The Problem With Social Media

I have a very specific problem with social media. And it has a lot to do with why I stopped doing VEDA. I was so motivated about posting a video every day in April, but then one of social media’s most irritating problems interfered.

In recent months, YouTube has been tweaking things in their search algorithms, as well as how they push out videos to people. It’s the latter issue I have problems with. You see, they changed how subscribers see videos of channels they subscribe to. When you click on the subscribe button for a channel, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll see each and every video of theirs as they’re published on the subscription feed.  This has been verified by several of my subscribers, saying that they saw only a few of my videos or even none of my VEDA videos in their subscription feed. I talk about it in this video:

And you know what? I checked for myself if I’m receiving all videos of people I subscribe to, and I’m not. There are some very popular channels I subscribe to that I’m not seeing in my subscription feed, either.

But you know, YouTube isn’t the only place I have problems with their feeds. On Facebook, it defaults to Top Stories, which are often stories I’ve already read, and I never see posts from the majority of people I’m friends with. The option to see most recent posts is still there, but it never defaults to it. I want to see most recent.

On Instagram, it has some algorithm that shows what Instagram thinks I want to see. It used to show the most recent, but now there isn’t even an option for that. I miss most of the pictures of people I follow.

On Twitter, they all seem quite random, rather than showing most recent.

Social media, can you please just let us see all posts in chronological order? Please?

E Is for Environment Minister

Silly days of the week. They go sequentially don’t they? I missed a day yesterday, and posted The Doctor just before this post. But this one is on time!

For the A to Z Challenge, we move on to the letter E, and while there is an engineer in this story, it focuses more on the Environment Minister. But the engineer is a recurring character while the Environment Minister is not. And this is where things start to heat up! So, let’s find out what happened and you can also see what was going on in my head when I wrote this part:

If you want to keep up with the story on my YouTube channel, then please consider subscribing! And let me know what you thought about this part of the story.

D Is for Doctor

The alphabet is easy. The fourth letter is D. And it’s pretty easy to figure out a job that starts with D.

Last time, our carpenter had a mishap, and so he had to have someone check over his injury. Here is the Doctor! No, not from Doctor Who, but an actual medical doctor.

So, we continue the A to Z Challenge with the letter D and The Doctor. Check out the video of me reading my story, and then I talk a bit about some of the background.

If you’re interested in keeping up with the story as I release it, then please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel! I talk a lot about books, reading, writing, and even some science fiction. And let me know what you think in the comments below.

C Is for Carpenter

Part 3 is here for my reading of Ariadne! The letter C stands for Carpenter.

If you remember from my previous posts, I participated in the A to Z Challenge three years ago, and I wrote a flash fiction series based on the letters of the alphabet, each part representing a different profession. For the letter C, I chose carpenter.

On my YouTube channel, I decided to read the stories out and then discuss various aspects on what was going through my mind while I was writing. Who are the characters? What’s revealed about the world and my inspiration? Well, find out in the video!

If you have any comments, then please let me know down below.

B Is for Botanist

Oops! I missed a day. But here it is, this is part 2 of the Ariadne flash fiction series I did three years ago for the A to Z Challenge! You can see the full list of stories here.

In this part, I read the story, “The Botanist.” I also discuss the main character, Malika Said, and a bit more about the tree. Find out what I have to say about my writing thought process in the video:

If you’d like to keep up with the videos on my YouTube channel, then please consider subscribing.

And let me know what you thought about this part!

A Is for Artist

No April Fools today. I actually am going to do a blog post every day this month. Sounds like the old days!

Starting today, I’m sort of doing the A to Z Challenge, but in video form. The first part of the flash fiction series I did three years ago is up! It’s called “The Artist.” Enjoy!

I’ll be posting a new video every day, and if you’d like to keep up to date on YouTube, you can subscribe to my channel.

A to Z Challenge Again?

Three years ago, I participated in the A to Z Challenge. This year, I’m sort of participating, but not really. First of all, I’m not signed up for it. But secondly, this is a blogging challenge, and what I’m doing isn’t blogging. But I am informing you of it on my blog. Instead, I am doing VEDA, Vlog Every Day in April. And it is very much related to the A to Z Challenge I did three years ago.

You see, three years ago, I wrote a 26 part series of flash fiction stories based on my world of Ariadne. This year, I’m reading them out and talking about the inspirations, backgrounds, and characters involved in each part. I’m doing this all on video. Below is my announcement video.

Every day, I will be posting each video on here, and you can leave your comments on this blog or on the video itself, if you want. And I consider this my return to blogging!

So, hi!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone! And welcome back to the blog. I’m rejuvenating the blog this year, and I have many exciting things to come. Many of them are things you already know about, but there will be some new things, as well.

First of all, I’ll do a minor refreshing of the design. I’ll make it look more bookish. Second, more of my own writing on this blog. Third, a desire to do some collaboration with others. And fourth, a bit more of an integration with my YouTube channel.

But I think the biggest thing is that I’m going to concentrate a lot on writing. In particular, Ariadne and short stories. I really need to focus on the main reason for this blog, my writing.

Another thing I’d like to do with YouTube is profile booktubers (book vloggers) who I subscribe to, and think you should watch if you’re interested in that kind of thing.

I’m going to leave you tonight with a video of mine, which is all about the year 2018. It’s all about plans related to my writing, YouTube, and business. While watching, I’d like you to think about what your plans are for 2018. Let me know what they are in the comments section.

Happy New Year!!

The Slow Month! The Jay Dee Show 39

September is done, and I’m finally doing another video digest. August was VEDA, so I was doing a video every day. But in September, I did fewer videos on my main channel than an entire week in August! Let’s just say that I had a bit of a video-making overload in August, and September was my month to recover. But I was able to make a video for my science channel, too! I did a total of 6 videos on my main channel and 1 on my science channel.

On my main channel, I made mostly Authors Answer videos, but also a couple Star Trek Discovery videos!

First up is Authors Answer #44, all about money! Check it out.

And then came another Authors Answer. But this one is about using real life events to influence writing fiction.

Continuing on with some Japan videos, I visited Meigetsuin, a temple known for its hydrangea. Beautiful place!

And then another Authors Answer, one talking about this blog!

And finally, the two Star Trek Discovery episode reviews. Here’s episode 1:

And episode 2:

Moving on to my science channel, there was a big news story coming from Saturn. Cassini is no more! It’s now burned up in the atmosphere of Saturn. I talked about what happened and looked at some of Cassini’s discoveries.

Coming in the next couple days, I’ll be opening up a new channel! This new channel is all about English. As you may know, I was an English teacher in Japan. I’ve got the itch to teach English again, and I thought, why not make quick lessons on YouTube? So, stay tuned for that!

What did you think of the videos for September? Let me know which ones you liked the most.

I’ve Never Watched Game of Thrones!

You read that headline correctly. I’ve never watched Game of Thrones. Of course, I was living in Japan when it started, so I was very far behind by the time I moved to Canada. But also, I’ve only read the first three books. I explained why I haven’t watched the TV series in this video:

So, what do you think? Should I watch it? Let me know in the comments section below.