 Hey everyone! So I saw a video about a week ago at this point and then another one yesterday or the day before by a couple of YouTubers that I happen to check out sometimes. One of those being Camelot331. The other one being ReviewTechUSA. Yes, I know people often compare rich and myself. I am not richest son. I don't know why people think that. We're pretty close in age. I think we could have even been in high school together or really close to be in high school together. Maybe he would have graduated a year before I got in high school. It kind of depends. But yeah, like the videos they made, especially for Camelot331, he got really emotional. And I kind of understand his emotions because I'm 34 years old. I don't have any friends. That's kind of life. And it's almost a misnomer to say I don't have any friends because obviously I still have Eric, who you guys see on the Nintendo Prime podcast. And then there is my fiancee. So I do have a partner and she often considers me her best friend, but she doesn't really have friends either. The weird thing is there's this point that happens and I don't want to say every adult's life. There's plenty of adults I know that have all their friends and a whole bunch of friends. But there's like this point I feel happens to many people when we're adults where we just lose connections with anyone who we thought mattered to us growing up. I have my friend group in high school. I think we all had our friend groups in high school, right? Even when you were an outcast or someone who got bullied or whatever, there'd be like a unified group around that, even if it's just two or three people. It was still a friend group. And I mean, that was true for me. I had about a friend group that was about eight deep back in high school. And I knew when, you know, because I'm not dumb, I knew once we got out of high school, went to college that some of those friendships obviously weren't going to last or weren't going to matter much. And because we all go our separate ways. We travel, we go to different colleges, travel over the country. Some some going to colleges, you know, there are several states away. Maybe someone's going abroad, maybe someone's going to the military. So like, it's just going to lead to us not staying in contact as much as social media, you would figure would be like a catalyst to help you stay in contact. But let's just be honest. In the end of the day, I have like 900 friends on Facebook, you know, people I've met anyways. And most of the old friendships that we used to hang out all the time have boiled down to just liking each other's statuses on Facebook, not even leaving comments. It's not even getting invited to things like people's weddings, like I was a you know, I felt like I was a big part of some of my friends' lives. And they don't even include me in, you know, the next big step for their life. They don't have to be in the wedding, but you know, a peripheral invite. No. And it's interesting, because there was a time in my life that this really bothered me. I think the time before Yulia was in my life this really bothered me. And I know someone's going to point up, well, Eric, he's been your childhood best friend since you were five. Yeah, it's true. But I can count on one hand how many times Eric and I have hung out in the last four years that wasn't related to doing the podcast. Because he does come and do the podcast. On the Nintendo Prime podcast, we don't hang out outside of it. Ever. I can't remember the last time him and I went and got lunch or dinner. I can't remember the last time him and I sat down and just played video games together, like we used to. I can't remember the last time him and I even watched a sporting event together. Like we like during the Packers season, right? For NFL, we used to hang out every weekend, watch Packer game together. This literally was happening up until like four years ago. And then he just stopped coming over. I still invite him every time. But you know, for whatever reason, whether he's with family or another friend, he just doesn't come over and watch the game with me anymore. We literally we had like a routine where we would grill out brats and, you know, kind of go all out and make like this all day, you know, not eating fast, but like all day snacks, you know, you got your veggie tray or your brats, your potatoes or whatever. And you could just kind of munch on that stuff all day as we watch NFL games. And then like when the Packers were done, we would play Madden or like we would just you know, whatever the kids would be there, they'd be having fun. And it was just a nice and that was something that I did hold into my adult life. But even that's kind of gone away. And I'm not saying that Eric is less of a friend. I think there's more of a growing apart that happens as you get older. And I think all of us experience that with someone, if not everyone. And for Camelot 331, you know, you absolutely go watch his video because he gets really emotional. He all his friends have gone away over the years. They just they moved on they get married, they have kids, they have other things going on in their lives. And so it gets to the point that he doesn't really have friends. And then he went and met up with some people, some fans of his channel at a fan meetup not too long ago. And he started realizing while he was hanging out with them that like these people are his friends, that these random people on the internet that maybe he didn't give enough credit to became his friends. He didn't really realize the lack of friends was one of his driving forces behind doing YouTube, because of the relationships he's formed with the fans that watch his videos. And it's kind of so that I can relate to I think it's maybe why I personally am not bothered as much as not like my fiancee