Blogging vs. Vlogging

A discussion on creating content on the internet

9/15/2025

This is an idea that popped into my head a few days ago when I went to a hockey game.

For a lot of things I do, I feel I have an inner narrative going on in my head. However, this is most especially true for the sports trips I've been writing about this year, as since I write about all of them, it helps me keep ideas organized for when they need to be written down.

Recently, this inner narrative has taken on a certain style, and it's largely because of a YouTube channel I watch. It's a guy who goes to various (association) football matches across England, and each of his videos is very structured: footage of him driving to the day's venue, action from the match, and then ratings of his experience.

However, in my mind, that begs the question:

Why not vlog myself?

I do have a history with photography/videography - I was the "guy with the camera" growing up, and I took so many photos and videos back in the day, so why not get back into that?

Personally, I have a very simple reason: as much as I like filming things…I don't like hearing my voice. However, before you say "this could've just been a tweet", I'd like to go a bit further.

I personally think both blogging and vlogging have their advantages, but I think the advantages of written work are more enticing to me than the advantages of recording video (beyond the aforementioned "having to hear my own voice" thing) - the big one being the "time commitment", so to speak.

When making videos, it takes a lot of time for them to be ready. You have to first record the footage, then do any voiceover if you intend on going that route (which I probably would honestly), then edit the footage (i.e. any corrections that need to be made - and there's probably quite a few between copyrighted audio¹ and visual corrections), compress it down into a video, and then post it. Not only does this take a lot of hours, it also eats tons of space on your computer's hard drive; while hard drives have gotten bigger in the past few years, doing this for each post I've made on my sports blog would STILL eat up space (not to mention the other programs I keep on my computer).

I realize that this makes me sound a bit lazy, but there's one other thing you have to consider: you can't really work on a vlog until the event happens. With many of my blog posts (and especially some upcoming ones), I actually start them long before they get posted; and while this technically is possible with vlogging, a lot of a vlog can't happen until whatever the vlog is based on actually happens.

For my sports blog, I begin writing posts when the idea of visiting a team/venue first comes into my head (i.e. LONG before the event is scheduled to occur). In fact, I've already started work on drafting posts for teams I'm thinking of visiting next year who are not currently in season, and even a few teams who have yet to play their first game! Thanks to this “pre-work”, I’m able to have posts on the games I go to uploaded the literal day after they happen, as the only thing left to do is write about my experience - something that is much more difficult to do with a travel vlog.

There's also another aspect of this that I think is important, even if it is "less than savory": sensitivity.

I saw a YouTube video last week about people who got fired while doing "day in the life" TikTok videos, and for many of them, it was because they broke protocols. For example, someone who worked at a cosmetics store THOUGHT they were clear when they did their "day in the life" video, but then they showed areas of LAX that were not supposed to be shown to the general public, and got fired for that.

With blogging, while you CAN technically do the same things and end up with the same results (especially if you include photographs with your blog), it's "easier" to snip out the parts that are sensitive than with a video, as that involves taking the whole video down, re-editing it, and then re-posting it without the sensitive content (and thus runs into the time and space issues I discussed earlier).

Blogging and vlogging are, at the end of the day, both important ways to put yourself out there for those who choose to do so. A lot of what works best for a certain individual comes down to personal preference, but for me, I find that I very much prefer written over verbal communication.

(Also, it's probably easier to “blog” from the back of a Tesla while it charges at the local gas station - something which I definitely did NOT do for a good chunk of this post...)