 It is really hard to believe that I've been doing this whole YouTube thing since September 2020 I'm in the midst of my third year doing this and just like I did last year what I want to do today is Kind of do a state of the YouTube channel kind of thing where I discussed a little bit about the year that we just got through and then Talk a little bit about my goals and stuff like that for the upcoming year now. Obviously. This is not going to be of interest to Very many people in terms of like new subscribers, but if you've been following me for a while It's it. I think it's a good thing every year or so to kind of sit down and reflect over not only where we've been but where we're going so Before we jump into all the stuff that I want to talk about first I want to say just thank you so very much whether you are a longtime subscriber to the channel or You're brand-new here. Thank you so much for your subscription. I truly Appreciate it like I don't I say it at the end of every video It's become kind of a a rote thing where I say the same words over and over again But I truly do Appreciate everybody who subscribes to the channel like without you the channel just not be anywhere near where it is right now I don't know whether or not I would even continue to make so many videos I may be down to like a video a month or something like that. So Just if you've hit the subscription button if you hit the subscribe button, I should say thank you so very much Also just a brief thank you at the beginning of the video this time to all my patreons youtube members and so on you guys are all Amazing. Thank you for all your support over the last two and a half years Just thank you. So now that I've got the mushy stuff out of the way Let's talk a little bit about this past year. So at the beginning of 2022 Which is this past year, which is hard to think about that that was 2022 and we're in 2023 at the beginning of that year I had just passed 5,000 subscribers The fact that I'm now at 25,000 subscribers in january of the next year Is just it's bonkers to me like I cannot believe How fast this channel has grown over the course of the last year. It's been absolutely nuts and Like I said, thanks to everybody who subscribed but also just It's mind-blowing and I don't know what to do with that information half the time The fact that there are so many people who have subscribed to this channel meaning that they want to occasionally see some of my other content is just it's It's humbling but also completely shocking to me most of the time. So Just the fact that it has grown so much is just it's like I said, it's mind-blowing. So The thing that kind of shocked me the most over the last year or so is how many videos that I've had that have gone I'm not gonna call them viral because I'm not mr. Beast, but the ones that have just done really really well And there have been some surprises. So the one that has done the best my mess my best video ever is the video that I did on the Display manager called I'm gonna butcher this name because I don't remember what it's called It's like lie. I think it's called I'm not I can't actually remember if that's the name. It's completely It's escaped my brain because I remembered it like five seconds ago, but now I don't remember But anyways, it was on a terminal display manager And that video is at like 160,000 views now and that was published in May of last year. So that video brought in a lot of new people like Almost 2,000 new people just subscribed from that one video alone Which is just it's absolutely nuts and they continue that video continues to do very well every single day so And I've had a couple of videos that have done really well like that Now obviously not to that end But I've had you know several that have gone into the 30 and 40,000 mark Which is always nice to see it's also still one of those things where I don't really understand the youtube algorithm I don't think anybody but mr. Beast actually does I don't know what made that display manager video pop like that if I did I'd make many many more I mean, uh, I won't be I won't lie to you and say that I won't just make those videos over and over again If I knew that those were so popular But I have no clue why that particular one popped off either got shared somewhere or something like that I don't know But the point is is that I've made many videos over the course of the last year that I'm Pretty proud of and we're fairly popular. So I'm happy about that I've also made some stinkers, but I don't you can't make as many videos as I do and not make You know the the I'm gonna say the occasional stinky video, but I make a lot of really bad videos And I know that I'm not the most popular linux youtuber out there I've seen the comments of some people on discord and other discord servers other than my own thankfully Saying that I'm too whiny that I'm too negative that I tend to They wonder why I even use linux because because I can plan about linux all the time They talk about why I have some severe problems with Actually being smart enough to do half of the things that I talk about which is true I've never claimed to be a smart person. I've never claimed to be Uh a linux and you know expert or anything like that. In fact in my YouTube description, I call myself an eternal linux noob. I am a noob And I will continue to be so so like I see the negative comments But I also see a lot of positive comments and stuff like that. So, uh, yeah, I make the occasion I make, you know bad videos all the time And I probably will continue to do so But there are some things over the course of the last year that I've Kind of