Zach Dyar

Q: What made you want to start making vlogs over spring break?

Basically, I was going to be on the Germany trip over spring break and so for that, we recorded a video and apparently, I recorded vlogs when everyone else kind of just recorded things, and everyone in my German class was like, “Haha, these are really funny.” Then a bunch of people were like, you should record vlogs over spring break, and I was like, you know, that’d be kind of a fun thing to do. So I just started doing it and that’s kind of how it started up.

Q: What’s your favorite part about it–what do you like about it?

Honestly, I guess there are two things that are really fun about it. First of all, it’s a nice thing to do the day, you know, kind of as a ritual. Like sometimes after dinner or before I go to bed I’ll just record a quick video and then post it. The other thing I like about it is that it lets me not just share what I did during my day but I normally attach a funny image or two that I took during the day with it. I like the opportunity to share those. The images are fun too.

Q: How has it kind of helped you cope with COVID-19 and stuff?

It’s the kind of stuff I would include in a conversation with someone passing in the hallways, so it’s a nice way to replace that kind of interaction. Here I can at least share it with people in that same kind of way.

Q: What are your favorite moments that you’ve included in your vlogs? Cool stuff that’s happened or funny moments?

Definitely my favorite was when a week ago, my family got a chocolate cake. I think I was walking out of my house to go do something or go for a walk and I just grabbed a piece of chocolate cake in my hands. So while I was recording the vlog with one hand, in my left hand I just had a piece of chocolate cake and I was eating it while I was recording the video. I’m really glad there wasn’t anyone else walking down my street at that point. That would’ve been very weird, just seeing me one hand holding a phone and the other hand holding a chocolate cake, and like, talking into the phone. That was definitely my favorite blog.

Q: Would you recommend others start vlogging?

Honestly, yeah. I know a couple people who have done at least one or two of them and it’s been kind of cool just to be like, oh, this is what you’re doing with your day. I also think with the start of online classes it’d be interesting to see how other people have been spending their time, not just with activities but where they’re doing it, what they’re doing. It’s nice to get a little window into someone else’s life and if I can’t see them in person to get that window it’s nice to get it over a vlog, digitally.

Q: Could you talk about your process–any tips for people who do wanna make vlogs?

One thing is, don’t do it in a space where you feel weird talking with other people. There was one time where I was walking down the path and there were a bunch of people and I was like, hmm, I kind of don’t want to record a vlog here because I don’t want to tell all these people exactly what I did with my day, like random strangers. So that’s one thing. But also, include the little things. At least for me, if someone’s like, “I woke up at 8:30 and ate breakfast then ate lunch and took a nap and played a board game and went to dinner,” that’s not as fun as, “Hey, here’s this weird story that happened as I was walking through the park.” That’s what I’ve enjoyed about it: sharing the little things that I find funny throughout my day.

Q: What do you use to make them?

I switch between Snapchat and just the regular iPhone camera. They both have pros and cons, which is that the iPhone one allows you to go over a minute-long video, which is also the limit that a slide can be on Instagram, but that also means I can like crop it down which is nice sometimes. But the Snapchat one, the one thing about the stupid iPhone camera video is that it doesn’t let you flip the camera in the middle of the video. It doesn’t let you go from your face to something in the distance, so you have to rotate it around. So if I want to do some of that forward camera then facing away, I will use the Snapchat one. So I switch between the regular camera and Snapchat.