Call this an emo moment if you want, but I had to post it. Blame it on my birthday coming up and forcing me to think over things. Yeah, that'll work.
One thing I consistently try to do is never lose perspective on who or what I am. To me, at least in terms of what I do video-wise, I'm some guy who posts videos about games and random other crap. Not only that, nothing I make will ever be good enough to satisfy me.
This is not pessimism. Rather, it is a double-edged sword with that being one side of the blade. It can be seen as a deterrent, but it is also a form of motivation. It drives me to never become complacent with what I do, never slack off or expect anything less from myself but the absolute best I can do.
So, when I looked at the front of my channel page and saw how many people were subscribed to me, I was a bit stunned. I know that 1,300, much less 1,000 subscribers is considered a drop in the bucket to most video producers on YouTube, but to me that is still a massive number, and it makes me wonder if I would have ever met and/or befriended some of the people I know now--Unreal, Blondy, Wiz, Paige, Angel, Shadowsnake, Zeromaster, just to name some--or where I would be just in general; whether I'd still be in a miserable file room job, or if I'd even have a roof over my head (for which I owe my older brother eternal gratitude).
I'm reminded of something I saw from Youmacon 2010. I wasn't at the event, but thanks to the miracle of fandom several people caught it. It was a panel for Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series and Little Kuriboh was wrapping things up when this happened:
I'm not one to state the obvious, Martin, but that goes for more than just abridgers. If just one person out there watches one of my videos and finds out about a game they come to like, or just gets a chuckle from me making an ass of myself, then all the work that goes into them becomes worth it. I don't promote myself much, I don't demand people watch my crap, and I've turned down revenue sharing on multiple videos. I honestly don't know where in the hell most of my subscriber base came from, but it doesn't really matter.
All that does matter is you're here, and so long as you are here I'm going to keep doing what I do and do the best job I can.
