 I started making YouTube videos in September of 2020 and even that's not really true because that's just when I created the channel. I didn't really start making this type of video, like the Linuxy Types video until later in October of 2020 before that it was really just the podcast. That's what I started the channel for. In that year and a half or so I've learned a lot and I have to say that my videos have gotten better. If you go back and watch some of my earlier videos, like my earliest videos, they're still up there online and I won't be taking them down, but you can really see that I have gotten better at this. Despite the fact that some of my videos still kind of suck, I have at least improved somewhat. So what I want to do today is kind of talk a little bit about the state of the channel and I want to reminisce a little bit, maybe talk a little bit about my goals for the future and that kind of thing. It's going to be very rambly. I've taken some notes, but for the most part, it's going to be kind of off the cuff as usual with these type of videos. So let's just go ahead and jump right in. So let's just talk a little bit about the past for a little bit. I've made over 400 videos in that year and a half, which is just absolutely bonkers. Just like 400 videos in a year and a half is just, it's nuts. And I just went over a million views on the channel, which is like, it blows my mind. We're approaching 10,000 subscribers. The channel is just doing really well and to begin with, I should just say, thanks everybody who has gone through and subscribed over the last year and a half. I truly do appreciate everyone who has subscribed, watched my videos, even if you didn't hit the subscribe button, liked the videos, left a comment. Everyone out there who has done any of that kind of stuff is just awesome in my book. The fact that you've come to my channel, just a regular Joe Schmo on the internet who makes mediocre YouTube videos and have at least watched a video. Truly, I can't express my gratefulness enough for any of that stuff. So thank you over the last year and a half. I've learned quite a few things. I've learned some things work way better than others. For example, I've learned to avoid several different subjects like flash projects and money. Those things just don't seem to work very well on the channel. I've learned that distra reviews do really well. Even the crappy ones that are just like first looks, those do really well, people enjoy those for some reason. I've learned that the more effort you put into a YouTube video doesn't necessarily equate to it being popular. You can put three or four or five or six days, dozens of hours into a YouTube video and it will flop. You can do a video that takes you five and a half minutes and it will go viral. Viral. You know what I mean? It will get 5,000 views. That's my version of viral, by the way. Mr. Beast, I am not. But the point is, is that the level of effort you put into a video often times doesn't necessarily equate to the level of the level of success that you can actually expect it to get. And that has been something that I've struggled with over the last year and a half. I a lot of the times the videos that really do require a lot of effort kind of get half asked on my part because I kind of mostly expect them to kind of fail because so many of them kind of have like I've gone through and put a lot of effort into some of the tutorials that I've done and they've just kind of flocked. So you can't really ever predict what you're going to be successful at. And it's been by far the hardest part of being a YouTuber over the last year and a half is that you just cannot predict the YouTube algorithm. Sometimes at Giveth, sometimes it takes the way and kicks your ass. So I guess the biggest thing I've learned is that I really do have to focus on videos that I enjoy making. Because sometimes I force a video out on a topic that I just don't care about. And I think that a lot of times that comes across and even if that video ends up doing well, I still didn't really enjoy making it. And that's not a great thing. I need to, if I'm going to continue to do this and continue to put out the amount of content that I've been putting out, I have to be able to go through and enjoy every topic. So that is kind of a good transition into what's coming next on the channel. I'm not really going to be changing all that much. Like I don't really want to change what has been working, but I do want to put some more effort into doing some of the videos that I'm going to enjoy doing. So you're going to be able to see more racing videos on the channel. And I'm not going to say you're never going to see a time lapse racing video on the channel again. I know that a lot of people don't like those. They consider them useless and they are useless. They're just for fun. I'm not going to say you're never going to see one of those again, but I'm going to do some more actual like long form racing content. Things like how to race poly bar. I have a poly bar tutorial video that is like an hour and a half long. It's been shot for two months. Like it's in a folder in crusader in a tab that I've just been looking at for two months. I haven't edited it yet. I'm actually scared to post it simply because it is so long. I don't expect it to do well. So eventually I will get that put out. I'm going to do more kind of that stuff. I'm actually, I've thought about in the last couple of days of actually reshooting that video and kind of doing it in pieces. I think that maybe I will enjoy that a little bit more, especially seeing how in the last week I've learned more about poly bars. So I can actually make the video better. So there's going to be more racing content on the channel because I enjoy racing. So those are videos that I can do that I'll enjoy actually making, but don't worry. I'm not going to make every video about racing expect one a month or so or something like that. Just something that I can kind of throw in and just have fun with. I also want to get back to live streaming a little bit more. So when I first started the channel, I live streamed every Sunday night. And, you know, sometimes it was scripting. Sometimes it was