My Three Identities: A Catholic Creator's Journey of Faith and Content

I have several identities, and when I combine these identities, my goals and aspirations become clear. My first identity is as an apostle proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. My second identity is as a creator who makes useful content for the world while also making a living. I currently work as a video producer at Catholic Peace Broadcasting Corporation (CPBC) in Seoul, South Korea.

And my third identity is as an individual social media creator operating my own YouTube channel and Instagram account. This could be seen as an extension of my second identity as a creator.

I want to create good personal content. Ultimately, I want to reach a state where my passion aligns with my profession—where I can make a living doing what I love. The problem, however, is that what I want to do doesn't directly translate into financial gain. I want to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and I want to do it through creating videos, which I love. But in Korea, a Catholic channel isn't an easy area to gain many views. Looking at the company I work for, which could be considered the best at creating Catholic content in Korea—an actual broadcasting company operated by the Seoul Archdiocese—even they have just over 650,000 YouTube subscribers. So, as an individual creator, making Catholic content and growing seems like an extremely challenging task. In fact, there aren't any large Catholic YouTube channels in Korea with over a million subscribers like there are overseas.

Nevertheless, I think there's value in pursuing something precisely because it's challenging. If it were something anyone could do, it might not be worth investing time and energy into.

I've been trying various approaches so far. I decided to just create something, anything, so I've been operating a YouTube channel, and with the mindset of posting whatever I can, I've also been uploading content on Instagram.

Surprisingly, I've gained subscribers and people who look forward to my content. But the concerns remain. I still feel like I haven't found my own unique, valuable, and sustainable content that I can continuously produce. So I continue to put my best effort into this journey and take on challenges. I'm trying various approaches, and as part of these attempts, I'm now exploring a slightly different direction.

That direction is through writing. Interestingly, when creating content, I've realized that writing forms the foundation, even when making video content. Whether creating broadcast documentaries, where I prepare editing plans in advance, or making my personal YouTube videos, where I write scripts or at least organize my thoughts, it all comes back to writing fundamentally.

However, videos have the added characteristic of requiring a tremendous amount of time to actually produce. And that barrier to entry creates problems in consistently creating content. So I decided to focus solely on writing for once, removing the video production process. Then, when time and energy permit, I thought I could turn some of my writings into videos. After all, I have the skills to create videos, but just lack the time, so it seems useful to accumulate content that can be visualized when time allows.

And I believe that well-written text itself can be very useful content that helps the world. So I'm trying to share through writing like this.

For now, I want to share daily reflections on how Christ has been present in my day and what I've noticed about His presence. By sharing bit by bit, I hope to find a more suitable direction, and through this effort to produce a lot of content, I believe the quality of the content itself will improve, and my content creation abilities and writing skills will develop as well.

Thank you to everyone joining me on this journey. I believe life is a pilgrimage. I've heard that St. Ignatius of Loyola often referred to himself as a pilgrim. How joyful it is to have people to walk this pilgrimage path together. And it's amazing that brothers and sisters sharing this pilgrimage journey can connect like this through writing and online, even without being in the same physical space and time. Whatever happens, I want to use this amazing tool well to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

P.S. If you have any questions or if there are topics related to Catholicism in Korea that you'd like me to address, or if you have any other suggestions, please feel free to contact me at taeyoung@taeyoungjung.com. I'm here to help and would be happy to explore subjects that interest you.