learned from and then I'm still trying to improve So one of them is that and I've not really heard a lot of comments about this But I can feel it in my brain That I oftentimes repeat myself in terms of videos Now I don't think that I've done like two videos that are exactly the same Or at least I haven't published them because I there was one video fairly recently Where I went through and did the video got it all edited and then realized that I'd already done that exact same topic And I think that probably if you'd make do as many videos as I do that's just going to happen But thankfully I haven't done that often But I do know that I repeat myself a lot and that there are certain beliefs that I've Put out there and videos that I do tend to Repeat a lot on this channel and it can get very repetitive. So I know And I've thought about this a lot over the The last couple months that I've you know, I need to start to freshen up the Topics on the channel if I'm going to continue to do this I need to start making content that isn't always the same content over and over again. So Not only will it make it so that it's not repetitive for you But also it's not going to be repetitive for me because I'll be honest with you I don't really want to make the same content over and over again. So It's kind of a win-win situation. I can try some new things and try some Doing things different ways, you know try to do things different ways And it will make it fresher for me as well. So that's one of my goals for the upcoming year is to kind of do some fresh different things now when I talk about fresh different things, I'm not going to Completely overhaul the channel or anything like that. I'm still going to be me. I'm not going to start scripting or anything like that I've proven to myself that I can't script worth a damn But I am going to start to Outline a little bit more So for example the video that I've been working on for the last couple weeks that has been taking so much of my time is a video on silver blue and I have that outlined and I'm hoping that by Instead of winging it like I usually do like I'm doing now I'm hoping that by providing myself a little bit of an outline not only can I Provide a video that's more structured so I can you know do time stamps and stuff like that, but also That I repeat myself less because I do repeat myself inside of videos often a lot too, which I probably will in this video I probably already have a couple times. So that's just kind of the the way I talk I ramble a lot like one of the categories or the playlist that I have on my channel is rambles And basically that could be every video that I make I ramble quite a bit. So That's one of my goals for this year is to try to Create some fresher content. So for example, I've been starting to do this thing in this book. This is a It's supposed to be bullet journal. I'm not uh, my handwriting is horrible So I can never do the bullet journal thing, but I'm trying anyways, but it's not really for any like personal Goals or anything like it's instead for the channel and you know, I've created like a calendar and stuff like that One of the things that I've tried to do over the last You know a few weeks or whatever is to create a video schedule where I can Actually write down my ideas for the entire month and kind of see everything that I want to do That way I don't repeat anything But also so that I can kind of know when I want, you know, when I'm supposed to do something now Like I said, I've been doing this. I did in December. I did it in January and I did a really good job in December in terms of doing all the videos that I plan to do except for like a couple I think I missed like three And I pushed those to January so far. I have not done a very good job of doing them on the days that I've scheduled So you probably can't see this all that well but I have like all the days listed out And I should do the video that you know like today if what's the date today today's the night So today should be rss for the win, right? That's the video that I should be doing But I've skipped a whole bunch and kind of skipped around That's the problem that I'm finding so far is that instead of following the schedule I'm skipping around so it doesn't really matter to anybody but It's something that I'm going to work on is to actually do the videos that I've scheduled myself to do but By writing them down at least in order or you know Like in a month or whatever so that I can see the things that I want to do during that month I'm hoping that I don't create so many repetitive topics But also that I can kind of keep myself on track a little bit in terms of making the videos that I want To make instead of coming up with a random topic like I did today and you know just Winging it for a ramble now It doesn't mean those videos are going to go away because obviously I'm still going to have like when I do stuff on linux oftentimes encounter things that piss me off So I do rant videos every once in a while those videos have slowed down a little bit because I used to do rant videos Like every day So I don't do that as often But those aren't going to go away, you know if if I have something to rant about I'm going to just I'm going to rant about it Usually it's probably going to be pipe wire or Wayland like today. I could have actually ran it about Wayland But I've done that before and I have nothing new to new to add to it Like I spent all day yesterday messing around with Wayland specifically hyperland And while hyperland is pretty good Wayland still has its issues But I don't really need to cover that because I've already done it before and like