 Did I kill my own channel? Probably. What is up my cranky crew? It's Ethan from CrankGameplays and today I am making a little vlog. I haven't done like a good old-fashioned update vlog in quite a bit. So I thought that I would do that today and talk about a few different things. Hopefully everything is recording right. I- you know me. I have PC problems all the time. I have no idea why. I have a- I mean on paper. I have a fantastic computer, but everything's been fucking up. So yesterday I had to reset my entire computer. So hopefully everything's working. If it's not, bear with me. I'll figure it out, I guess. But I wanted to just make a little update vlog and talk to you guys and just uh- just have a conversation. Because it's been a bit since I just have sat here and talked for a bit. So I thought that that would be nice. The biggest thing that I want to talk about is the sort of change that I want to make to the channel. For the past like year and a half, maybe upwards of two years. No, it's been- it's been about a year and a half. Basically since I started doing YouTube full-time. I've really not been pleased with what I've been doing as far as how serious I've been taking YouTube. Or not how serious I've been taking YouTube, but just the way that I've been performing. I don't feel like I've been making stuff that's particularly good. I don't feel like I haven't had a schedule at all. I've been- I feel like I've been really lazy. And I just feel like I've sort of disappointed not only you guys, the community, but also myself. I'm just- I've just not been happy with my work ethic at all. And so I'm really, really determined to change that. Um, I put out a little tweet the other day, which is probably already going to be broken by today. Because I've been having computer issues and haven't had uh, and have had to fix everything. But I was like, hey, starting November 1st, I want to get better at YouTube. And I want to be a better YouTuber. And so there's going to be a video up on my channel every day at noon. Uh, Pacific Standard Time. And that's a schedule that I want to stick to. I- I think that I can easily do that. A lot of people are like, either don't stress yourself out, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If I just manage my time well, I could make so many videos every day. But I just don't manage my time well. Uh, and I need to start doing that. And I need to start- start taking things more seriously. And I need to start, like, taking myself a little bit more seriously, too. I'm just so sick of slacking off and feeling like every day I get nothing done. And I'm sick of- I'm sick of feeling like I'm disappointing you guys. And I'm sick of disappointing myself, too. I was thinking about this when we did the uh, the seven year anniversary stream. And I was- we were watching, like, a lot of old videos of mine from the very beginning. And I was like, myself from back then would be very proud of how far I've gotten. But he would be disappointed in what I'm doing with it. In the fact that, like, I'm not working as hard as I used to. So, I wanna- I wanna make my past self proud. You know what I mean? So hopefully I'll be able to fix what I've done in the past, like, year and a half. And get on a good schedule. And get my- my work ethic back. Because when I have that- when I have that spark and when I have that drive, like, I- I do have a really good work ethic. I used to work- uh, I used to work full-time as a manager at a job. Uh, and so I was working full-time hours, so 40 plus hours a week. And making two videos every single day. I used to wake up at, like, 5 AM every day and make videos before work. And I would get, like, four hours to sleep at night. Don't wanna go back to that level because that was unhealthy. But, like, I was working so, so hard. So hard. And back then, as far as, like, the growth of my channel, I was so small. I had, like, two or three thousand subs back then. And I was working my ass off. And so it's, like, if I have that work ethic from back then and apply it to where I am now, like, I feel like we can really do a lot of cool stuff. And I want to do a lot of cool stuff. And there are- are a lot of things coming up that I'm super, super excited about, which I'll let you guys know about later. Um, but I- I am getting really excited. And, uh, I'm- I'm hoping that I can stick to it and that I can just get that work ethic back. Because I- I'm just sick of being lazy. And I'm sure that you guys are sick of hearing this kind of thing. Just- I don't wanna have to make another one of these videos just being like, oh, sorry guys, I've been lazy again. Like, it's just stupid. And I wanna get back to a point where I feel proud of myself and where my community is proud of me. Uh, and I feel like, and even though a lot of you guys are going to deny this, I feel like I've let a lot of you guys down. Not only with the schedule, but also with a thing that happened recently, which I saw a lot of you guys, uh, replying to the message that I wrote on the community dashboard thing. Um, saying, you know, like, oh, it's fine. Like, we don't really care that much. Like the true fans will stick around, blah, blah, blah, blah. But a lot of people were really upset about the, uh, the day that I uploaded 600 plus videos by accident. Um, people weren't necessarily upset that that happened, but they were upset that I didn't do anything to fix it and that I just left everything up and absolutely destroyed everyone's notifications and everyone's sub feeds and everything like that. Um, and so I just want to apologize because that wasn't, that wasn't cool. I should have, I should have, I should have tried to fix that and not just been like, oh, I fucked up. Well, I guess I'll just leave it there. I should have tried to fix that, uh, and I didn't. And so I apologize and I know that a lot of people were not thrilled about that and a lot of people left. A lot of people, like 15, 10 