Why am I no longer posting as many videos as before?

If you have been following my YT channel for a long time, you may have noticed that the frequency of me posting videos has dropped significantly compared to, for example, 2015-2017, when you could see videos every week or every other week, and I was also relatively active on my channel blog. However, since 2018, my channel activity has decreased significantly. Why so?

 

A little history

2013-2017 was a "transition period" in MarkusTegelane's history. More precisely, the transition from the classic (a.k.a. Ert) era to the MarkusTegelane era. In 2013-2014, I had many videos that I could have posted, but since we only had one shared 3G USB modem stick in our family, posting videos frequently was simply not technically possible.

That changed in February 2015, when I first got access to a broadband connection with a WiFi router (for those who don't know, broadband is much faster than mobile internet). At the same time, I also told some of my classmates about my YouTube channel (at that time there were only 7 public videos) and this in turn created social pressure to make more videos.

Markus Maal (now MarkusTegelane) was a channel that combined my real-life persona (Markus Maal) and my virtual persona (MarkusMaal). That's why I used the slogan "Markus Maal - Connected" in my intro at the time.

You may have also noticed that my content was very experimental back then, but the process of creating videos was also very primitive. I focused on showing my creations instead of making flashy montages. The videos published at that time were often completed in less than 4 hours, including recording, editing, uploading, adding video descriptions (FYI, completing a video about Windows on an Android tablet took several days).

Of the three years, I published the fewest videos in 2015, because I also made content for the ElektrooniliseRakenduseTeadus and Eesti Valdus 2015 (Estonian Posession 2015) channels, the former videos were of slightly higher production quality, but the latter videos were also very primitive.

2016 was an interesting year, because at the beginning of this year I made videos exactly the same as in 2015, but that year ended with the renaming of the entire channel. At the beginning of the year I changed some fonts and stuff, but nothing remarkable. The videos were still made in Movie Maker.

But that changed on May 18th when I did my first live streams experimenting with a software program called OBS. I watched several rebane2001 live streams at that time and I wanted to find out how YT streaming works. I continued to do live broadcasts from time to time again due to social pressure, but it was difficult because my computer's processor was quite old. That's why you often see "technical problems" text in many live stream recordings from that time.

Despite this, I also continued to make regular videos, which were just as experimental as my previous ones. One example is the video "Mission Impossible!!!!", where I demonstrated how to walk through a furnace. I also made some videos with YT's built-in editing program, e.g. "Red Screen of Death in Windows Vista beta version" and various highlights after the "Let's do something..." live stream.

Renaming the channel

The real turning point in the content I created came after the first Markus computer entertainment video was released. An interesting fact here is that the name MarkusTegelane already existed and can be seen in some earlier videos/streams, but I didn't rename my channel yet for technical reasons (my channel was linked to a Google+ profile, which couldn't be renamed).

These new videos were first edited using Sony Vegas Pro. I had used this software a little earlier for the EV2015 videos, but "long story short", I had already deleted that channel by then due to toxic comments. I also posted videos made in Movie Maker sometimes, but their frequency of publication was noticeably lower.

But on November 6th, I finally figured out how to change the name of my channel without losing subscribers. The interesting thing is that after the renaming, I didn't make very many videos this year, only 10 videos (+1 live broadcast), but even that is more than the number of videos created in 2018.

At the beginning of the next year (2017), I was already using the new style and not a single new video was made in Movie Maker. I focused more on making Markus computer entertainment (MCE) videos, but I also posted a few other videos from time to time, e.g. information about the end of Vista support and a tutorial on rooting Google Nexus devices.

But on April Fool's Day, April 1st, I changed my channel logo. It was a joke at first, but I slowly started to like the simple logo I made and decided to turn it into the entire identity of the channel. This visual identity, nicknamed "Simple", was first used in the videos "MarkusTegelane - New intro" and "Windows XP installation timelapse". It was also the time when I made the latest MarkusTegelane channel trailer, which I still haven't updated.

I should mention here that MarkusTegelane's blog was still as active or even more active compared to previous years. I even made an Android app for the entire blog. Yes, it was just a beautiful front-end for Google Webview with MarkusTegelane iconography (which doesn't work anymore because I haven't updated it in years). The year ended with a video "tl;dw MarkusTegelane in 2017 (12 min)", which was inspired by Druaga1's tl;dw videos.

But 2018 was the first time that my channel's activity was really low. So, what happened? The answer is actually very simple and the same goes for 2019 - graduating from school, defending a creative work, entering high school, etc. In short, things happening in real life were a little more important compared to what was happening on my YT channel.

 

But why so few videos?

But the low activity continued since 2020 until now, so what happened?

Here are some reasons:

1. Focusing on sister channels - including MarkusTegelane+, MarkusTegelane++, Markuse asjad, Press any key to continue... etc.
2. High expectations for each next video - since I know I post little, I want each new video to be worth the wait, but this in turn increases the time it takes to edit the video.
3. The decline of Estonian YT - You may have noticed that this year I have been more active on the Press any key to continue... (@PAKTC) channel. I have realized that a large part of Estonians who would be interested in my YT channels already know English, and the process of creating subtitles is quite a headache. This is also the reason why some once very popular Estonian content creators also make English-language alt. accounts - because there are simply more people in the world who understand English.
4. Constantly changing editing software - I've been constantly changing my editing software over the years, which has required me to constantly get used to a new workflow. Lately, I've been sticking with DaVinci Resolve and getting used to it. But still, here's a list of all the programs I've used:
• Movie Maker (Live Essentials 2012 and 2.x versions)
• Sony Vegas Pro 11
• Microsoft PowerPoint (this is not a joke, some videos on my channel are made in PowerPoint)
• Android editing program (I don't remember what it was called)
• YouTube video editor
• Kdenlive
• DaVinci Resolve
5. Slow hardware - My computer had 4GB or less of RAM and an ATI Radeon X1300 Series GPU for a very long time, including in 2018, which reduced the frequency of video production even more. This problem was essentially eliminated in 2024 when I assembled a new computer.
6. Time-consuming to create subtitles/alternative renderings - Since I want new videos on MarkusTegelane to be accessible to both Estonian-only and English-only speakers, I have been trying to translate new videos since 2017. However, this is very time-consuming for longer videos. This is also the reason why I did not translate all videos in 2017, otherwise I would not have had time to make new videos.
7. Meeting subscriber expectations - I promised in the MarkusTegelane channel trailer that I would post a certain type of content, and I do not intend to change the promises made there, because that is why people subscribed to my channel. The problem is that I may not always want to make those types of videos. This doesn't mean I can't experiment with new types of content at all, but I try to avoid creating new video series (yes, I know Kasteraal a.k.a. Dewtop is technically a new video series, but it was created to replace Markus computer entertainment format). But for example, with the Press any key to continue channel, I don't make any promises about future content. The channel's slogan is simply "you never know what I'm going to upload next".