 Hello, hi. This is gonna be a little bit different of a video than you're probably used to. But the other day, I was on Mark's channel with his Power Wash pals, ooh, ah. Where we just sat and talked about a bunch of stuff while we played Power Wash Sim. And it was just really nice to just sit there and talk to a friend and just be really open and honest. Ooh, miss, honest. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to record whilst sitting down for my little recording session. I didn't really feel like being super energetic. And so I thought that I would just sit here and talk and yeah. And I think the biggest reason why I wanted to do this is just because the 10 year anniversary of the channel is coming up at the end of the month. And with that coming up soon, it's just, it's got me thinking about a lot of things in a bunch of different ways. Like, you know, obviously, 10 years is not a crazy, crazy long amount of time, but it's a decade is a sizable thing. You know, I wouldn't even say most of us. I was about to say most of us only get about 10 of those, not even close. Most people are extremely lucky if they get 10 of those. So we're only allotted a certain amount of decades for each of our lives. So, I mean, a decade is kind of a long time, but I've been doing YouTube now for almost 10 years and that's really weird to think about. It's weird to think that I've been doing it for that long. It's weird to think that I was 15 when I started doing this. It's weird to think about how much has happened in the past 10 years. But with 10 years coming up, I've really thought about a lot of things. It's crazy seeing how much has happened since starting the channel. You know, again, I was 15 years old when I started doing this, which is really young. I was a child when I started doing this. You know, the channel, if you don't know the origins, the channel was started by me and my best friend, Andrew, who we went to high school together. Well, we became friends in like second grade, but he and I have always been extremely, extremely close. And so, especially back then because I was doing gymnastics. And so, outside of gymnastics, because I was going to gymnastics pretty much three hours a day, five days a week, five or six days a week at that point, three hours just being the practice, the minimum amount of practice, and the gym was also 45 minutes away from my house. So it took up like all of my time. But anyway, that's besides the point. Andrew was basically the only friend that I had outside of gymnastics that I actually like really hung out with. Like I had other friends in school, but Andrew and I were extremely, extremely close. We still are extremely, extremely close. We started Crank Gameplays together. This was back on the old channel. And I know if you go to my channel right now and you go to the about, it'll say that it started in 2015, but that's when I remade the channel. But August 29th of 2012 is when the channel was created. And it was created just out of boredom at the time. The channel was directly inspired from Game Rumps because Andrew came to me one day. We had a shared study hall together. He just had his laptop out and he was watching these videos. And he showed me a Game Grumps animated because it was hilarious. And so we just started watching Game Grumps in August. So that was right before school started. That was like one of our last days of summer. It was August 29th because usually we started school right after Labor Day. And so it was one of our last days of summer. We were up really late. And we were like, ah, we're bored. It was the classic summer boredom, you know, which I really miss. I miss being bored, but it was like, God, we're hanging out. You're sleeping over. What do we want to do right now? And Andrew and I had always, since we were very little, like since we were like eight years old, our families had like the family camcorder and stuff like that. And so we always, whether it was for YouTube or not, most of the time it wasn't. It was just to make things, but we always loved making videos. So there's a lot of videos that are lost to the time. There was a laptop that had a lot of footage on it, of stuff that we shot. And then the laptop died at some point because back then, especially us being kids, it's not like we backed anything up. So once the laptop died, the footage went down with it. But we had made a lot of things. And we were both very interested in film and in video making. And we loved doing stuff like that. We loved, we were both like theater kids, him a lot more than I, but we both loved entertaining, blah, blah, blah. And so we were like, well, all these other people are just like playing video games. That's all we do in our time is just play video games and we just talk and that's all they're doing. We know how to run a camera and like, you know, he and I obviously because we're best friends, like we have good chemistry. And so we decided to do that. And so we sat down and recorded our first video, which was a happy wheels video. And that's how the channel started. And it was just started because we were bored and we wanted something to do and we both love the creative process. And I mean, at that point, it's not like we were doing much, but it was a way for us to sort of give ourselves purpose, I think at that point, because we did take it really seriously. And it was like, okay, we really like making these videos. And I think it was especially meaningful back then because it's not like anybody was watching. And like, I remember when we hit a hundred subscribers, when we hit 50 subscribers, like I remember all of those early milestones and it's crazy thinking about that. And it's crazy thinking about like the first comments ever and to see that it went from two kids who were bored and just decided to make some videos to what the channel is now. And obviously Andrew and I don't run Crank Gameplays together anymore. It's just me. And you guys probably know Andrew. He's been on the channel a few times since then. He