every now and then she gets a little bit bothered when she doesn't have you know friends to call or hang out with. I don't like what's happening with Eric and I should bother me. But it doesn't because I feel like I've kind of found a way to replace my need for friends. I mean, yeah, I'll still go out. I need to have a social life. I don't want to just sit in front of this camera 24 7365. It's just too much work is too much stress is too much isolation. I also have children to take care of. So I don't want to sit in front of this camera all the time. But I do find that I think I have found a way to replace what friends I guess provided to my life. People I can confide in people I can talk to people I can open up to how many times on this YouTube channel has like something, you know, that upsets me in my life whether I lost a job my job back in January 1st of 2019 kicked off the new year by being told I'm fired. That was an emotional time. And where did I go? I didn't talk to Eric about it. He's my best friend didn't even mention it to him. Where did I go? I went to you guys in the live stream. In hindsight, was I a little too emotional during that stream? Probably. But why did I turn to you guys? Why was my first thought? Well, yeah, I told obviously my fiance and everything, but what what was my first thought? Hey, let's let me go talk to you guys. Because well, I'll always say you guys only know stuff about me that I put out on the internet. You only know a small fraction of me as a person. You know the persona I present. You know the energy I bring. You don't always know everything about me. But it's true that a lot of you care about me. And I can feel that. I can feel that. I could feel that sometimes. You know, it's not even about the donations or the super chats or I could just feel that and how you talk to me, how people reach out to me behind the scenes when they'll watch some videos and the think man, something looks a little off about Nate. Like just something he doesn't have the energy he usually does. He doesn't he doesn't look as jubilant. Something's going on. Is everything okay with your family? And I don't always go into any of those personal details, but they reach out. You guys reach out. And it well, it's not to that level of Camel at 331 where I feel like I need to be hanging out with you guys all the time. I'm in my mid 30s and I have three children. I have a life outside of the internet. But it's one of those situations where I realize you guys sort of are my friends. Some of you I meet too. When I go to E3, one of my favorite things about going to E3 isn't even that I get to play games early. All the coverage I do for you guys is awesome. It's that I meet people. I've met fans of my channel there. My little tiny YouTube channel only 66,000 subscribers and back when we went to E3 was only like 20,000. Hey, I literally meet people at every E3 gamers who recognize me and say they love my content and they're just happy to chit chat. Sometimes they want to go get a drink. Unfortunately, I'm so busy at E3. I don't have time for that, but we can catch a lunch or whatever or a dinner. It's a interesting perspective. Like one of my favorite things ever was meeting a fan at E3 2018. I think it was Neil Willis. Great guy. He appeared in my vlog. You know, he got us lunch that day and it was just an amazing experience. And it's not just that. Like, no, game over, Jesse, you guys know him. He's got almost 100,000 subscribers and I've known him for a long time because of the internet. We used to work at Zelda fan sites together and met him at E3 and he genuinely cares about me. I remember one of the E3's I went to. I can't remember if it was my first one or my second. I got hit by someone's camera. Like one of these big studio movie camera things, right? They were lugging it at their side because those things are heavy. And I got nailed by it. Just absolutely destroyed by it. And it made my knee pop and it was a pretty rough E3 after that. I could barely walk. I toughed out what I could. And I just remember I was sitting there at the table at one of the food courts with my knee up with ice on it. And you know Jesse finds out about it and immediately him and a couple of people are trying to go around and find this guy. Not to beat him up of course. But to at least get him to apologize or say something, right? It's not cool because the guy looked back. He knew he hit me. He looked back and didn't even check if I was okay. Here's the thing. I don't care about suing him or insurance or any of that. I got my own health insurance. I'll take care of myself. I'm not a petty person trying to make a life of anyone or any company. But it was just that genuine level of care from these people that until that point I didn't really know Jesse. I mean we talked online. I didn't know he cared about me as a person. I didn't know any of these people cared about me as a person. I always feel like you know what I do here on YouTube I could just stop one day and nobody would notice, right? Like that's the way I've always felt. I felt that way for the last three years. That if I just stopped making videos nobody would even notice that I am no longer here. I wouldn't, you know, no one would care that I stop making videos. And it turns out that the reality is we have created a relationship. Yeah, I'm delivering news. Yeah, I'm trying to entertain you. Yes, we, you know, we have opinions sometimes that we disagree on. Hot takes we disagree on and all that jazz. I know there are some people that didn't even like my most recent smash video. And that's fine. I don't really care. It's okay to disagree. And yeah, I get trolled and I sometimes I participate too much in the troll than I probably should, but it's interesting to see that I think if I stopped making videos today in a