Should videos be original?

Should videos be original?
How can you be original?
How do you know you are being original?
Is original good?
Are clichés bad?

I have posted some questions about how to make good videos and many people advised me to be original.
But then I started to think about it, and many questions started to pop out.
Are original videos good? They may not necessarily be better. Just because something is new and original doesn't mean it is better. Actually it is much more probable to be worse than what already exists. New is not necessarily good or better.

Even if you wanted to do something original, how do you know you are really being original? Someone somewhere may already have had the exactly same idea. How many videos are on YouTube right now? Maybe billions? How do you know your idea is original? You should have to check and compare with every other video on Youtube and other websites. That is an impossible task.
The only possible way to try to be original is to do something you yourself have never done or seen before. But there is no way to know if your idea is really original.

Are clichés bad? They are not necessarily bad. In my opinion some clichés are so good, they should never change. In the case of movies, for example, a happy ending is a cliché, but I love it. Films that try to defy this cliché and have a sad ending will be almost inevitably depressing.

So my conclusion is that you should do exactly the opposite. Instead of trying to be original you should shamelessly copy other people.
Actually some people have advised me exactly that.
Look for successful filmmakers, look for good videos that you personally enjoy and try to identify the elements that make the videos good, and then copy them. Use those elements in your own videos.
"If you are going to steal, steal from the best".

Most artists like actors, painters, singers do exactly that.
They all start off by copying, imitating, simulating, duplicating people they admire. Slowly they may develop their own unique style.

Everybody should vlog

Everybody should vlog.
Vlogging is just like a diary. Everybody should write a diary.
The only difference between vlog and diary is that instead or writing on paper you are talking to a camera.
There are some advantages in talking to a camera. You can speak much faster than you write.
In 10 minutes you can say much more than you can possibly write in the same 10 minutes.
And of course you are recording your face, your face expressions, you voice, your intonation.

It is always fascinating to read a diary you wrote several years ago.
Sometimes it looks like it was written by someone else.
We think we get wiser when we get older but that is probably an illusion.
We should all write diaries and always be able to compare our present self to our old self and see how smart we were back then.

Because one of the big problems in life is that people give up their dreams.
Every child, every kid has dreams. They dream about what they are going to be when they get older, when they become adults. They dream and are mesmerized by all the endless possibilities in life.
But then people become adults, reality hits them, and they just give up most of their original dreams and settle for less than perfect lives.

We all have an inner child, and we must always listen to our inner child.
Children are optimistic, happy, hopeful, light, energetic, lively.
We have to look at children and be children ourselves.
Otherwise we will lose hope, lose faith, get angry, embittered, frustrated, and give up life.

And vlogging is a very convenient way to have a diary, especially for people who may not have the time or disposition or ability to write. Even great writers actually prefer to record their voices than writing. It is much faster to dictate a letter than write it.

When you are vlogging there is no need to edit your video, there is no need to speak fast, there is no need to add fancy special effects or background music. Why do that?
Vlogging is simply recording your thoughts with a camera instead of on paper.
Your thoughts, ideas, feelings and emotions are the only things that matter. By recording on video you are capturing that moment, that would otherwise be lost forever.

Imagine all the great people in history that were never able to record themselves on video.
We will never be able to hear or see Cleopatra or Napoleon or Leonardo da Vinci.
Sure there are paintings, but that is obviously not enough. We will never be able to hear their voices, see them moving.

Now most people in the world have access to a computer and a webcam. Everybody, or almost everybody..., well people who are rich enough to have a computer, which accounts for a small portion of present-day humanity, sadly....
Anyway, SOME people have access to a computer and a webcam. And the large majority of them are not vlogging. They are losing the opportunity to record themselves, record this moment that will never come back. You will never be able to go back in time and look at yourself again. You either record or take a picture of yourself now, or you will lose the moment.

This is not a question of narcissism. I don't think it is narcissism to write a diary or take a picture of himself, or record yourself on video.
You need to take your thoughts out of your head and put them on paper, or tell them to someone else, or just tell them to a camera. The moment you take your thoughts out of your head and onto paper, you can organize them, improve them, take a more critical and objective view of them.
While your thoughts are inside your head, they will be blurred and disorganized. It is difficult to be objective, your emotions get in the way.