was on the channel last year at some point and we did the trash goblin podcast together back a while ago. So Andrew and I have not stopped making stuff with each other. Like whenever we get the chance we like doing stuff with each other still, but it's not like we do it frequently. But it's crazy seeing that the channel has gone from just two bored kids to what it is now. And like, even though it's weird to say it legit, this is my career. And it's been a really great career, you know? It's something that I'm really grateful for. And it's something that got way bigger than I ever thought. And I'm really, really lucky to be at the spot that I'm at. I've just, I've been thinking a lot of about that recently, about how lucky I am and about how many opportunities I've had. And I just, I felt really grateful, you know? And all of that is thanks to you guys, you know? Like I get to do this every day. I get to make cool stuff for my job because of you guys. I get to live the life that I live because of what has happened, you know? I'm really fortunate I have a nice house and a nice car and like I am able to employ people. And like I got to go on tour and I just feel really, really lucky to have the life that I have. And it's really crazy to just think that everything happened because just wanted to make videos, just wanted to entertain people. And I don't even know if that's like why it started. Like thinking back to it, I don't even remember what the purpose was, you know? Like I don't remember what our goal was back then. Like it wasn't to get big because there was not many people at all that were making money. When we first started, I don't think we even knew that we could make money. You know, it wasn't like there was any like crazy big YouTube stars. This was in 2012. So I think back then even the biggest channels only had maybe a couple million subscribers. I think at the time, I think Fred was the biggest channel at this time. It was either Fred or Smosh. It might have been Smosh, but it's weird thinking back of like what was our purpose back then? Like why did we want to do it? And I don't even think there was a reason. I think it's just because it was fun and it was something that we liked doing. But I just feel really grateful and I've been thinking about that a lot recently just about how lucky I am to be able to do this and the amazing opportunities that I've had that even as a YouTuber, the opportunities that I've had are really rare. Like being able to go on tour is really rare for somebody to be able to do on YouTube. Like I'm not the biggest channel ever obviously, but it's really rare for a channel to be able to do that. And I just feel really lucky. It's also one of those things that I've started coming to terms with too as I've one grown as a YouTuber, but as I've grown as a person too, I think a lot in the last couple of years I've sort of realized because there's, this video's gonna get very personal. You know, I think people see it sometimes or probably a lot of times in the way that I joke is that I'm very self-deprecating. I don't necessarily know where that comes from, but I think a lot of it is classic imposter syndrome where I don't feel as I deserve what I have and I don't really give myself credit and I don't give myself compliments really ever. I don't really ever give myself compliments. And that was something that I worked on in therapy. I remember it was sort of like an accidental exposure therapy where a couple of years ago now my therapist told me that I needed to look myself in the mirror and genuinely tell myself that I loved myself and I did it and I broke down crying. And I don't really know where that comes from. I think a lot of it comes from my childhood and my sort of like my upbringing, not through my parents, because my parents have always been extremely supportive and my family as a whole has always been really, really, really supportive and extremely hardworking. And I think I get a bit of it from my dad because my dad is very, both of my parents are extremely talented, but my mom is extremely talented and she, not that she knows it in a flaunting way, but she's able to give herself credit and she's able to, she's an artist and she's able to make a piece of art and be like, okay, I like this and she's very good about giving herself love and my dad is not good at that with himself. Like he's extremely talented but he never gives himself any credit ever. And I think that I got that from him where it's very, very rare for me to give myself compliments or tell myself that I did a good job or recognize that I did something good or made something good. And again, I think a lot of that comes from my childhood because of gymnastics. Well, it is an amazing sport and a sport that I really loved and a sport that really formed who I am as a person despite the sort of endless amounts of positives about the sport, cause I really did love it and I don't regret doing it for a second. Gymnastics is one of those sports where every single tiny movement is being judged. And so nothing is ever perfect in gymnastics. You know, you could have the best routine of your life but it's still not perfect. Everything is being judged. Nothing is really ever good enough. You know, everything can be improved. And so I think that that's where I got a lot of that mentality is that it's like, okay, did I make a cool video or did I make a cool experience for somebody? Like even with my tour, it took a really long time. Like did I make a good show? Well, I don't know, but I know that it can be better. And so it's hard for me to give myself an actual compliment because it's like, okay, like it might be good maybe, but like it can be better. And so I've had a really hard time with that and I've been trying to fix that in myself and be able to give myself compliments because I do think that I'm good at what I do but there's always that thing of like, I wanna do more. I wanna do better. I wanna, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, because I don't