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Recently, I decided to minimize some of my social media accounts. One of the worst offenders was YouTube as I had 5 different accounts, one is the one I had as a teenager, another is one I had under my deadname of which I intended to become a filmmaker with, another was just "Shadow Bliss" films. The other two were honestly just wastes of space. So I took 3 away and I'm now down to "teenager" and "now" but I also wanted to remove a lot of the content as I honestly don't REALLY like YouTube's business practices (I most use it for music videos and movie clips and...archive.org can do that!). As of now, only this video gets the spotlight on my channel
However, I have a second video I uploaded to coinside with a certain American event in January 2025. I'd say my sense of humour was extremely tasteless but if you haven't worked THAT OUT yet, keep watching.
I also had my sibling ask me to make a rather overused YouTube cliche "work" for his channel and...it was Shrek being redubbed by the Mike Myers Austin Powers character, Fat Bastard. I did all barring the last two and the dinner scene from Shrek 2. So with that in mind, here is what I came up with
Now I also had the videos in the "My Cats" tab being on YouTube. I removed them because...it didn't fit in with the rest of it. However, the rest of my channel perfectly fits with the comedic "RANDUM!" of the prior two videos.
Now...I'm not going to upload all those videos here. This is because, for me, the videos I made, while cringey today (as if that's bothered me before!?), does give me nostalgia for the time I uploaded those videos, back when YouTube and mainstream internet culture on the whole didn't feel AS BAD as it does now. This is why I've never deleted the channel because, barring for the channel trailer, 10 year anniversary and a page on this website, I miss it. That said...I do have a couple videos I want to share here, one IS an unreleased video (I'll explain when I get to it as I feel like more than any other video here, it needs it), the second is one of my more popular videos but with some history
I first saw American Mary when I was 16 and I did legitimately love the movie back then (I haven't seen it in a while). However, at the time I'd obsessively find "this movie? this song? put together? anyone else done that?" And honestly, the Soska sisters were a LOT more open to fan comments back then. I remember asking them about putting Seether over the movie and they LOVED the idea (I don't have evidence of that). However...what I DO have evidence of is...
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Honestly, that kind of appreciation from creator to fan (it's possible to say it was half hearted but that's still showing AN appreciation for their work) made a legitimately amazing impression on me.
Up next is the ONE video that I've made that has been successfully taken off YouTube multiple times. Now before I start, when I was 16 I learnt about Genie. An abused child that had been so deprived of love and knowledge that scientists had to teach her developmental psychology (how to process emotions and communicate). I was honestly moved by the story and...found a biopic about her called Mockingbird Don't Sing and "hey, Three Days Grace would go PERFECT over this!"
At the time I made that video, I saw it as the very best thing I had ever made. Honestly...for once my taste and the general public's aligned as that was my most popular video, raking in 58K views. However, the film's director Harry Bromley-Davenport took issue and got it a worldwide ban. At the time: "well alright, I don't want to piss people off", however, that has changed because the movie itself IS on YouTube for free. I do have issues with this video today - namely that the song choice AND the way I framed the idea of this real person was for her, it "wasn't too late" whereas information about this person after 1978 is scarce and by all accounts (sorry for bumming you out...and for spoilers but I don't see "you SPOILED A MOVIE?!" as being as important as a human life), she is still a ward of the state. I suppose this video was and, in a way still is, a form of hope that she's happy. That she's moved on from such intense trauma.
There's something real about that. I think it speaks to a very human hope that you can look at someone who was an intense victim of trauma and hope they're beyond it. I wouldn't even know where to start with recovery after a story like hers but that hope is still there. Honestly, yes, I COULD make YouTube content like this all the time. I just don't want to.
Okay so, I wanted to add an "additional" for the sake of those asking this question. I can understand why you'd be asking this if you've avoided my "Why" page. That said, this is specific to YouTube though so there will be new information. It's a lot to unpack but it paints a pretty clear picture.
