 Hey, it's me joe cat. So this is gonna be a very different video from what people are used to Just a word of warning. It's gonna get Really really rambly. So if you don't want to hear my sick voice for I don't know if it's gonna be 20 or 30 minutes Then you know, you can move on. Have a nice day I have not been able to make a lot of stuff because of several reasons firstly as you can probably tell I am sick and my voice sounds amazing. I know sorry that some of this is going to sound very wheezy I am trying my best Secondly, it's because I'm working on a very special video that I hope I can get out by this week and thirdly because um Well today's my birthday and as it is my birthday I want to just self-indulge a little bit because today is gonna be all about me The footage in the background is going to be a time-lapse of me drawing my first ever D&D character Victor quibbles also known as rat who is a half-elf bard I was thinking about making this whole video just about him and I almost did but it was pretty aimless and boring So perhaps another time I might but basically he's who I am currently playing as as a guest character in the Unexpectables which you can watch live at twitch.tv slash Takahara 101 on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. Central Time as well as watching the VODs on Takahara's YouTube channel But that's not what I wanted to talk about today We're gonna talk about me because I am self-absorbed and today is my day This marks the one-year anniversary of the Joe cat channel. Well, not exactly today The 27th was but I like to think of it as today because last year I created this channel as a sort of birthday gift to myself. I I remember it too. It was Spring quarter. I was in a different apartment because housing messed up my paperwork every year So I have to move every year. I didn't have a lot going on. I was recently been making personal videos on the side for fun and Projects and I was pretty good at them. So I thought hey, you know what? Why not? Let's make another YouTube channel and yeah I said another because this isn't the first time I've tried YouTube but another story for another time But the thing that really put me over the edge to finally start doing videos was when me and a buddy of mine Ian of the hijack crew did a podcast about Infinity War because he and Eric and I whenever we see movies together We always have these long discussions about them and we always wanted to do like a podcast series. So I thought you know what screw it Let's do it now right now. So we did and it was lots of fun and from there We did two more one about just general talk and one about the Han Solo movie It was at that time that I had gotten a Hand-me-down ps4 for Monster Hunter world because I had been itching to play that game for months It was at that time that I also realized that the ps4 had a built-in video capture function so I decided to make my own version of a Soviet Womble style let's play video and I called it overly edited Because that's what it was and I wanted all the videos to sort of be very literal in their titles And to my surprise they had quite the success compared to what I was used to Breaking 900 views in their first week. So that was pretty huge for me And then because Dark Souls remastered had just come out me and Eric We always like playing Dark Souls together It was only natural to want to record and make an overly edited video series about that came to so we did and They were less successful. I promoted them both both series on their respective subreddits But I guess there was way less hype surrounding Dark Souls remastered So this went on for a bit and other hijack members made a few more videos that got the odd amount of attention and then I got real bored one day. It was summertime. I was out of school I didn't have a job. So I tried something very different I wanted to make a satirical guide that was not at all helpful and very much inspired by Arby and the chief in that It would have this character that was a big asshole that would give false information and be very elitist and con condescending because there wasn't really something like that for monster hunter yet and I made it in a day and it was pretty fun It got around 400 views in its first day, which was the usual numbers that I expected So I decided hey that was pretty fun I'll go down the list and make a running joke about how sword and shield is the best weapon which it is So then I made the longsword video and the dual blades video They basically exploded they reached like multiple thousands and I had no idea what to do I'd reached a thousand subscribers more than I had ever had before so I thanked everyone in the hammer video and Then I got more from the horn video and then I got more from the lance video and then I got more views and more Subscribers I was blowing up and I got really really excited. This was great, especially considering I finally had something to do over the summer because summers for me were a slog I would have nothing to do all the jobs were taken by high schoolers or I wouldn't get a response So I'd mostly just have it wasted But now I had something to look forward to doing every day I woke up and I made the sword and shield video and it was it was one of my proudest I don't think I could replicate the hype or build up surrounding that video a second time It was awesome and a good payoff for both the audience and me and then I was in a very scary situation Now what so many of these people subscribe for the crap guides, but I wanted to make other stuff too So what do I do and then the views started to drop like a lot and people weren't watching Anything that wasn't much unrelated and that isn't anyone's fault. No one is obliged to watch my videos at the time. It was kind of stressful and It was kind of a downer because I'd never really known numbers like that before the kind of recognition and Viewership my work was getting and I was riding a high and I wanted it to keep going But I had no idea what to do and it was pretty scary So I thought okay, this is okay viewership dips for creators all the time, but on the bright side now I have an existing audience for a project that would have been otherwise thrown out to the wolves with nothing And that's when I released the clonoa video essay this video that I had conceptualized over a year