wanna waste the opportunities that I've been given and the opportunities that I have, you know, because I do think that I have a lot of potential and I do think that I'm good at this and it's sort of taken me a really long time to figure that out. And I always, and this is something that I need to figure out how to do too, is give myself, how to give myself a compliment without having to explain it, because immediately, as soon as I said, I think I have potential, my brain goes, well, now you sound arrogant. Now you need to make sure that they know the people watching, the people listening, that they know that you're not trying to be arrogant, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, it's become a thing in my mind where giving myself a compliment is a negative thing. It's something that makes me look bad or it's something that makes me seem like an asshole. But I'm kind of just going off on a tangent, but I don't know, I've just felt, I've felt very grateful for the things that I've been able to do and the things that I've been a part of and the people that I've met. And it's really wild thinking about everything that's happened. There's a lot of times where I think about it and it doesn't even really make sense sometimes where it's like, why am I the person that this happened to, like what? I don't, and again, with me being like, I'm not good enough, it's like, why was I the person that all this happened to and I got to move out to LA and blah, blah, blah, and all this happened and I went on tour with all the guys and then I went on my own tour and blah, blah, blah, blah, and then I did Eunice Honest and like, blah, blah, blah, like why am I that person? Like I don't feel like I should be that person. I don't know, it's wild. It's wild seeing everything and it's wild. This is the thing that I think I learned from tour is that like, it's wild that people care. And that was something that I was really worried about with tour was working really hard on the show that I did and making a show and then, you know, you can work as hard as you want on the show but with a live tour, if there's not butts and seats then it doesn't really matter because at a certain point if there's not enough people that go to the shows all around, not even just like, even if there was one show that was completely sold out and everything else didn't sell, couldn't do a tour, you know? And so that was something that I was really scared about. It's like, I know that people care but like do enough people care. And that was something that like freaked me out for a bit and it was something that I really had to like, I had to analyze because that was something that, you know, the touring companies and the venues and stuff, they need that information of like, yeah, well, we know that people care about your videos and stuff, but will people care enough? And that was something I was super afraid of and something that really surprised me was how many people cared. And it was something that really impacted me a lot and something that you may or may not see in the future with some footage, but something that I sort of realized of like seeing all the people in the audiences night after night after night, being like, wow, people care. And that's really, really, really cool. It was something that was kind of hard for me to realize and something that was hard for me to take in because I didn't think that I deserved that, you know? But 10 years, 10 years of doing this, it's real, real wild. Doesn't feel real. And it's also very scary because it's like, oh, what next? Or either like, what next? Or how do I not f**k up what is already happening? You know, how do I keep the good times going, blah, blah, blah, blah, that kind of thing? It's scary. How do you continue to make people care after 10 years? Like how do I not become old news? And that's something that like I've also realized recently, like I think the pandemic spawned a lot of new creators, whether it's through YouTube or streaming or whatever, because people were forced to just be inside. And so a lot of people picked up streaming and stuff. And so now there's a lot of new people that have only been streaming for the past couple of years who are now like gigantic. And it's really crazy watching all of that happen. And it's really awesome too, but it's also like, oh man, like I feel like old now, like not in a sense of age necessarily, but like I've been doing this for a really long time. And like I'm worried about running out of juice or I'm worried about just being the old hat. You know, I've been doing this for such a long time now that I'm like, okay, when are people gonna hang me up and go on to the new thing? You know, when am I, this sounds so like, like, oh pity me, but I don't know. I guess I'm just speaking my mind, but it's like, oh, when are people gonna forget about me? And it'll happen someday. And I know that that's inevitable. This isn't gonna go on forever and ever, but just something that, you know, the brain gets nervous about, especially when like as much fun as I have with this and as much as I do love it. At the end of the day, it is still my job. So it is a thing that I worry about of like, oh, from a business standpoint, it's like, I need to make sure that work is going well because if it's not, then I don't have a job. And especially me, like I didn't go to school, I don't have a degree, I don't know how to do a ton of stuff. And so it's like, if everything went down the drain, what would I do? Like I don't feel like I'm qualified to do anything. I don't even feel like I'm qualified to be doing this because I'm basically just bullshitting half the time. I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore. I'm just kind of rambling, but I just, I wanna make sure you guys know that I appreciate everything so much and I'm so proud of how this community has grown. And I'm really proud of the community as a whole. Like I think that I've become a bit disconnected these last few years. And I think that I needed to do