Filming yourself in public without feeling like a weirdo
Not sure it's possible, but here's what's helping me.
You may watch enough vloggers on YouTube to eventually start thinking: I could do that.
Not in a delusional, I’m-going-to-quit-my-job-to-do-this-full-time kind of way. But maybe you would enjoy documenting parts of your life, sharing your story. You think, “I bet I can create something that looks and feels like the content I enjoy watching.”
So you buy the gear. You learn the camera angles, how to get good audio, and the best settings to make your footage look cinematic. You can easily film in your house, where it’s safe and quiet, and nobody’s judging you (probably). And for a while, that works. You post a few videos and feel pretty good about it. You start building confidence.
But at some point, you realize your house is only half the story. Your life doesn’t just happen only between those walls, under controlled lighting, surrounded by coffee mugs and charging cables. Your life is happening at the grocery store. On walks. In offices and restaurants. And if you want to capture that, if you want your videos to feel as full and honest and interesting as the ones that inspired you, you’re going to have to film in public.
Filming at home is one thing. But filming in public? With people around? With your neighbors, former classmates, and the parents of your high school girlfriend potentially walking by? That’s a completely different mental mountain to climb. You don’t want to be that person. The one talking to themselves in front of a display of store-brand cereal. The one who looks like they think their life is fascinating enough to narrate out loud. It feels embarrassing before you even pull the camera out.1
I’ve been there. (Honestly, I’m still there.)
I’ve performed improv on stage in front of hundreds of people, and “acted” alongside Ben Affleck. But there’s safety in performing as a character. When I’m vlogging, it’s one hundred percent me. There’s a raw vulnerability there that’s harder to compartmentalize.
I just bought the DJI Action 5 Pro, partly for the features (durable, waterproof, fits in your pocket), but also with the quiet hope that maybe, just maybe, its tiny profile would help me film in public without drawing attention. Maybe something that looks more like a gadget and less like a full-blown camera would let me slip past the self-consciousness that stops me every time I leave the house with creative intentions.
To test it out, I went to the main supermarket in town, the place where I’m statistically most likely to run into someone I know; if I can film myself here, I can do it anywhere. I placed the Action 5 on the shelf of my shopping cart (the part where little kids sit), hidden from prying eyes between a loaf of bread and a bag of tortilla chips. It wasn’t ideal for audio — the cart rattled and the mic was too far from my voice — but it worked for capturing motion shots. Just me pushing the cart, darting my eyes back and forth, scanning for anyone looking in my direction. It was a start.
At one point, I found an empty aisle, lifted the camera to eye level, and shared a few thoughts. No one around, no pressure. I got what I needed and dropped it back into the cart as quickly as possible. Part of my brain still whispered, “There are security cameras watching you do this.” When I tucked the camera back into my bag, I feared that it might look too much like shoplifting to the crew watching my every move on closed-circuit monitors. I don’t know which would be more humiliating: being pulled aside for suspected theft or running into an old girlfriend’s parents mid-vlog.
Believing I had enough usable footage, I paid for my items and scurried back to my car, where I recorded a quick recap of the experience… after properly returning my shopping cart to the corral, of course.
🛒 If you don’t return your shopping cart to the appropriate corral, leaving it stranded next to where you parked, you are a monster. This is non-negotiable.
Did the new camera help me push past my fear of vlogging in public? A little. Its small size and quick on/off switch made the act of filming faster and more discreet. But it didn’t erase the discomfort. There was still the scanning of aisles. The mental gymnastics of searching for safe, empty corners of public spaces to record without attracting attention. That part, the being seen part, is still tough. And maybe it always will be.
I may never be fully comfortable filming myself in public. But there’s a saying in visual media: Show, don’t tell. Many of my videos from the year I vlogged daily are simply me talking about something that happened, much later, and without evidence.
I need that footage to tell my story in a compelling way, to capture more than what happens in my basement, and to create videos that are more visually pleasing. And for that, I have to push myself. Not just with tools and upgrades, but with an upgraded mindset. With practice. With the quiet decision to do something slightly uncomfortable for the sake of making the type of videos that I want to make.
The camera makes it easier. But it doesn’t make it easy.
It’s important to acknowledge that most people don’t care when they see someone filming themselves in public. They may stare for a few seconds, trying to figure out what you’re doing, but then quickly move on. I get that. Most of what’s driving the discomfort I’m exploring here is doing this in the town where I’ve lived my whole life, and the likelihood of running into someone I know. And these people probably still wouldn’t care, but that’s the mental hurdle I have; I’m sharing in case this helps anyone who feels similarly.