Lin Chen | 440555788
Tags: #vlogger #vlogging #fu linfang #social media #bilibili
14th February 2016.
Streets are full of love birds holding hands together, shops are crowded with gentlemen buying flowers for their beloved ones, even the smell of chocolates is flowing everywhere.
Why?
Because it is one of the most romantic days in a year, the valentine’s day.
While in Tintagel way, there is a house, inside this house, there is a men staring at the screen, watching a man, which seems to be himself, in video, cooking a meal, without chocolate and without a valentine.
Is he lonely? Surprisingly, no, he is not lonely.
Why?
Because he’s a vlogger, he has thousands of valentines online. Oh, I mean, thousands of friends he considers as lovely as valentines online.
Vlogger Fu linfang
This man is ‘Fu Linfang’, an English vlogger, who lives in UK, shoots video for Chinese audiences, on Chinese social media platforms like Weibo, Bilibili, Youku and Sohu.
A few days before 14th February, Fu Linfang cooked himself a meal, recorded the process of cooking. Then on the night of 13th February, he uploaded the video to those Chinese social media.
After a long nice sleep, on the morning of valentine’s day, when he opened his laptop on the bed, with messy eyes, he received tons of comments from his fans under that video. By that time, even as a single man, alone in his bedroom, on valentine’s day, he felt cared and loved by others.
“To me, they’re friends more than fans” says Fu linfang.
Vlogging has become a part of Fu linfang’s life. He uploads video every single day, reads every comments and messages under his video, does livestream on social media, he even creates groups on instant messaging apps like Wechat and QQ to talk with his fans, to listen to the suggestions his fans has for him.
Fu linfang started this whole vlogging thing by making videos about teaching English. He used to live in China, back then, a lot of people came to him, asked him to teach them English on Wechat. Then instead of answering questions one by one, Fu linfang started to make videos to answer those question all in once.
Later, when he came back to England, he continues making videos.
Time pass by, more and more people watch his video and he started to make videos in other genres
(Fu linfang doing other genres of video including gaming video, culture difference video, language video, react video, cooking and travel video, click here to check the full video, source: bilibili.com)
Fu linfang says, different types of videos take different preparations, but in general, being a vlogger doesn’t need high technology. For him, he just uses his phone, his laptop and, occasionally, when he is shooting for travel video, his camera, and then, most important of all, his brain.
Most of my video starts with an idea, then I write down the idea, come back to it on another day, write down more ideas and jokes, create a script, write tips about how to film, then the next day,,says Fu Linfang go do it, it’s an easy 4 step process.
The equipment is easy, the process is easy, as long as comes up with ideas.
Fu linfang making vlog in 4 simple steps, source: Lin Chen
For Fu linfang, sometimes ideas come to him gradually, sometimes ideas come from his fans. In the future, Fu linfang wants to move out of the small town his living now so that he’ll have more things to film and his life itself could be interesting enough to present in his video.
But is it for real that with an interesting life or an interesting mind is a potential vlogger?
A professional Vlogger?
Well, sadly, I’m afraid the answer is no.
Take Fu Linfang as example, in some way, he considers himself to be a professional vlogger. Which means not as a rookie, not a someone with a little bit interesting going on in his life.
“I earns money by doing it.” Fu linfang says. “I does promotions and the advertisers on video platforms like Youku and Sohu would pay me to have their ads appearing in my video.”
However, dose that really counts for “professional”?
Dr Jonathon Hutchinson from Sydney University points out, a professional vlogger needs to have media productions skills. Besides knowing how to shoot and edit video, a professional vlogger should also understand his audience, be good at using his language and know how to communicate with audience well.
Dr. Hutchinson says “a professional vlogger is a vlogger of vloggers”.
Usually, among those professional vloggers, there are 2 models of working as Dr. Hutchinson said. One is vloggers working with vloggers to achieve massive audiences. Two is vloggers partner up with organisations, brands, services and so on to increase their visibility and exposure.
Judging by that, perhaps, Fu linfang as a lone wolf, is still a semi-professional vlogger?
Fu linfang says, one of the greatest part about vlogging, is that “I don’t lose control over things and I’m making things that I’m proud of.
I guess, in the end, professional or rookie, it doesn’t really matter.
Vlogging, for Fu linfang, is all about sharing life, making friends and doing thing’s that he felt proud of.
Vlogging is just a work full of possibilities.
For those who wants to share their life as a vlogger, just be brave, vlogging isn’t rocket science.
For those vloggers who has an ambition for massive audiences, then, be ready, for change and for collaboration.
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