Coming from a musical family, with real talent, I started my YouTube Music channel almost 10 years ago, and I never took it seriously. Read those last words carefully. If you’re not serious, don’t start. I killed my own YouTube channel and completely lost the appetite to revive it. This is not about SEO or algorithms, but basic mistakes that put the final nail in the coffin.

As a newbie starting on a highly saturated platform, my goal was to showcase my singing talent. My father was a singer, and his whole family was musical. One could play the keyboards, one could play the guitar, and whatnot. My father’s sister was a great singer too. So, you get the gist. (It’s like I was destined to be in the music industry.) Long story short, I started posting covers on my channel here and there, and the views were, well, awful. I didn’t have many subscribers, except for my family members and a few close friends. Then, it started seeing real progress. I was happy, driven, released my first song on YouTube and Spotify, and I craved more.

But, where did it all go south?

Mistake No 1: I was desperate for more subs

I did not know how YouTube worked back then. So, I posted a song and expected it to go viral magically. Spoiler alert: it didn’t happen. The result? I was depressed and started hating everything. I loathed myself to the point that I kept telling myself that I wasn’t good enough. Then it hit me, if more people knew about my channel, I would get more views. Easy enough, so I thought.

In the very next minute, I was spamming my Facebook friend list with my channel link. Friends, strangers, relatives, potential creeps, I mean literally everyone. Then, of course, my channel started gaining subscribers and some views. After all, if someone is begging, some would at least consider subscribing and be done with it. So, what went wrong?

First of all, the majority of these people subscribed because I nagged them. Most of them didn’t even know what kind of music I was into or what to expect. They just came and hit the subscribe button and never returned. Second of all, I always thought my primary audience should be the USA or the UK. If so, why the hell did I send my YouTube links to people in Sri Lanka who wouldn’t even use YouTube, let alone listen to a heavy metal song cover? At this point, the only ones who didn’t have my YouTube link were the village’s stray dogs.

Mistake No 2: I was still parading my channel on social media

The majority of my social media was filled with people I knew to a certain degree. Also, most of them were from Sri Lanka. However, it did not occur to me that showing off my YouTube channel, the same channel with a USA target audience, on my Facebook timeline, was a horrible idea.

Perhaps I was too self-centered, and I wanted everybody to know what I do. Perhaps I didn’t want to wait for the growth I deserved. Either way, the audience was then redirected to my channel, which was just people who were perhaps wondering, “What the hell is this?” They didn’t even know what I was singing. Most of their first taste of music was predominantly pop, and I was singing rock and metal.

Who's to be blamed? Me!

Mistake No 3: I bought subscribers

Let’s get one thing straight. I highly DISAGREED with this idea. I never wanted this. But, at that time, one of my cousins brought up the idea of paying a very small amount of money to get at least 500 subscribers. He said that the subscribers are genuine and nobody forces them to do anything that they aren’t willing to do. My brother suggested, “What the hell, let’s do it.” Mind you, at this point, my brother had a gaming channel that performed very well. Eventually, I caved, and my cousin was paid. As promised, I’ve gained more or less 400 subscribers. I didn’t know why they did subscribe, but my cousin said that unless they genuinely preferred my content, none would have subscribed. I believed him.

Be that as it may, the number of subscribers didn’t help me. It didn’t increase my views, nor did it change the viewer retention.

So, what may have happened? A bunch of kids might have subscribed to me, not knowing what to expect next.

The scary part is that while the subscriber count got bigger, I felt so lonely because none of the subscribers were there because they loved my content. They were just a number, not people with a hunger for entertainment.

Mistake No 4: The final nail in the coffin - My channel was discovered by the wrong audience. AGAIN!

I always loved covering songs featured in video games. Hell, I have discovered most bands through video games that I used to play. The world revolved, and my brother and I simply existed on YouTube for a while. Then, my brother’s gaming channel became even bigger, and he had a significantly loyal following. This following was strictly Sri Lankan, and a lot of them were also completing their high school studies. Not that I am implying that they are up-to-no-good amateurs, but it takes a little more time in life to be mature and develop a taste for different things.

After some time, we started doing podcast-type gaming content occasionally because we genuinely enjoy it to this very day. If we ever bonded through something, the number one cause would be video games. No harm, no foul, yes? So, what went wrong here?

