about overproduced Marvel movies, they are entirely disconnected from the natural world. They will be bored by plants but gush over cheap plastic idols of pop culture characters (funko pops).
This is a very small hobby (I still don't understand why--it's so fascinating and rewarding, and adjacent to gardening, which is still a thing) to the point where you see the same people pop up in different places. I see you and others here pop up in the same facebook groups, for example. This hobby attracts a lot of introverts (plant people usually are) and they don't really like to market themselves, their plants, or do so very well. A lot of the people here are older men, wise old sages with knowledge that often even no academics possess, this forum is the most valuable repository of information for these plants on the Internet, but there is not so much engagement with the masses that have never even heard of a jaboticaba or a eugenia before, let alone something like miracle berry. This all seems like an avenue of opportunity to me though.
Some suggestions for success, as you continue to do this and make videos--as you have more time available to you and get comfortable with editing and uploading videos, post more videos regularly on a schedule--the algorithm rewards that. Most importantly, people watch these videos not just for the content, necessary, but the personalities. Of all the TV programs about nature and wildlife, the one person everyone still knows even after his death over a decade and a half later is Steve Irwin, because he had an outrageously authentic and vibrant personality. All the best travel channels on youtube tend to succeed not just because of the locations they visit, but because of the personalities. That's the secret sauce a lot of these plant youtubers miss, because they make very informative content but it is not always inspiring. Young people, especially, want to be entertained, and the path to inspiring them is through entertaining them with novelty. Live by Rule of Acquisition #194. I'm not saying go full "skibidi toilet" but content as entertaining as it is informative and interesting will inspire people to jump into this. An idea I have for the future, which may eventually benefit you, is to let people sample fruits publicly and record their reactions; it's a monkey-see-monkey-do world, and people seeing other people react with joy and fascination by something they've never tried before will intrigue people as well... this may also work well for annoying but unfortunately popular short-form content like tiktok videos. As far as my internet lurking within this space has seen, you're probably one of the youngest people in the hobby with the most interesting collection and the space and greenhouse, and given that this is hobby of time and patience, you're very well positioned for success.
And one more thing, I would invest in a clip-on mic in the future as any muffled or hard-to-hear speaking will cause people to click out.
End rant!