I said, I'm trying that to be so repetitive. So That's one goal that I have for this upcoming year Is to make fresher content another one Is to do some more in-depth things some more tutorials things like that I'm starting to take a python course. So maybe I should I'm going to do some scripting later on in the year that'd be kind of fun I've started to Go over my bash knowledge so that I know a little bit more about bash So maybe I'll do some more bash scripting stuff like that I'm going to be doing some more window manager content. So I have very wm scheduled on the On the schedule for this month if I can get obs to work I'm going to do a video on hyperland sometime hopefully this week. I can't go obs to work That's the problem that I was having with Wayland. Um, I still don't know what's going on with that But I'll figure that out. So I'm going to be doing more window manager content I'm 100 positive that I'll still do rising content from time to time I really enjoy those time lapse videos. I know that they're not very popular with y'all With y'all, but um I like doing them, especially on days like today like today I thought about doing one because it was just a horrible day at work. It's been a very long day And uh, I didn't feel like finishing the silver blue video. So I was going to do a rising video But instead I decided to do this which was on the schedule anyways for tomorrow. I just decided to do it Day early Yeah, so as you can tell uh from that brief cut there I got interrupted and ended up, you know, losing my train of thought So I have no clue what I was talking about there at the end, but the oh um Goal so like you said more window managers stuff like that tutorial scripting and stuff like that is stuff that I'm I wonder how many more times I can say stuff in that sentence. Good lord, man But anyways, the the point is is that I'm going to be trying some more in-depth content instead of the fairly fluffy no substance stuff that Often filled my channel in the past, right? I Can't admit that some of the topics that I've covered are just kind of filler content, right? You know, I felt like I had to make a video So I made a video and well, I wouldn't say that those videos are bad Like there there is a place for that kind of stuff. There are some weeks there where you know Some of that was it was all I did, right? So I'm gonna do some more in-depth stuff You'll see a lot more distro stuff on my channel, but I'm struggling with how to do that So like I'm gonna do this I have this silver blue one that I'm working on And I'm doing I'm in the middle of my long-term review for void and my next one's going to be nyx os And I'm going to take a first look at vanilla os and I have uh, what else do I have scheduled in terms of Operating systems for this month. I have a fedora versus open sues of video that I've been working on for a while I have the outline for that ready to go, but I need to do the rest of the stuff that goes with it So that's probably going to be towards the end of the month despite the fact that it's scheduled for the second of january That was good. Um, I have some other ones out here for distros But the the point is is that the distra videos that I want to do Take a little bit time, right? And I want to say distra reviews The the distra stuff that I want to do takes a little bit time because it's not going to be all reviews and that's kind of the where I I've talked about distra reviews in my Disinterest in just doing a quick shot distra review despite the fact that they're always very popular and I'm not going I'm not I'm done with those I don't need to get into that whole argument again that kind of spread throughout out youtube, which was highly entertaining I mean it was very entertaining to watch every Linux youtuber talk about that topic some of them did fantastic videos in response to to that I highly recommend you go search those out But it was entertaining to me that I started that that was that was great But I I'm done with distra reviews that are like that right and I talked about that in that video I don't want to do those anymore So the distra stuff that you'll see on my channel from now on are going to be different things So I'm going to be doing the one on silver blue is what is silver blue? I'm going to go in-depth on what silver blue actually is it's not a review It's more of a Defant a definition of silver blue and going over some of the reasons why you want to use it why it's good Why it's bad things like that I'm also going to be doing some history So like I don't know if you guys know this but I work for history magazine and I'm an editor there now used to do a writing for it and By trade I suppose I'm an I'm a historian right really just a writer But I majored in history at university And what I thought I would do and something that I think would be fun is some history of Kind of videos so one of the ones that I'm going to be doing is history of fedora this month I think that that would be highly entertaining. I don't know whether or not those videos will do well We'll see But I think this is something that can be you know kind of fun. So I also have some What I'm calling investigative reporting Which is probably not the correct term because I'm not I'm not a reporter, but Yeah, I'm going to do some In-depth videos on some of the things that have happened Over the course of my time using linux So one of the things I'm going to be looking at is elementary. Oh, that's what the hell happened elementary. Oh, that's right Uh, I want to look take a look and see kind of Why that project has kind of become tarnished or It's languishing if I