 Friday, happy New Year's, everyone watching this video. 2018 has been absolutely insane for myself, for amusement insiders, and I guess just for me in general, becoming a part of the coaster community. I've gone through a lot and I've learned a lot. I'm gonna kind of go over a few of the things that have happened in 2018 and what I've learned and how I've developed because I was actually sitting down the last couple of days and watching some clips from when I first started. And I didn't realize how much I have changed. It was actually kind of shocking to see and hear myself in my first videos compared to now. For a lot of you that don't know, and again, I'm planning on doing a video that kind of like introduces me, which will help introduce the vlog season in 2019. So there'll be a lot more of me actually in videos, my actual presence, not just my voice. So that's something I look forward to slash I'm nervous for in 2019. So you'll learn more about why I've been avoiding that and kind of like why, for anyone that's met me in person or at Canada's Wonderland or like, you know, at other parks because I have met people at Cedar Point and stuff, you'll understand why when you first meet me, I'm kind of socially awkward. I'm definitely very socially awkward in person. And I've kind of started to realize that that has been slowly drifting away. I've been kind of like an onion and you know, my outer shell is being peeled away and it's kind of unique and awesome to see that happening. I've noticed that my voice has changed over time. I've definitely gotten a lot more excited about things or more open is the better word. Whereas before I was very nervous about what people thought about me. If someone didn't like me, it really hurt. And I've definitely been more kind of like shielded from all that stuff, which is super awesome because the old me definitely would have been in my bed crying for hours on end. Every time someone didn't like me or someone didn't like something I did. And thanks to my team, they've been a huge part of my development in getting me used to being online and on YouTube and having haters. Cause no matter who you are, no matter what channel, no matter what you're covering, you're always going to have people that don't like what you do or people that kind of go after what you do and attack you. And that's totally normal. And before I didn't like that. I'm gonna be honest, it definitely really got to me. There were some weeks where I had mental breakdowns and my team had to be like running like just overcome it. Everyone goes through this, it's totally okay. You probably saw it in days where there wasn't a video upload or there were a couple of days where there wasn't a video upload. Those were usually days that I was having a mental breakdown. Or if you ever saw a day where I would double upload something or upload just footage with music, definitely having a mental breakdown, letting you guys into my life right now, which is super weird for me as well. But yeah, definitely overcoming that has been a huge thing. I've noticed over the last three weeks, especially there's been a big change. And this is what's special. The team I have, the friends I've made and I've made very diverse friends. I've made friends that have very strong opinions that don't correlate with my opinions at all. And that's been super unique too. Cause a lot of the times in the Coaster community, when someone doesn't agree with something that you don't agree with or you agree with, you end up hating each other. And I've been a huge advocate to like kind of erase that. I hate that part of the Coaster community. It really upsets me that if someone like Steel Vengeance more than El Toro, they're immediately viewed as a horrible person. And vice versa, if someone likes El Toro more than Steel Vengeance, they're immediately a bad person too. And it's just this giant war back and forth. And it's gotten kind of like irritating to me to like see that. And I know there's no fix to that, but for anyone that's been in my Discord server, I don't know why I said Discord so weird, you know that we're very against that and we try to like limit any like negativity or we don't allow swearing, we don't allow this. And yes, we are kind of like strict in terms of that for Discord, but I kind of like to keep all that negativity away. And it kind of like almost like prevent Coaster talk in general because sometimes the Coaster community like, you know, talk here and there is great, but like it can get really ugly really quick without even any notice whatsoever. Anyways, that aside, the Coaster community is still an amazing community. I've met some amazing people and I've had some amazing conversations. I've learned so much. People are teaching me how to play Planet Coaster right now. I plan on learning No Limits as well. I used to play No Limits a lot. And people are just teaching me stuff in general in Europe. A lot of European people I've met, he are starting our influencer program in Europe as well. Again, I feel like Europe is very underrated for the North American YouTubers. I wanna give it a presence it deserves. So working on that for 2019, so you have that to look forward to, you have the vlogs with me to look forward to. Craig is gonna start his whole vlogging session in 2019. And we have the AI gaming channel, which is almost ready to go. The channel's set up and ready to go. We'll be announcing it shortly once we have a bunch of content lined up. So I'm super excited about that. 2019 is going to be absolutely insane. I've learned again so much in 2018 about myself. Definitely YouTube and the Coaster community and my friends that I've met through this journey are helping me evolve into a much better person. So I'm excited to finally come out of my shell and start destroying this wall I built up with just my voice on YouTube and show you guys me, Brendan Cross, in 2019. And I think you guys, despite a lot of you maybe disagreeing with my opinions, I know that I have some very weird opinions in the Coaster community in terms of what is a good ride and what isn't a good ride. But I'm definitely one of those people that don't think there is a bad ride. I like all rides, I just prefer theming. And I prefer a good show versus a high thrill. So that's what I bring that's unique. And a lot of you may not like that. I totally understand that. I'm one of those people that are like, if you don't like my opinions, I get my opinions are weird. So that's totally okay. But yeah, I'm excited. You're gonna start seeing my top 10s, my top 25s and my top 100 lists coming out soon. And I'm ready and I'm excited for the reactions that it's going to get. Again, I did my top five Canon's Wonderland video and there's a lot of dislikes. And I totally understand why there's dislikes. It is a very weird list. But I am so excited again for 2019. 