Let's Talk

Where Have I Been?

So the patreon's been quiet, the channel's been quiet, and so on.

Long time supporters know that sometimes happens after the holidays. I've wrestled with a work/life balance for years when it comes to video production, and unless I'm close to the finish line on something, I usually cool my jets sometime around December and there have been years where I don't get back into the swing of things until April. When you're burnt out, the gears of production seize up and it can take a lot of grease to get them moving again.

Unfortunately, there's more going on now. I was pushing to get a follow-up to "The Definitive Way to Play Sonic Adventure 2" finished and out the door in November, since almost immediately after that first video, a lot about the modding landscape of that game changed. I've never done a follow-up video before, so it's new, unproven territory for me, but I figured maybe I could start doing more ongoing "here's more mods you should look at" type stuff.

The problem is that as I'd gotten most of the VO for that recorded, I was pulled aside by my brother and given The Talk. I'd been living with my Mom when she was alive, and since she is no longer alive, I had to move in with other family. It's been stressful, but I was trying to make it work. I'd thrown myself into Youtube more than ever and the numbers were slowly going up as a result. I crested 30,000 subscribers! Predictions said I'd crack the coveted 100k in like 3 or 4 years! That sort of thing was the impossible dream not too long ago.

Getting "The Talk"

The Talk in this context was basically the "Hey, so when are you moving out?" talk. I won't go into details but it was made abundantly clear that I was taking up space and resources despite my best efforts to avoid doing either. And hearing that kind of turned me into a deer in the headlights. I froze up. All work on everything stopped because I didn't know what to do with myself anymore.

I was lucky that through this Patreon, and through Youtube, I was making just enough that while living with family, I could buy my own groceries, I could buy my own clothes, I could do just about everything except pay regular rent and utilities to live on my own terms. Which are, and continue to be, the most significantly expensive financial draws of living life. What luck I had is running out, and even though I was more successful in 2022 than I'd ever been before, and was even more successful than that in 2023, I didn't claw my way to fame and fortune fast enough to make up the difference.

I'm trying to get things moving again, but I'm still not sure what I'm going to do. I mean, I guess try to find a real job again. But it's been a long time since I worked at that thrift store and though covid is less of a threat, it's still not gone. If you're the type to believe wastewater statistics, we apparently just exited the second biggest infection rate spike in the history of that data being recorded. I don't want to be out there in that if I can help it, vaccine or not.

But I'm not giving up on the Youtube channel. I mean, with the way inflation is, I kind of can't, but I've also carried things far enough and I'm embedded enough that I just like doing videos. I want to keep doing videos. Before I even started learning how to develop games, one of the very first things I ever did on a home computer was start editing video by manually counting and splicing individual frames to music to make AMVs that are now long lost to time. I've always been a creative at heart and I will probably, actually, literally die if I stop creating.

What's Next

So the general plan is to get the Sonic Adventure 2 video finished and then figure out the job situation after that. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't also already planning future videos. Having watched a video about an unfinished E-102 Gamma fan game framework, I realized I could do the same thing for that Bubsy fangame I mentioned years ago -- and it's close to April, so it's been on my mind again anyway. I'm about 70% of the way through writing a first-draft for that. It's pretty long, so I'm weighing on if and by how much I want to shorten it up. It goes into a fair few small details.

I've also been slowly, gradually picking at that Sonic marathon list series I ran a poll about last year. Figuring out the formula of episodes, starting to think about the updated list order, etc. I'd also started thinking about doing an update to the Definitive Sonic Adventure 1 video after Sonic Adventure 2 was done.

Edit: And how could I forget? I should probably do a video about Sonic Superstars and maybe even Penny's Big Breakaway.

But we're getting deep in to "maybe" territory now.

Thanks For Your Patience

I've been weighing a lot on a lot of things lately. Whether or not I deserve to be successful, things like that. I've had more than my fair share of comments over the years from surprised viewers wondering why my channel or whatnot isn't more popular, and I genuinely believe I produce material that punches way above the weight class of a channel with even 30k subscribers. But I look at friends and colleagues and I've never had the success they did. I navel gaze and feel sorry for myself about that, even though I know that's dumb and unhelpful.

Just know that if you're here, if you've read all the way down here, you're special to me. Things are hard for everyone right now and they're probably about to get a lot harder for me in particular. But know I have shed actual, real tears, happy tears, over having the love and support of people I may not even know very well. I wish it was more, I wish I could just sit here and focus solely on making fun creative stuff, but either not enough people out there care, or I'm bad at advertising myself, or something.

We'll get through this. The silences may start getting longer, but I'm not going away just yet.

That being said, I am open to any and all advice. I'd much rather work for you guys than anyone else.