that for myself. And I'm starting to get ready to like be with the community a bit more, interact with the community a bit more. It was, it got to a point where it was really, really bad for my mental health in a lot of different ways. Like that's kind of why I don't really use tumblr all that much anymore. There was just a lot of like different threads of like negative stuff and people can say whatever they want. And as much as I would like to say that it doesn't affect me, after you read a bunch of stuff, it does at some point, you know? I wish it didn't, but like, but like it does. And that's a big reason why I decided to step back because like I don't really respond to comments anymore. I'm, I don't really respond to much at all on any platform. And I think a lot of that was just me not wanting to because every time I did, I kind of felt like shit and I was worried about like, oh, what am I going to read that's going to make me feel horrible about myself? And like me being like, oh, well, all these people don't like me that are on this like thread. That means I'm a horrible person and like I'm probably just a piece of shit. And so like after a while, it does get to you. And like not only can it make you really sad and depressed but it can also make you really mad. Cause like it's just a lot of the times is people making a bunch of assumptions about you as a person or about your life or about your relationships or whatever. Because at the end of the day, I've said this before but what is in videos is the version of myself that I've choose to present to you. You know, you don't really know me as a person. You don't know as despite what any creator does in front of the camera. Despite how genuine it may seem like everybody to an extent is putting on for the camera. You know, it's not exactly how they are in real life. And I hope that people remember that with me too. It's like I'm choosing to give you a version of myself that I want you to see. Yeah, I don't know. I can just really get to you sometimes especially with assumptions and shit like that and comparisons, you know, I think I get a lot of that. I think, you know, there's a ton of people that get it but you know, I'm not the only one in this particular situation but you know, it's the obvious like people compare me to Mark nonstop. People compare me to Sean nonstop. People only want to watch sometimes if it's you know, something with Mark or something Unison is related or sometimes it kind of sucks seeing that as much as I obviously love making videos with Mark and with Sean and stuff. It's like, oh, I wish people were that excited for videos with just me. Like I wish that people weren't constantly asking about somebody else or like I wish that, you know, when I made stuff with somebody else it wasn't such a drastic change in views and excitement and stuff like that. But you know, that's another thing that just like, it's just the way it is comes with the territory. It comes with the circumstance that I'm in and like it's fine. And it's just something that I have to deal with. But I'm not going to pretend like it doesn't affect me. You know, obviously I'm not going to pretend like, oh, that's just the way it is. Doesn't bother me at all. I just have to move on. Like it bugs me and that's fine. And I'm obviously like open about it and obviously it's nothing personal. Like from what we were talking about in Mark's video which I'll link below by the way cause it was very nice just getting a talk openly and talk about Loona's honest and everything. But, you know, we talked about that a bit on there where, you know, I was really proud of the show and the success of the show, like being my tour, I mean. And I said this, I was like, you know, it was a nice feeling having something be successful that wasn't attached to Mark. You know, and obviously like he understands that because it was a nice feeling of like, wow, like people came here for me to see me, to support me, to see the thing that I made. That was really, really nice. It was something that was, it was really special, really, really, really special. Something that I had so much fun with and it's also something that I'm afraid of, you know, like I'm, I talked about this on the power watch some video with Mark as well. Like I'm afraid that like, oh no, what if that's all the juice that I have? You know, what if, what if that's it? And I don't think it is, but it's an obvious, it's an obvious fear. You know, it's a very, it's a very obvious fear. That's just sort of the way the cookie crumbles with that. It's the way the cookie crumbles. I don't plan on stopping anytime soon. I don't plan on, you know, going somewhere else or anything like that. I still wholeheartedly love doing this. I do plan on trying to change things up and I do plan on trying to expand a bit more and challenge myself more because that was the best thing about doing the show was something that I had never done before. You know, I'd been on tour before and I had been on stage, but the show was so completely different from anything that I've ever done. So like I want to do more stuff that challenges me like that and more stuff that excites me like that because I hadn't been that excited about something in a really long time. And I hadn't been that proud of something as much as I was proud of that show and everything that happened. So it was really special. And again, thank you guys for being such an amazing audience and supporting that and giving me that opportunity to do that because I'm really proud of that show and I genuinely think it was good and I'm proud of myself. And I'm sure a couple of years down the line if I do more shows, I'm sure I'll look back and be like, oh, that was shit. And I hope that happens. Like I hope that I'm able to do more stuff and to look back and be like, oh man, you know, my first show, you know, come me a little slack because it's my first one, but that was bad. Like I hope that that happens because that means I'm growing and improving and making more stuff