2018 has been an amazing year for me. And thanks to you guys who have met me and kind of dealt with my social anxiety and my social awkwardness at Canon's Wonderland or in person. I'm sure anyone who's met me totally knows what I'm talking about right now. I'll kind of just stand there and not talk for the first like 30 seconds or I'll give like one word answers to questions because I'm kind of like sitting there analyzing the situation just because of my social anxiety. But it's something I'm working on. It's something I'm overcoming slowly. And I have a feeling my goal for 2019 is to completely overcome my social anxiety. I want to just go enjoy life. I want to do things that I wouldn't do before like get in an airplane. I have a huge fear of airplanes even though I've been in them, they scare me. And that's just a lot of goals of overcoming my fears in 2019. And amusement insiders is definitely a huge part of that. So amusement insiders to me just isn't some YouTube channel that is making videos on Yukon Striker. It's an ever evolving channel that is evolving myself. It's evolving my abilities. When I first started, I was looking at my editing and the footage and I'm almost embarrassed by the stuff I put out. PowerPoint was heavily used in my older stuff. I've definitely come a long ways from PowerPoint. My voiceovers were very boring and dull. I sounded like I wasn't enjoying what I did. Again, that was just my social anxiety not really me. I was just nervous about how people would, you know, take my videos and my voice. And I was so nervous that I almost sounded bored or dull and I wasn't meaning to. So definitely have come a long way and I really owe it to you guys. Like I honestly do. I know every YouTuber says this all the time. Thank you so much for being a part of my journey. I've been saying it a lot more lately and you guys are probably like, oh, here he goes again, just saying it again. No, like you guys don't understand. You guys have been a huge part to me overcoming my social anxiety and becoming a much better person. And you'll never know how important you guys are to me for those of you that have been really helping me along the way. And even my haters. My haters have been helping me too. Like, you know, like helping me learn to not take it all in. And, you know, even if you're a hater, like I've learned a lot from some of my haters as well, like in terms of editing and voiceovers and what footage to use. I remember my first cinematic shots, my first construction tour of Yukon Striker and it got a decent amount of hate. It got a lot of support too. Got like 5,000 something views. A lot of people liked it. But for those of you that were commenting like the music choice, you know, I remember when I used to use this epic end of the world battle music in my videos for every video. And you helped me guide me to this new genre of music that I absolutely love. Cinematic, calm music that really sets the tone. So again, haters and hate comments or constructive criticism is not a bad thing. And I really do enjoy it. And I really owe it to you guys for helping me develop. Anyways, I just wanted to give you guys a quick wrap up of my 2018 season and my 2018 with the Musement Insiders. I owe a huge thank you to my team that has helped me. I have a really close, small team with me. I owe a lot to Krega, Jazm, my close team, those that have been helping me along the way. Thank you so much. I owe a huge thank you to Canada's Wonderland. They've been a huge part of my development, the team at Canada's Wonderland as well. Thank you so much. And a huge thank you to all those parks that have been adding us to their media list. We've had parks reaching out to us actually with this new Influencer program. And we have a ton of construction tours coming up for you guys in 2019. I think we have some coming up late January, some in February. And we're not talking again as one of them. We're talking construction tours at other parks. Stay tuned for that. The Influencer program is really taking off. Parks really want to work with a YouTube channel that has these influencers. They're gonna go vlog and promote them. So I look forward to telling you more about the Influencer program and why I've been working on it so much. But I'm so excited for 2019. Amusement Insiders went from Canada's Wonderland fan and simply with just a drone covering outside the park footage to now blossoming into this in the park close update media list YouTube channel that is now covering Europe, Asia, North America and even a bit of South America coming soon for you guys. So again, I owe a huge thank you to my influencers, my team, Jazm for her amazing ride history, park history videos and you guys. Thank you so much for an amazing 2018. I look forward to 2019 so much. Can't wait to start it tomorrow. I'm gonna work on my new year's resolutions. So comment down below what your new year's resolution is for 2019 and what you look forward to most. Thanks for watching guys. Don't forget to give the videos a like, subscribe if you haven't and share this video for others to enjoy. And one last already for 2018. Alrighty. That was really cheesy. Anyways, have a good one guys. Bye.