 I'm Nathaniel Romful Jance. I know sometimes I say it so quickly, it kind of all blends together. You can get your Romful stilt skin jokes out if you want. I've heard all of them. You can get your Jance jokes out. I don't really know what jokes you make without knowing me with that last name, but Jance in the pants was this woman. I was a kid. Uh, whatever that was supposed to mean. Is that an insult or is that a, uh, a compliment? I'm not really sure. Most people in my life they'll just call me Nate. Uh, if I go at Nathaniel Romful Jance, it's probably because I'm in trouble. Like, if Yulia, my lovely fiance, is upset with me, uh, she'll yell my full name out to her. Even my mother to this day, if she seems to be outside of me about something, which it's, it's weird when, uh, when your parent gets upset at you, anyone been there where you're in your mid thirties and then your parents get upset with you? Don't live with my parents. Don't rely upon my parents. Uh, I love my parents and I'm not going to say they don't do anything and buy things from my kids. I mean, they're grandparents. They do what grandparents do, but I find it interesting, um, when my full name is said by me every single day because I do that for transparency, right? I say Nathaniel Romful Jance because I'm proud of what I do. I don't hide. A lot of people in my position hide, okay? They don't want their full name out there, you know? And I'm not being critical of those people, but I believe in, in total transparency, total accountability. I believe in, I should be able to Google my name, anybody should. And what you're going to find are things I'm actually proud of. References to Zelda Informer and Gamnesia, Nintendo Prime, Nintendo Everything. You're going to find references to me at all of these different places. You'll probably find some really whacked out, incomplete LinkedIn profile as well that hasn't been updated in like a decade. It's interesting that I choose to do that because it is more of an old-school mentality. I was a video game journalist and as a former video game journalist, I believe in being transparent. I believe in being accountable. I believe in being trackable. It would have been easy all these years that I was doing journalism to not use my name, use a username. In fact, when I was editor-in-chief of Zelda Informer, a majority of the writers, even though I might have known who they were, chose to use usernames. And that's fine. They were worried about many things. There's a lot of things to be worried about in this world. We have legitimately people in our community that worry about being doxxed if their name got out there. What their reasoning is for worrying about that? Not really my concern. They have their own rhymes and their own reasons. There are people that worry with your name being out there that you're putting yourself at really big risk. Well, my name's been out there pretty much my whole life. I used to do school musicals and plays. And so my name would get published in local newspapers and online websites. I have appeared in my local news, I don't know, a half dozen times. In fact, I made the front page of my local newspaper from a talent show when I sang Backstreet Boys back in my senior year of high school. My name has basically been published publicly since I was a kid. So I've never been afraid. I've never lived in fear. I have three children, a fiance. I'm sure if you dig super, super hard, you could find my address somewhere online. I don't know where because I don't list it anywhere. But I'm sure you can find it. Or if not my current address, maybe one of my former addresses that I've lived at, which, you know, it's even scarier if someone shows up at a former address or tries to swat me at a former address because I would feel responsible for something when I don't even live there. But people are going to do what they do. And the internet can be a really scary place. Now, why am I saying all this? Well, as of yesterday, I have officially sort of been this unofficially for a little bit. But officially, I have become a full-time YouTuber. It is something I have pushed back against for most of this year and last year and just in general. I mean, last year, it was easy to push back on the idea that I'm a full-time YouTuber because when I filed my taxes at the end of the year, I made nothing. And that's because of all the money we spent, right? We rebuilt this studio, heavily invested. $3,000 TV behind me, right? Even this year, right? We got these new expensive microphones and audio equipment that we invested this year. And we have one more massive investment still coming where we're planning to buy a $6,000 camera and lens combo and related accessories. It's going to end up being pretty, pretty pricey. Although I'm starting to find ways that I might be able to get that price to come down a little bit. It's still going to be expensive. So there's still future investments to come. And even after that, while I plan to not really buy anything else for a couple of years, we all know the way it goes, right? You know, you can plan not to do something, and then you find new ways to invest that don't need to be done. To be clear, what I'm doing right now is not needed to be a full-time YouTuber. You can be a full-time YouTuber with nothing but a cell phone. You can be a full-time YouTuber with USB microphones at $100 or less. You can be a full-time YouTuber without multiple computers. There's three computers turned on right now just to record this video. Just so I have backup audio and redundancy. And if I need to look up additional information, because I don't want to have to get up and keep moving over to my other computer, because, well, if I get up right now, I kind of have a little bit of tushy injury at the moment. So it kind of hurts. So I'd rather just kind of stay stationary if I can. And it's interesting because I don't have to have a set like this. I don't need this to be successful on YouTube. In fact, there are some people that will say, my best videos have come when all I've done is voice over gameplay, which is where I basically just turn on my microphone and talk about whatever the hell I need to talk about. I don't care about the camera. And then, you know what? We just throw it over a gameplay. Even sometimes a gameplay is five years old. I'll grab an old Breath of the Wild clip I recorded five years ago. And we'll just talk over that. And some people love those videos. It's quite interesting the way my channel has evolved to get to this point where I'm now calling myself a