week people would start messaging me, whether on Discord or emails and Twitter and just start asking, hey man, are you okay? What happened? Can you at least let us know you're alive? Because I already get messages like that. I get messages from people I've never met behind the scenes checking in on me. Some asking how my school is doing because I don't talk about college on my channel that much because I'm in college. So I'm asking how my kids are doing because I don't bring up my children. Because I try to separate, you know, I compartmentalize and separate out the things I try to protect. And it's just such an interesting thing to see that for me anyways, I was able to successfully replace my need for having a lot of friends with, I guess, kind of sort of strangers, but in a way a relationship with you guys where you generally care about me. And look I care about you guys too. I don't know what's going on in everyone's individual lives. And I honestly don't have the time to always listen to everything going on in your lives. You guys have been to my live streams. You know I respond to everyone. No one gets ignored. I try really hard to shout out everyone. Sometimes I can't. Sometimes the streams are just too big. Like you're an E3. I have a feeling we'll have too many people watching for me to bother to shout out everyone. But I'll still try to respond to as many people as I can when the time is appropriate. I just, I care about you guys. And I know you care about me too. And when I meet you in person, there's this one fan of Nintendo Prime that actually lives in my town. He saw me out at a pub once. And like literally he was so happy. He bought me a drink. And I told him I spent money on me. But whatever. I get it. To him it was like meeting a celebrity. I don't view myself as a celebrity by the way. I don't think I mattered that much to be honest. Again I'm not that big of a deal. But to him I was. And he was so excited. And also down to earth. Now he sees me out once in a while. And we just shoot the shit. I don't need friends like I once did. Back in high school. Where your life kind of revolves around get your school work done. Whatever sports or extracurricular activities you're in. And then friends. Friends are this huge big deal to growing up. From young age all the way through high school. Friends are almost like family in a way. Almost more important than families for parts of your high school life. I don't need them like I once did. I have a partner for life. I have my own children. I have my own things going on that are more important. But at the same point there's still that inherent you need someone outside of your immediate circle. That you can go to and talk to about things. Get different perspectives. That'll be there for you. And Eric this isn't me. Not an Eric. He'll still show up if I really need him to. But it's also one of those situations where friendships shouldn't just be about what you need. It should be also about someone you can talk to. And again I don't want you guys thinking there's a problem issue with me and Eric. I'm not. He's got his life. I got my life. That's just the way it is. He'd still be the best man on my wedding as an example. But I'm just pointing out that you guys have kind of replaced my need for friends. And for that I'm grateful. It's something I never thought was going to happen by being a YouTuber by the way. I did not expect this. And I've thought about this a few times over the years. And I never really said anything because I just wanted to I don't maybe I wasn't denial of it. But then watching, you know, Camelot331 come out. Watching Rich from RebutekUSA come out and talk about it. It kind of makes sense and I kind of agree that you know what? You guys have replaced my need for that sort of companionship through friends. And that's why one of the reasons why I love making videos. Not just because I like entertaining you guys and like growing the channel and obviously the channel makes money but because I know there's a bunch of you that are just waiting for my next piece of content. You just want to see me again. You just want to see me on camera again doing my thing. Because you love the things I do. For some reason. I don't know why. I don't think I'm that great. I mean I am awesome. But, alright. Sorry, I'm not trying to get cocky there. It's a self esteem thing. I'll say things to kind of pick myself up. I don't actually feel down. I do think I'm actually a pretty great guy. But you guys are even greater for picking me up when I'm down because you guys are always there. So thanks. Alright folks. This is kind of out of the off the cuff video. But if you enjoy it let me know. Otherwise I'll I do have a giveaway going on by the way. One of you guys can win 100 bucks. Head on to the description for that. Obviously like and subscribe if you want to see future gaming stuff. We have massive plans for E3 that I've been teasing over. So stay tuned because those plans keep expanding every single day. More stuff to give away. Crazy or bigger things happening. So stay tuned. Build Note, a new set as well. Got some stuff ordered for it. So there's that. Lots of crazy stuff happening. I hope to see you guys at least at our E3 coverage of nothing else. Again we're doing it all four days. So I know not all of you guys are going to make all of that coverage. You have jobs. You have lives. I hope you can come for some of it. Maybe win something. Maybe be entertained. And enjoy some of the animations and some in-depth conversations on gaming. Maybe you'll see me, Pye, Eric and the face too. Also you're gonna see I don't want to say a side of me you've never seen but you're gonna see me wearing something that you've never seen me wear before. So stay tuned. I'm Nathan Robojans from the Santa Prime. Thanks for tuning in.