Before I had started the channel a thing I've wanted to always make my magnum opus and a video I still consider one of my best work because it basically has everything I've wanted in a video it took months of Script writing and rewriting and animating Several voice reduce my computer was in danger of being non-recoverable in the middle of its production But I did it it was done. It is my best work, and I love it I consider it some of my best work, and it did horribly for months It hovered below 10k views when my crap guys would reach 10k in their first day Heck in their first hour I even hyped the video up a bunch, but it didn't do nearly as well as I was hoping But of course really it's no one's fault and I accept my own and I feel like I know why it didn't do Well, it was the first video of a new format that subscribers were not used to it didn't subscribe to me for long-form video essays They weren't interested in those kind of videos. They subscribe for the crap guys It was also an obscure game that not a lot of people played an old one at that Monster Hunter had hype of world being released on PC to help the crap guys This video had nothing it only had me and word of mouth So it was a huge punch to the gut But I kept on doing some more overly edited videos and a show about critiquing video game character creators That seemed like a fun gimmick and since there wasn't really any shows out there about that kind of stuff I thought I wanted I wanted to make something like that because it didn't really exist So I I I decided I would make it exist then December rolls along and you know what that means D and December And since I was itching to do some drawing and some more crap crappage I did crap guy to D&D which I swore to myself. I would make one video every other day Boy was that a mistake Since it was based off of a tabletop game I didn't really have anything to draw on for footage aside from be real of I don't know like critical role I guess and some stock images, but that wasn't really good enough for me. So I thought hey I'm gonna draw my own images. It's pen and paper. It makes sense, right? And it could draw in some of that popular story time animated crowd as well Even though I don't consider the crap guides series animated consider them animations because most of the time They're just a series of still images with the odd minor animation here here and there, but yeah And I guess here I am now trying to balance this YouTube thing with my daily life And although I've sort of gotten a second wind with crap guides to D&D I don't really know where I'm gonna go from here because I don't want to just purely make the crap guides They're not my natural state of being when it comes to creating things one of the reasons they take so long Aside from the drawing is because I need time to write these jokes peep sure people find them funny But I'm sure a lot of people could write better jokes in shorter amounts of time than I do Which is why I don't consider myself that funny funny people can come up with funny jokes fast That's why they're so good at it because given enough time Anyone can come up with a clever joke, but I also just want to make a variety of things And I guess that's the trade-off of finding a successful formula is that you have to sacrifice some Creative freedom if you want to continue that success Now there are a big chunk of people who will watch whatever I make no matter what it is as long as it's good and that's awesome I am grateful for those people because they're the sort of backbone of this channel them and lurkers And anytime I worry about the numbers not being great I try to think of the people who did come to watch and Try to not forget about them and that I shouldn't dismiss their support Just because I didn't get as much as my normal view my most viewed series Because that's not fair to me It's not fair to my work and it's not fair to my viewers all support should be valued and I'm Starting to realize that now. I'm sorry I didn't before and that I I should just focus on the quality of my work not how Successful it is because it wouldn't really shouldn't be about the numbers. It isn't about the numbers It never is you know sometimes in the back of my mind. I kind of wish Sometimes wish this whole YouTube thing had never happened So I'd have less to worry about because man, it's stressful sometimes. How do you top yourself? How do you live up to your own? Expectations that you've made when you make something people say is so amazing How can you be sure you can do it again? You can't but if you're a perfectionist You're gonna try anyway and that stress eats at you because you know, it's not gonna be as great or The ones you think are great might not be as well received as you thought I don't know I guess this is an excuse for me to get my thoughts out there while I talk about the history of this channel and how I feel I don't really have a good conclusion to this my strep throat makes it really hard to think straight sometimes But if you made it this far, I really really do thank you For for watching if you are watching this on April 30th when this was released I'll probably be doing a birthday stream. I don't know what I'll be doing probably playing a video game I don't know or alternatively if Do you want to give me the best birthday present ever? I I know I said the numbers don't matter But it would really mean a lot to me if maybe you watched or shared the clenoa video essay I normally wouldn't ask people to share. In fact, I think this is gonna be the only time that I ask people to share but I worked really hard on that video and Although it has gained a little bit more traction from its mention in the crap guides because I don't know I worked really hard and it's my proudest piece my proudest video So, I don't know it would really mean a lot if it got some more Recognition even if it's just a handful of views or if you don't want to that's that's okay, too Sitting through this long through this video has already is already more than enough So thank you there's gonna be another video similar to the colonel one hopefully coming up by this week and I'll get back on the crap crap guides as soon as my voice is Back to normal just a few more and we're done With the future holds who knows but I hope you'll come along with me Thank you and happy birthday to me