To start with, I kind of hate how a lot of videos on the platform now are just "milkable outrage points". Whether it's the right wing complaining that people like me even exist or left wing people who prefer in-fighting and circle jerking to getting shit done, it's just this constant rip off where content uploaded is just that Peter Finch "Mad As Hell" speech from Network (1976) for a new audience. Sometimes it's about things that don't even matter (I mean how many "movie from my childhood remade for modern era! Me like it from MY CHILDHOOD ERA! BULK SMASH!" do we NEED to see?). When it's not someone screaming into a camera or microphone, it's just obvious clickbait about "destroying" Woke people, Trump or "agenda driven interviews" and it's the most derivitive shit imagineable because NO ONE is talking about ANY of these events that "destroyed" those three! (unless it's on old media...I'll get back to this point)
SPEAKING of derivitive shit, YouTube is another company which is rife with AI bullshit. Fake trailers, fake content about people, a text to speech reading the news that's also AI generated, This is a part of another trend but the "facts" ones are just anti-intellectualism. Plain and simple (I have receipts). As for fake trailers I also see that as anti-fanart. I mean where's the love and effort for these characters and properties that you're drawing from? I mean there is a lot in my teen YouTube channel to criticize but at least those songs, those properties, I was a fan of them at the time I made those videos. I also gave more credit to the media I took from to make that content so I stand by "I'm better than AI" (if you can outwit a sock, so are you!)
To be fair, while it's easy to hate on AI, it's adoption is a symptom to the disease of "algorithm chasing". Creators who make videos and do so with at least a partial aim to let their analytics go up. You can definitely tell when certain creators are trend chasers. I mean I understand why as content creation doesn't seem to pay well (why do we need sponsorships, Patreon, Ko-Fi and "YouTube Membership?" This website is owned by GOOGLE!) but I do also question how long anyone can keep that up and it not taking a toll or even how long they can keep up discussing niche subjects (and you see that happening OVER and OVER again!). I don't blame the creators, it's just an unrealistic expectation that your videos will ALWAYS appeal, all the time and you'll be sustainable in that career for a decade. Its more of that lie of infinite growth. The weird part of it here is NO ONE has a complete career charter for "this is what a YouTuber's life is like" in the same way we can say that about actors, rock stars, directors (given how trend based it is...CAN WE map that out?!). Hell, Bo Burnham is often seen as "patient zero" of getting fame off of YouTube content creation and with how often his comedy deals with mental health issues, how willing he is to throw old routines under the bus, and the times he's just disappeared from his fans, (the man is only 6 years older than I am, he had that career boost when he was a minor!) it's also easy to question what "you need to be CONSTANTLY entertaining all the time" does to ordinary people who don't expect the downsides of fame? Especially as now they're competing against generative AI slophouse bullshit. Serious question, could any content creator risk taking a health break without being overtaken and overshadowed by the AI?
Then there's something I find as being TELLING about the platform. Namely, over half the videos that get into the "TRENDING" section are from old media figureheads. Fox News, John Oliver, Jon Stewart, Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, CNN, Universal Studios, Disney, WB, on face value, I don't actually dislike this. None of it. I honestly don't like anyone or anything I've just listed (The pundits because of the afforementioned "Peter Finch Mad As Hell" thing. The studios because of what entertainment media has become - read "Why?" to get clearer thoughts) but if they DO decide to create a channel, it's not something I can stop. What I DO mind is that this old media stranglehold of trying desperately to stay relevant has squeezed creators unique to the platform dry. The original idea of YouTube, so I thought, was that it was this "cool site where you can FINALLY show the world your face, what you can do and some stupid shit you did in the park" (to be clear, the ideas of "YouTube analytics" "content creator as a career" "an algorithm to promote videos" were NOWHERE to be found on the site in it's early days). Bringing in old media just feels like a death nell of that original vision for the website. Like the appeal of the entire site itself has just gone up in smoke in favour of platforming old media on new media.
So that is why I upload content HERE now and why the few I HAVE put on YouTube are "unmarketable."