guess is the word you could could use but you know, I just want to stuff like that, right? Um, that's something that I had planned for this Upcoming month or maybe next month depending on how how I get to it. So Yeah, the the point is is that the content on the channel is not going to change all that much I'm still going to be the rambly no-nonsense kind of Weirdo that you guys watch on this channel But I'm going to do some more in-depth stuff on the channel Hopefully as we go through this year and I hope that that's something that you guys will enjoy I know that it's going to be a little bit more of a challenge. Which is why You'll probably see me take more some more days off now my original plan for the year Back when new year's resolutions were All still kept which was before January 1st And my original plan was to do a video every single day and I have You know, I have videos Planned out for every single day of the year and I'm still going to do Videos mostly every day, but in the week since I've started this whole thing I've Decided that I just don't want to do a video every single day in terms of actually releasing one Instead I'm going to focus on getting ahead So that I can still take some days off and days that I need to just not do a video and Instead of forcing a video out I think it'd be better for me to just like like yesterday was my first day off of the year in terms of video making and I just use I could have made a video last night. I had time but I had The ideas that I had were all fluff pieces and all of them felt like things that I've done before And I just I'm sure I will make videos that are repetitive in the future You know, there are certain topics that deserve to be reiterated in different ways and Applied to different scenarios and things like that, but I don't want to be all about that. So Yeah, I'm just I'm not going I'm at the point now Where I just I want to be more Cautious when I make a video and make sure that the videos that I You know release are, you know, good videos, you know As good videos as I can make anyway. So I think that's where I'm going to stop for this year in terms of They say to not to make external goals for your youtube subscribers. So I've pretty much stopped doing that But you know, I'm just so grateful for where I am right now. If I'm at if at the end of 2023 I'm still at 25,000 subscribers I will be just as happy As I am right now or I'm going to try to be anyways. So, you know, I try not to be The kind of guy who who chases subscribers like you I do the whole subscriber animation at the beginning of the videos But I never say hey subscriber the video like right at the beginning, right? Sometimes I'll mention at the end if I remember but I I don't want to be the youtuber says, you know Please subscribe to my video If you don't subscribe, I'm gonna be so sad I don't want to be that guy, you know, I mean like I appreciate everybody who subscribed to my video But if you subscribe to my video, I want it to be because or if you subscribe to my channel I want it to be because you actually enjoy the content not because I'm a whiny little bitch I should not judge my other youtube content creators who chase subscribers because I can understand the Want to get more subscribers. I mean everybody if you do this thing You want people to watch your video and the more people who watch the more you want, right? I'm at 25,000 right now and I man. I really want to see 50. I want to see 100 And I can only imagine how much that feeling is amplified when it's not 25 or 50 that you're talking about It's millions right. I can understand that but I don't I don't have any interest in ever being a million subscriber channel I don't know what I would do that with that many subscribers. I'm sure it'd be fantastic, but Part of the whole thing is I want to enjoy the journey I'll be happy going if if I ever get to 100,000 or 200,000 like dt or whatever I want to enjoy the journey to get there and there's no sense in me Wining about the fact that You know, you didn't subscribe to my video because you don't like it or you didn't like me or whatever If you like my videos subscribe if you don't don't subscribe I'm a youtube content creator, but I'm also a youtube Content, you know viewer I'm subscribed to every channel that I view. There's many linux channels I don't subscribe to because I don't like the person right or I don't like their content Or I have no need for their content or whatever it is, you know, there's just you know, it's possible There's things out there that I don't whatever Everybody makes these decisions if you're on youtube you either subscribe or you don't man You're rambling. Good lord. It's time to end the video That one's it for this one. Thank you guys for a wonderful 2022 I really truly appreciate everything that happened in 2022 in terms of the channel. It's just The growth continues to blow my mind and I'm appreciative of it of it And I don't need to say that anymore. Are you guys I think you guys got the message So, uh, here's to a wonderful 2023. I hope everyone I know it's like a week late, but I hope everyone has a fantastic year ahead and that you all win the lottery and marry beautiful people If you're not already married if you're already married, you probably shouldn't marry someone else. That's usually not, you know legal so, um You can tell it's been a really long day. I'm still rambling anyways. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time Thanks to all my patrons. You guys are all amazing I'll put the the the the role here at the end so you guys can see your names. But anyways, I'll uh, I'll see you tomorrow