racing. Sometimes it was gaming. It was just a random live stream every Sunday night. I want to get back to that. Now, whether or not I can go back to every Sunday night or not, I don't know, life has been busy AF as they say. So I do want to throw in some more live streams. Now we do live stream the podcast every Thursday, but that doesn't really count because that live stream doesn't stay up. It goes private after the show ends. And then I edit it and put that up. So I also want to talk about the podcast towards the end. So hopefully I'll remember to do that. Um, so live streams is another thing that I kind of want to do. Another one of my goals is not necessarily content related, but more, well, it is content related, but not necessarily topic related. If that makes sense. What I really wanted to do and what I want to focus on over the next year is getting better at not half-assing videos. So a lot of times I'll phone it in on a video. I'll make a video like top five GUI editors, you know, like I did yesterday. And I could have done a much better job on that, on that video. Like I know I could have. I had a hard time yesterday finding a topic to make a video on. And I wanted to keep my street going. So I made that. I've had, I've wanted to do that video for a while. And I had some of the research done, but I didn't do as much as I probably should have. It's that kind of thing that I want to do better on in the future. I want to go through and make sure that when I talk about something that even if I'm not an expert on it, I can still know that what I'm saying is absolutely true. Sometimes I say stuff that is either an assumption or it's just based on the experiences that I have. And there's knowledge that I don't have that makes what I say false. And I'm never blatantly lying to anybody. It's just the stuff that like that is usually set up ignorance or laziness not doing the research. And I want to get better at that. That's definitely something that I can, I know that I can improve on over the next year. I have to say I've done better on it, but it's, there's still times where I know that I can, I've made a video that I could have been more informed about, let's just say that. So that's definitely a big goal for the next year and beyond, I should say. Some other content, things that you'll probably see on the channel. You're going to see more long term reviews. I'm going to try to do a one long term review every single month. Those seem to be not only really popular, but they are more informative than just those first look district reviews that seem to be so popular. And while I will probably still do long term or the distro first looks that seem to be, like I said, seem to be popular, I still want to play around with the format on those because I don't enjoy. Here I'm going to download an ISO. I'm going to install the distro. I'm going to take you through the installation and I'm going to show you the apps that are available and how much memory it uses that I'm done. That seems boring to me and it is boring, but like I said, they're very popular. So it's kind of something that you can't leave behind, but I want to play around with the format of those for a little, a little bit and see if I can't spice them up a little bit. If I could say a little bit, just a little bit more in this video, I'd be very happy. I also want to do some versus videos on distros. So I've already have some plan for some arch based distro reviews at the big when I came up with the plan to switch to Manjaro a couple of months ago. My original plan was to do one gigantic video of versus of the major arch based distros. And it turns out that that video would probably be about two hours long. So I'm going to split that idea up and kind of expand upon it. So in the next month or so, you'll see an Arco Linux versus Manjaro video. You'll see an endeavor versus Arco. You'll see an endeavor versus Manjaro, those kind of things. I will probably interspersed some other verses. So that's not all arch based distro all the time. Things like Ubuntu versus Fedora, whatever. I mean, those kind of things. So those things are going to be something that you'll be able to see on the channel soon. I'm working on those. And they should be fun to create, too, which is something that I'm always kind of thinking about. Another thing that I want to improve on. I know I'm kind of jumping around here, but somebody pointed out the other day that I use the words going through a lot. Now, when I first started the channel, I was a big person. Like I say, I said a lot. I still say I'm quite a bit on the on the videos, but I try to cut them out and it has gotten way better. Like it has gotten way better. And I've learned to instead of saying I've learned to just be quiet. That's what they tell you is when you think you're going to say, um, you just stop talking and think about what you actually want to say, because um, is just a filler word. And I have several filler words. Everybody does mine are, um, you know, and like, and apparently going through apparently the like, you know, and, um, are like, maybe I'm like a 15 year old girl or something. Oh, no, it's weird that those are my filler words, but they are. I do say, you know, awful on the videos. And it's something that I've tried to tone down, but it still happens. So I want to get better at that. I don't want to, I want to go through and make sure that I don't say go through nearly as often. Cause some of the, like that video yesterday, I'm pretty sure I said it like 10 times. It's not something that you really notice until somebody points it out to you. And then like, oh, wow, I really do say that a lot. You know, so I need to go through and figure out how to do a better job of that. Um, so yeah, that's another thing that I need to work on. So the last thing I want to talk about is the podcast. And the podcast has been a constant source of frustration for me over the last few months, because I don't know what to do with it. So the channel, like I said, at the beginning was originally meant for the podcast. It was all I was ever going to put on here was just our weekly podcast. At that point, it was Martin and I doing the podcast. I believe