to 15,000 people unsubbed in that one day. Um, which is totally fine to be honest. Like I completely understand. I know that that could be extremely annoying. Um, and I just wasn't, I wasn't thinking about it, you know? I was just like, oh, people are probably getting notifications. Oh well. But like, that's so many notifications and that completely fucks up this, not only your sub feed, but also my channel too. Like you'd have to, if you wanted to watch a video from a week ago, you'd have to scroll through those 600 videos or whatever. Uh, so I just want to say that I'm sorry for that. That was, uh, that was a big goof on my part and I should have been quicker to act on that. Aside from posting just like videos every day, I also want to make more videos that involve you guys. I want to get the community back together and do more community stuff like doing more Q&As and more like reading your comment and kind of stuff or doing more. And I think I did one at the beginning or I planned on doing one at the beginning of October where I was like, I'm going to make you guys spooky icons and then I didn't do it. Uh, but I want to do more stuff like that that involves you guys. I just want to get the community excited again, you know? So if you have any ideas for videos like that that you want to see, uh, where it's just like community oriented stuff, let me know because I would love to do more stuff like that. Um, because I, I do genuinely love this community so much and it's so cool seeing you guys come together. Um, and it's really fun doing different stuff with you guys and I want to do more of that stuff. So also an update while we're talking about community stuff, uh, because a lot of people were super, super excited about this coming out, but the soft boy merch is finally out. I have some, hold on. This is one of the hoodies. Wow. It's got a gold sleeve design on here. It's a soft boy on the other sleeve. It has a bunch of clouds and stuff, but yeah, the soft boy stuff is finally out. And there's going to be more stuff coming on that line as well. There's going to be more different designs coming very soon. Uh, and I'm just really excited about it. It was really fun to work with the designers to, to make the soft boy stuff. And a lot of you guys again, uh, seemed really excited. So if you want to check that out, uh, they should be shipping in the next few days, which I'm really excited about. Um, so if you want to go and get some soft boy stuff, go down in the link below crank gameplays.com and pick up some soft boy stuff just in time for the fall. Wow. The hoodies are genuinely really soft though. I was comparing it to my old merch and it was just like, wow, these hoodies, these are like really, really soft on the inside. It's very fuzzy and very warm. So I'm really happy with not only like the launch of it and like having things prepared, but also like the quality of it is really good. Uh, and it, it is really soft and it is really comfortable and I really like the designs a lot and I really like the colors a lot. They're all like pastel soft boy colors. Oh, other than that, I don't, I don't really have much more that I wanted to talk about. I mainly just wanted to be like, Hey, I just want to do better. And I, and I, I don't want to have to make one of these videos again where I'm apologizing and saying like, Hey, I'm going to do better. And then I don't like, I really, I really do feel determined this time to like fix shit. I'm just so sick of feeling so lazy all the time, feeling like I'm doing fucking nothing. Um, and so I do really want to, I want to fix that and I want to get that drive back and I want to get, get that work ethic back and I want to feel proud of myself and I want the community to feel proud of me too. So yeah, I'm determined and I know that like, I know that a lot of you guys may not want to stick around, which is totally fine. Um, I understand that I have not been a great YouTuber in the last like a year and a half and I've done a lot of things to like push my community away. And I feel like I've just neglected you guys in, in ways like I just have not been on top of my stuff at all. And I feel, I feel really guilty about it obviously as you can tell. Um, but if you guys don't want to stick around, that's totally fine. But if you do, I will be here every day at noon. Um, and hopefully a lot of you guys will stick around. Um, and hopefully I'll, I'll get my shit together and get, get back on track. Um, because I do genuinely love making videos. I've just been in a rut for a really long time. Uh, and I've, I've finally started to figure things out. Uh, I've said this before and I said it on Twitter the other day, but I had been going to therapy for every year and it got to a point where my therapist was like, we, we sort of don't really have anything to talk about anymore. Like I think you've made a lot of progress. And so if you want to continue, you can, but like you've been doing really well. And so I sort of graduated from therapy the other day, which was a really cool feeling. Um, it's, it's now weird because it's just like, oh, I went to that thing every week to talk about my brain and now like now I don't feel like I need to do that. Like I wasn't equipped with the, with the tools that I have now to deal with my, to deal with my thoughts and I can rationalize things a lot better and I can figure things out a lot better now. Which is great. And I feel a lot better about myself. Um, and I, and I know what I want to work towards now. So if you want to stick around and, uh, and still be a part of this, you totally can. If you don't feel like it, that's totally fine. But again, I'll be here every day at noon. And so I hope that I'll see you there. Um, thank you guys so much for being so patient and so kind and understanding, uh, a little bit too patient sometimes, I think. Um, but seriously, thank you. I, uh, I love you guys. I'll see you soon. See you tomorrow. Bye.