Issue 31: A personal insight for coming into 2025

If it's between me and you, I'm choosing me.

📰 What is this issue about?

Making explicit the steps I take in explaining concepts

📺 What’s coming up with videos?

• Recent — Explaining generalized linear models (GLMs). One of the most commonly used tools in a biostatistician’s arsenal. Moving from a specific model to a more general model framework.

• Upcoming: A PSA on why statistics is an important skill to learn

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For the last three months of 2024, I’ve been harboring some discontent with the channel. It’s been making me (slightly) dissatisfied with my most recent work, and I think it’s time for me to address it.

It does, after all, pose an existential threat to the channel.

What was I so unhappy about?

Over the year, I’ve come to see that there are two groups of people who watch Very Normal:

1. People who have experience with statistics

2. People who don’t have experience

That sounds obvious —and it is, but bear with me — but it’s not always so obvious when I’m working through the video process. I am always torn between writing for these two audiences. And instead of choosing one, I try to write for both because I’m greedy.

This became clear to me with my last video. I’m proud of that video, but it became clear to me that much of my audience wanted more advanced questions content. At the same time, it was a good level for some people too. One video will never please everyone.

I’ve come to realize that writing for both audiences just hurts both in the end and results in a less enjoyable experience. Not just for the audience, but for me as well.

If I keep letting myself feel this way, then I’m ultimately going to drop the channel. So I’m intervening now.

The reality of teaching on YouTube is that I will never be able to predict who watches my content. There will always be a mix of experts and noobs. It’s not my job to worry about this, and trying to make it my job probably isn’t good in the long run.

I’ve decided that my job is to keep it fun for me and to keep making content that I would want to make and watch. If something I make isn’t useful for someone at one moment in time, then it’s okay. That piece of content will stay in my library, and I can only hope it will come at the perfect time that someone needs it.

So that’s the energy that I’m bringing into 2025. Sometimes my videos will be more beginner friendly, sometimes they’ll be more technical. The golden goose is to figure out how to appeal to both in a way that doesn’t hurt my soul.

I’m still open to suggestions, but it’s just not a guarantee that I’ll listen to them ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I hope my audience is okay with that Y’all are just gonna have to deal with that.

And I’m eternally grateful if you do. Have a happy new year everyone. See you next year.

Christian

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Footnotes

🧐 What am I enjoying right now?

• Book — I recently got obsessed with The Big Short by Michael Lewis. I just watched the movie for the first time, and it led me back to the book. I’ve always been curious about statistics in financial settings, so it gives me a taste of this world.

📦 My other stuff

• I wrote guided solutions to problems to Andrew Gelman’s Bayesian Data Analysis. It’s for advanced self-learners teaching themselves Bayesian statistics

• You can support me on Ko-fi! YouTube and Substack are by far the best (and easiest) ways to support me, but if you feel like going the extra mile, this would be the place. It is always appreciated!