full-time YouTuber. Because, as I said, last year, we reinvested so much money between the giveaways and the equipment that we made nothing. The channel might have had $23,000, $24,000 in revenue, but none of it was pocketed. None of it actually went to me. It all went back out to you guys. So, was I a full-time YouTuber when I made nothing? Now, I understand other YouTubers might run on this principle. MrBeast, as an example, he reinvest all his money. But I mean, that's just what he says. He clearly doesn't make himself go homeless and not support his kids. When I say I literally invested everything, that means that I had to have money coming from other areas in my life, and I did. And this year, I had a job that I was doing, an IT job. And it was just an at-home IT job. You know, I help people deal with some things. I can't go into all of the details. But basically, they would call. I would get on a call on an internet call and help people out with their computer issues at certain businesses. I've been doing that sort of behind the scenes without really talking about it to anybody. I didn't really even talk about it to Eric or Julia or my parents or anyone. As a way to make sure that the money stayed pretty stable around my family. Well, my hours got cut. And after they got cut, I already had considered at that point quitting the job because they had cut me from almost full-time to barely part-time. And the hours never really got better, but the demands were becoming greater. Instead of it being like a two to four hour per day thing, they were starting to ask for six to seven, which is basically getting back to full-time, except they weren't willing to pay me for that extra time. So it was a pretty easy decision for me to yesterday turn in my two weeks notice to this company I was working for. And my boss at that time, the moment I handed him the two weeks notice, he told me, yeah, you can go, you can clock out. We don't need you anymore. Now, today, it's been since clarified that I no longer work at the company. So it wasn't like they were just giving me a day off. It was, no, you're done. Now, whether or not they want to argue they fired me, whether or not I want to argue that I'm not fired, that I quit, I resigned, I don't know. None of that really matters because I'm not going to put this job on my resume. Anyways, they're kind of douchebags. But I'll say that now because I don't work for them anymore. They didn't treat me right. It's not something I really care to put on a resume. I have other IT experience, both from Geek Squad back in the day. I also worked at a really big tech company years ago. So I've got other experience to put on my resume for that sort of stuff. That's way more relevant than that job. But I've had it hit me over the last 24 hours that I'm not even looking for a new job because this is my job. And accepting that YouTube is my job and not just this hobby I make money from is a weird sensation because that's kind of been my dream. I've been dreaming of doing YouTube full-time for five years. I attempted it once back in 2019 and that was foolhardy. Who attempts to make YouTube their full-time job when you've never made more than $3,000 in a single year? Who does that? At least I can say, hey look, I made $24,000 last year. That's not nothing and if revenue increases suddenly you're at $30,000 a year and for some people that's pretty livable. Some people, it depends on where you are. For me, I live in the middle of Wisconsin where things are cheap so because of that, it's a pretty livable wage to even support a family on. I wouldn't say that it makes you middle class but it definitely, you're not sitting there scraping by wondering where your next meal's coming from, right? So it puts me in this interesting perspective where I got to consider doing this full-time because that's what I wanted but I never really built my channel aiming for that. What happens in life is a lot of people think to be successful you need to have money. This YouTube thing I do that I've been doing for a long time is journalism stuff has never had the support of my family and I don't mean Yulia. I mean my parents. I've been doing this kind of thing since I was 12. Most of it on the side always had other jobs but five years ago we're really back in 2019 I lost a job that was paying me about $3,000 a month and it was a big hit and I haven't made as much money since those days when I had the little siding come from YouTube you know that $3,000 plus a month from that job but what I find interesting is despite making less money the last two years last three years now, two and a half everything's fine when I thought I needed $4,000 in revenue a month to get by I didn't and when I had more money than I do today it didn't necessarily make me happy and I sat there talking to a lot of people that make pretty good money and kept asking them you know how happy they are in life and they'll talk about their careers and their houses and their cars and these fancy things they have and I keep going okay but I asked if you're happy I didn't ask what you can buy I didn't ask what you have I didn't ask about your $15,000 dream computer that you bought pre-built because you got so much money you don't even need to build it yourself to save a few thousand bucks you just have a different company build it for you I didn't ask you about your vacations and your jet skis and you know I didn't ask you about the yacht that maybe you rent or own out in Miami very very simple and pointed question are you happy and in talking to many of these people come to find out that some of them are but none of the things that make them happy are things they could buy with money does being on the yacht make them happy no it's Netflix and chilling with their wife does being able to go on these elaborate vacations to Disney World make them happy with their kids no it's actually pretty stressful to take your kids out to Disney World but playing catch with their son in their backyard that made them happy these tangible memorable things that while the children somebody might be getting some excitement when you take your kids to Disney World the kids can be really really excited about for parents you're worrying about a billion things keep you driving my kids make sure they don't run off making sure they eat right don't just eat sugar all day waiting in lines for hours and keeping your kids entertained and getting annoyed and having one kid want one thing one kid wants another thing everyone's coming at you and your feet are hurting and you're in