and making cooler shit. We'll see what the next 10 years brings and sort of like making this preemptively because I'm definitely gonna make a video on 10 years of me just sitting down and talking. So it'll probably be more or less what this is, just me repeating myself, but I've been having a lot of fun lately and it's been nice to just be able to reflect and to think about things in a bit more positive of a way and think about things in a very grateful way. And it's just been, it's been nice and it's gotten me excited and this month has been really excited too, this month of August when this is released, depending on if you're watching this in the future because I've been challenging myself to upload daily because for kind of forever, I've been inconsistent. There was definitely a time where I was really consistent and I was making two videos every day for a bit, but that has long since passed and so I wanted to challenge myself again to upload consistently and to upload every day in August and it's been really nice and that itself has been a challenge of making sure things go up and so much of that work is the editors. They've done such an amazing job. And my assistant Jocelyn has been amazing as well with like helping me schedule everything and scheduling bigger shoots and bigger videos with other people. And so it's absolutely not just me. Hats off to the editors and to Jocelyn because yeah, they are the real heroes, but it's been really fun trying to make stuff every day again because I don't know, for a while and I feel like I'm just starting to come out of it, like I felt like a bad YouTuber, like not like bad because I wasn't uploading. I mean that inherently is part of it, but I felt like my side of the videos were not good. Like I felt like I wasn't being as entertaining as I could and I feel like I'm starting to come back and I don't know, I wanna, I've said this before, but I wanna be people's favorite YouTuber again in the sense of like, oh, his videos are really good and people wanna talk about the videos more because it's like, oh, this video is really funny and blah blah blah and like, I don't know, I just wanna give people a reason to care again and like, especially after what I was just saying, not again, but I don't know, I wanna be a good YouTuber again because I felt like I wasn't for a really long time and I felt like I was just doing a bad job and I wasn't proud of what I was making. I feel like I'm starting to come back from that and I feel like I'm just getting better and I feel happier and I feel I'm challenging myself more and I've got videos coming up that I'm really excited for that are gonna be really fun and a lot of it too is like, not even stuff that's like crazy or like good ideas even. Like it's just fun stuff, like video coming out on Saturday is literally me getting covered in glue. Like, but it was a really fun chaotic video and I think it's gonna come together really well and like the idea of that is nothing but I know that people are gonna love it because it was really fun and the energy was really good and there was funny stuff in it and I don't know, I'm excited to be making stuff that I am proud of again and even like normal videos lately, I feel like I've just been better. I've been having more fun, I've been more energetic, I feel like I'm being funnier. I feel like starting to feel like I know what I'm doing again and that's been really nice and it's been nice too in a weird way. The other day I lost a bunch of recordings and I was really upset about it and I wasn't just upset about it because it was like, oh man, now I have to record more. I was upset because I was like, oh man, I really liked those videos. Like that sucks that that recording was lost. Like I felt good about that and so that was nice, like losing a recording and being instead of being like, oh man, now I have to record more, being like, oh, that sucks. Like I liked that video and I won't be able to like replicate that and so that's been sort of taking positives out of a negative of like, oh, you know, we lost all that footage but isn't that kind of nice to feel upset that you lost that footage? Not just that you lost footage in general but that you lost that footage? Like, I don't know, it's kind of bittersweet. It's kind of nice. Yeah, I'm just rambling, just spewing my thoughts. Thank you for sitting here and listening to me. I'm not gonna finish this entire tree house because I'm not even halfway done. There's a lot of this to do but just thanks for listening. I hope that this was entertaining somehow or I don't really know how this would be entertaining necessarily, but I hope that it was something. I know that it wasn't filled with energy. It's probably not gonna make a lot of people laugh but I hope that it gave you a little bit of perspective. I hope that maybe filled some time in your day and maybe you're on your way to work or something. I don't know, I don't know. I have no idea but thank you guys for being here. Thank you guys for listening. Thank you for your support. Whenever you started watching, thank you guys so much for almost 10 years of this. I wouldn't have it any other way. I feel just so grateful and so lucky to be where I am. So hashtag blessed, dude. So hashtag blessed. I don't know, I'm just feeling good and just very lucky. Very, very lucky. Just wanted to sit and talk and obviously I'll say this again on the day cause like I said, I'll have another sit down vlog where I talk about stuff but thank you guys for being here for 10 years. Here's to another 10, maybe. I'm not gonna promise another 10. I have no idea how long. I'm not quitting anytime soon. I'm not gonna promise another 10 but here's to more fun videos. Here's to more challenging myself. Here's to more being happy and having fun and making stuff that I'm proud of and here's to pushing myself more and making cooler shit. So whether you stick around or not, thanks for being here. Thanks for keeping me company for the last 40 or so minutes. Hope you have a good day. Bye.