it maybe even started out with me, just me solo. So believe it or not, the podcast has actually been going since 2017. So it's been around long before the channel existed. Ricky and I started it, uh, one of my friends and I started it and it's been going on pretty much whole time. And then we took like a long like year and a half break. We just stopped doing it. And then I went into anchor and found that people were actually listening to the damn thing. And we started doing it up again. So that's the whole history behind that. But the problem with the podcast these days is that we live streaming and I like live streaming. It's fun. And I know that the people who actually tune into watches live enjoy it, but I don't know what to do with a live stream afterwards. So the way it is right now is that we record live. And then sometime in the evening after the recording is done, that video goes private or unlisted. And then the next day I go through and post an edited version. People who support me on Patreon get early access to that edited version. And that's something that I've promised and I've done fairly good job of delivering. The problem is, is that it creates quite a lot of work because I have to go through, I have to go through. I have to, I don't know what I can use in place of going through though. I don't, I'm going to have to come up with a word. It has to be something to replace it. I don't, it doesn't matter. The point is, is that I have to figure out somehow to make that live stream, the thing that goes on the channel without having to go through and publish that edited version. Or I need to do just the edited version. If that makes sense. I can't post them both and leave them both live. But I know people like the live stream and I know that not everybody can join us on Thursdays at three o'clock in the afternoon. So they want to watch the live stream afterwards. But I unlist it so that they can actually find it and it pisses some people off. And, and some people enjoy the edited version. So I can't get rid of that. It's, it's, it's a mess. And I don't know what to do about it. So that's something that I have to figure out. The probably the solution is, is just to leave the live stream up and let that be the podcast for the channel. The problem is, of course, some people enjoy the edited video version more than they like the live stream version because it's a little bit shorter. It has better audio and that kind of thing. Now, the one thing that's not going to go away is the audio version. The audio version does well. It gets about six or seven hundred views, listens every week. It does fine. And that's parts not going to change. It's just the video aspect of it that I need to figure out what I need to do with. And I'm not sure yet. It's definitely something that the issue that I other issue that kind of goes along with that is that the way I've been doing it now works like it works fine. Like we get three or four hundred views on the live stream. And then we get between fifteen hundred and two thousand views on the edited version. And that's fine. That's really good. But that they're split up kind of bothers me, but all and also the whole thing of doing it twice. And it's just it's a mess. And I'm still kind of thinking it through. So I know that that has been bothering some people that they can't catch the live stream, but they want to watch it. So if you are in that position where you want to watch the live stream, but has gone unlisted already after the recording, you can actually go to the channel page. So YouTube dot com slash the Linux cast. Click on playlists. Scroll down until you see the live streams playlists. Every single live stream we've ever done is there. Even the unlisted ones. So you can actually go through and I'm going to have to make a face every time I say go through in order to actually, you know, fix that. I guess I don't know. But anyways, that playlist is there on the playlist page. Even the unlisted videos are in that playlist. So you should be able to listen to or watch those videos if you want to, even if they're already unlisted. So maybe I just need to link to that and solve the problem. If I link to that in the edited version, maybe that's the solution. I don't know. I think that that is it in terms of what I wanted to talk about. I'm sure there's probably something that I've forgotten that I will remember five minutes after I'm done. I've made it through all of my notes, but I'm sure I said, I'm sure there's something else that I needed to talk about, but I can't think of anything else. So if there's something about the channel that you'd like to see improved or that you have ideas for videos or whatever, leave those in the comment section below. I'll happily steal those from you. If you haven't already, make sure you hit the subscribe button. Like I said, we're coming up on 10,000 subscribers, which is just mind blowing. But if you haven't already gone through and subscribed, if you haven't already gone through and subscribed, good Lord, just go ahead and do that. I'd really appreciate that. You can also hit the like button. It really does help the channel. So you can follow me on Twitter at LenoxCast. You can support me on Patreon at patreon.com slash LenoxCast. Before I go, I'd like to take a moment to thank my current page. Oh, hold on a second. I remembered something else that I needed to talk about. Chances are 90% of the people that were watching probably stopped watching a minute ago when I started wrapping up. But if you're still here, one thing you'll expect to see on the channel in the next week or so is new graphics. I'm going to be doing some new graphics on video and some new thumbnails. So just putting that out there. So thanks to everybody who supports my Patreon. If you'd like to do so, you can do so at patreon.com slash LenoxCast. Before I go, I'd like to take one thing with my current patrons. Sid, Devon, Patrick O, Maglan, Jackson, Abdul, Steve, a separate of Lenox, Garrett, Mitchell, our center, carbonated Jeremy, Sean, Odin, Marnie, Andy, Merrick, Kamp, Joshua, Lee, J-Dog, Peter, a crucible, Greg, Ben, six, Vlad, a primus. Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time.