pain and you're hot and sweaty all these things that like you're dealing with as a parent when you take your kids on vacation is so the kids have fun because it's important to you that you sacrifice for your children but what about yourself and turns out they do enjoy their kids yeah they want to see them happy but their favorite times aren't when they're happy doing those extravagant things but when they're doing this simple stuff that you really don't need a bunch of money to do and these conversations were important when I was considering doing YouTube full time it's not that I don't want to make a bunch of money doing YouTube who wouldn't want to be making 100,000 plus dollars a year and living a really good life instead of living in this place go buy a house out on the lake and get my jet skis and just have a more full of stuff life it would be really nice to have times like this when I got a little injury on the booty that I could go soaking a hot tub because I could afford to have a hot tub it would be really really nice to have some of these amenities and I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I don't want this channel to grow I do want this channel to grow because there's things I want to do at this channel that are not possible unless it grows now speaking of possibilities I did forget to do today's code for the giveaway it only appears in one video the code to get extra 20 entries in our little broken down gameboy wall art piece it's worth $300 so it's a pretty pricey thing if you want your extra 20 entries just enter the code today humbleness it's an interesting choice of code today because to make the decision I'm making today is to be a bit humble about my situation I'm going to continue making content and doing crazy things and trying crazy ideas building other sets down the line that are just absolutely stupid and unneeded trying new things, new shows new ideas don't know that I'm going to be improving the audio equipment that much I'm probably going to get a little bit of a better wireless audio system you guys saw the issues of my wireless audio system during the prime gamey fest first time I've ever tried running two mics and it was just a mess so you guys saw the issue with that but besides that I'm kind of done with the bigger investments besides the camera but I'm going to keep pushing because I love this and I've gotten some modicum of success at this despite most people around me telling me to stop when are you going to quit and get a real job Nate? when are you going to stop talking about and playing video games and grow up you've got children to support doesn't it bother you that they're not properly taken care of according to their standards anyways no I'm happy and you can't buy that my children are pretty happy too and you can't buy that either my dog is pretty happy and really can't buy that my fiance has had an awakening over the last couple of years and she's extremely happy and again, you can't buy that and when you only have one life to live we need to keep sight of what matters the most in that life and that is that we enjoy and smile every day and have a modicum of happiness and that is why today as scary as this is to say I'm a full time YouTuber because now I don't have anything else to fall back on if we have a bad revenue month of the channel there's nothing to make up for it we're technically having a bad revenue month right now we're what 9 days in and I've only made like $200 on YouTube so far this month that's scary that's uh panic inducing for me I've been here before it's all gonna work out and it's gonna work out because I believe in what I'm doing I believe that what I'm creating here with you guys matters it matters to me and I know it matters to some of you some of you that have stuck around for 20 minutes or so hearing me ramble on on these stories wondering why is he going so in depth about this stuff that wouldn't you just say hey I'm a full time YouTuber thank you guys so much for making this possible blah blah blah sure I've seen people make those announcement videos in the past where it's like thank you so much for allowing this to happen and I am grateful but more than that I'm relieved I get to be my own boss all the time and that's scary paying my own health insurance that's scary not having benefits and 401ks and retirement plans it's scary it's always been scary even when I did have it I was still scared but now I don't have to do something I don't like to do anymore I get to raise my kids plan lovely vacations with my fiance do things with her as well hang out with my friends play video games and talk about video games for a living isn't that crazy isn't that like a crazy thing to say I get to talk about video games for a living and yeah I give back as much as I can I mean think about this I'm somebody that you know oh my gosh if I only had that revenue last year it's $24,000 to support a family and yet I get had like $15,000 for the giveaways last year think about people people get this impression that I I'm just sitting on piles of money over here I mean look at all the stuff that's in my studio I have multiple systems and computers and fancy audio equipment and you'll see me wearing a suit in some videos with a neon Nintendo Prime sign behind me there's this impression that's given off that because there's so much stuff invested in this studio that I you know have a ton of money I don't sure the value of my studio is quite high and if I ever hit a point that my family is in trouble you damn well believe I'll start selling off the studio because hey there's about $30,000 worth of equipment in this room I'm sitting in right now consider that my windfall maybe at the moment but first it all has to go but but to a bigger point I am just happy so for the first time in channel history this is Nathaniel Rumpeljantz from Nintendo Prime and I'm a full-time motherfucking YouTuber I can't wait to see what that's going to lead to as we continue to grow together thank you guys so much for listening I hope you're smiling a little bit brighter today maybe this news makes you happy maybe it makes you sad maybe I got haters out there that are oh my god he's making it that's you know what think what you want I'm here to stay I'm here to keep doing this thing for many many many years to come so let's grow this channel together let's get to the point where maybe I can hire a real video editor someone actually knows what they're doing unlike me and end up in a better happier place for us all thank you guys and I'll catch you in the next video