Well, we couldn’t keep our mouths shut and spilled the beans about my music channel and asked them to subscribe to it. Out of respect and loyalty to my brother, most came to my channel and did as they were told. Some seemed to be sincerely enjoying my videos, while most came to see more video game-related content. Yes, even after we clearly stated that it was a music channel.

While I appreciated the people who decided to come and watch what I was up to, most hit the subscribe button and never even looked back. Worse yet, some were suggesting that some of my game-related content (A talking video of me listing great video games with sick metal tracks) was better and that’s the only thing they liked about my channel, and I should stick to it, which, by the way, is not what my channel is about. To clarify this statement, let me reiterate. I make music and mostly do metal covers. But I occasionally like to talk about MUSIC in other media like video games. Apparently, some people decided that it was a gaming channel.

Subsequently, my brother took a long break from YouTube, and I stayed there like I always have, posting a song here and there. Now, all the people who came to my channel through my brother’s channel started asking me about my brother. Some commented on my channel point-blank that I should do video game reviews, thinking that it’s my brother’s channel. Evidently, the audience was confused. Some were nagging me, asking me where my brother is, which forced me to post a note on YouTube highlighting the differences between our channels, further explaining the difference between our locations, our goals, and basically saying that we are different individuals. Even when I’m writing this, there are unanswered comments from those who are asking whether my brother is dead.

The take-away?

Nobody cared about me or my channel; they cared about the person and the channel that led them here. They were clearly in the wrong place, expecting something that I was never going to supply. Even though I am ecstatic that my brother has a loyal audience that worries about his well-being and goes berserk in his absence, it hurt both me and my channel.

Mistake No 5: The rookie mistake: Not being consistent.

At a point in my YouTube journey, I started posting once a week. Sometimes I would do one-take covers, ukulele covers, and sometimes songs that weren’t properly edited. However, bringing my A-game came at a price: I was exhausted. But, the flipside was that my channel started to grow. People liked the rawness; most importantly, they liked the regularity. My audience was primarily the USA, which I was targeting from the very beginning.

After I released my debut single, “The Whole Earth,” by Pivi Rathnasinghe, the producer promoted the song, further funneling a bigger USA audience to my channel. It was a breath of fresh air. Something I mostly see in other audiences, such as U.S. audiences, is that they are not afraid to tell you things. If they see something is wrong, they will tell you. At the same time, they would appreciate your effort, they get technical, because they have a bigger exposure to the kind of music I made, or make, I guess. Most of them grew up listening to the same songs that shaped my childhood, unlike some in my country. When somebody commented that I needed a killer guitar solo for my song, I was thrilled, because it was constructive. Seeing the same compliment in my comments section like, “You have a nice voice,” became my worst nightmare.

BUT, I screwed it all up by making the above-mentioned mistakes and then some more, i.e., not being consistent.

This is the direct consequence of being disgusted by the majority of my audience and losing my will to revive my channel. It’s like beating a dead horse over and over again, expecting that one day it will come to life. This is exactly why I stopped posting. Once I went without posting something for six whole months. Every nerve in my body instructed me to abandon my channel.

Are you ready to ruin your YT channel too?

If you're ready to sabotage your own YouTube channel, just follow these steps: Be extremely greedy for subscribers. Have no patience. Market your content to the irrelevant audience and bam! You're golden, and you're just one step away from losing your passion for good.

As a final note, I would like to say that I still try to divert my audience; I’m still hoping that one day I will reach the correct people and maybe one day a single person would check on my well-being if I decided to go AWOL for a month. Despite not being able to write an original song for two years, I still want to make music as an independent artist.

Although I have a strong feeling to delete my channel altogether and start from scratch, I still hold on. On the other hand, I LOVE a part of my audience that is still hooked on my content, comments, and likes. I do love you, and it’s a fact. Also, I’m not trying to undermine my Sri Lankan audience. They are all good people, but most of them were forced, and they didn’t even realize it. Therefore, I apologize. Plus, had I not made these mistakes, I wouldn’t even be maintaining another brand-new channel while mastering the art of patience.

Finally, I urge you: don’t screw up!