About two years ago, my sister Nels and I decided to start a YouTube channel. After days of tossing ideas around and bouncing them off of each other, we decided to name it “Mixed Up With It” because of the diverse nature of our content.

The dynamic was great and we were able to assist each other and give honest critiques about what we were both doing right and wrong in our videos. Over time, trial and error and hundreds of dollars spent, we were able to improve the quality of our videos and viewer experience as a whole. Although we both fell in love with the idea of being YouTube content creators and the community that we built, we were missing something.

Consistency.

It became harder and harder to film videos together as a unit and separately with differing schedules with school and work and our channel suffered for it. Even though we did garner lots of support, over about a year of operating our channel and website, our viewers were not tuning in quite like we had hoped.

There were so many good things about about our channel. We got to show our viewers how to do things that actually helped them in life and got to really connect with strangers and give advice like we were long time friends. I loved showing off the relationship that my sister and I have worked on over the years and I didn’t want to change it, but when I moved across the state for college, I knew something had to give for our channel’s sake.

Because I produced the majority of the content on our channel, we agreed that I would take on sole ownership. It was very hard at first and there was a lot of hesitation on both of our parts, but we were able to make a pretty smooth transition.

Over the course of this past seven months, I have made drastic changes in the channel, including changing the name of it to WestIndieRay, my alias on all other social media (find me!).

YouTube has become my safe place, despite some of the mean comments (yes, I get racial slurs and I am cursed out from time to time) and thumbs downs I get on some of my videos. The community that I have managed to cultivate on WestIndieRay is one that always lifts up other members and helps out whenever we can. From dropping compliments to answering questions for one another and giving suggestions, the men and women who engage in my channel are truly amazing people.

There have been many occasions where I’ve had a bad day or beat up on myself for one thing or another, just to come across a sweet comment from one of my subscribers or a few words of encouragement. Just being able to document my journey through life and independence and having over twelve thousand people (and counting!) say “I understand exactly how you’re feeling” is enough to bring a girl to tears.

My YouTube has brought me joy that I cannot explain. I enjoy every second of interaction and sharing my story and words of advice to other people just like me. What may seem like a number faceless clicks to one person, is a community to me. I thank each and every one of my followers for allowing my to have this platform and my sister for not taking it away from me.