A Bit of a Reboot  10/16/26

Three months ago I published a video on YouTube called Goodbye Banjo. I said at the time that this was not just the best video I had uploaded to YouTube but the best creative work I had ever produced in my life. I still believe this. It is something I am extremely proud of and something I felt truly alive while doing. The response has been really touching as well. Peers and strangers alike told me both in the comments of the video and in private just how great they thought the video was and how it had really affected them. It's been such a joy for me, but it was also the onset of a really big creative struggle.

I had made something that was, in my view, so perfect and so unlike anything I had ever done that I felt like I would never be able to properly follow it up. I just could not find a way to top that video. I went back and forth for weeks which then turned into months. I even considered fully pivoting from video essays to putting my full focus into films and other shorts. But ultimately after taking a break and giving myself some time to mentally breathe, so to speak, I came up with something that I think is going to be way more fun and way more rewarding. Instead of trying to improve on the formula I had established (which really wasn't much to begin with) I could try to build something new from the ground up!

I want to take my video essays, my typical subject matter, and my style of humor, and build something that compliments all of them really well in a way that is uniquely me. I've always said to friends in the "Youtube Video Game Essay Space" that it's my opinion that your best work will always come from taking your own personal experience and injecting it into your work in a way that's honest and interesting. Everyone has played Super Mario 64, but nobody has seen it through your eyes; if you catch my meaning. 

If you're subscribed to my channel (which I imagine that if you're reading this then you are) then you'll see that I uploaded two original songs the other day. Yes, I wanted to show of some fun side projects that I've been working on, but they're also a part of something way larger. In my newer videos to come, one of the goals is to try and write a ton of original music to be used in them. This is something I did a bit in the last video and those are some of my favorite parts. I wanted to have a sort of musical identity within my videos that is solely mine that would go hand in hand with a larger visual overhaul.

In addition to the music I'm also building a virtual set; one that I can mask or key myself into rather than just standing in front of whatever I decided to put behind me while editing. I've been wanting to ditch the whole "holding a microphone in front of a green screen" thing for a while now and I thought this would bring a bit more meaning and intention to the presentation. This allows me way more flexibility with my lighting, camera positioning, and just general subject matter and mood. I've attached some photos below, but keep in mind that they are still very much a work in progress. I am pretty confident in my 3D modelling and scene building skills, so now I can use that to really sort of make anything I want. I did a lot of this sort of thing in videos past like the beginning of The Bizarre World of Video Game Mysteries and the 4:59 and 47:47 marks in I Love Water Levels*.

Lastly, I've also brought on some extra talent. A have a couple people doing voices, and a couple people who are going to help edit my writing a bit (mainly just to make sure certain ideas are clear and certain jokes actually land). They're people that I trust a lot and that I think are extremely talented, so I'm really excited to really get to work with them. 

My videos from here on out are going to look different, but they're still going to be uniquely me. They'll still have the same feel as most all of my past work because it's still going to be my ideas, my perspective, my humor, and my voice that is the driving force behind it all. It's been a while since my vision has been this clear, and I have never felt more driven to create. I really want to make this work, and I am confident in my ability to do so. It may take a bit more time to get things rolling but once they are, I feel I can be a lot more consistent with my uploads and with my style and format (I hope). Thanks for sticking with me. Thanks for believing in me. I'll see you soon <3