When I started my channel back in 2013, I never thought I’d be writing this now…
Thursday 14th November 2019, a normal day for most, but for me it’ll always be the day I proved a lot of people wrong. It’s the day I reached 1000 YouTube subscribers.
Now this post isn’t going to be explaining why my channel will now be flooded with adverts, or why each stream will be exclusive to super chat only. I’m not that kind of guy. On the surface, nothing will be changing regarding adverts, as at this moment in time I will not be monetising my content. For me, reaching 1000 subscribers was never about the money. It was about the achievement, getting my acknowledgement back, feeling like I’m part of something bigger.
Without sounding too gushy, my YouTube channel has been a massive part of my life over the last 6 years. It helped me with my confidence issues, turned me from a shy 20 year old into a confident public speaker who regularly makes presentations to large groups of people. It’s helped me get through break-ups, bereavements, troubles in my academic career and many dark days. Sitting at my desk and hitting record was originally a means to escape being a struggling engineering student, that then quickly turned into my full-time focus. It gave me a second, well technically third, chance at university to get the degree I knew I was capable of but had always eluded me.
Losing my monetisation in 2017 nearly made me quit. Again, it wasn’t the money, it was the fact that literally overnight my channel went from being something to being nothing. My network dropped me, I lost access to lots of resources that I had been relying on, and I felt like my work didn’t matter anymore. I’ll be honest, it was pretty depressing. But the thing I learnt from that is use it to your advantage. My university thesis was actually based on the so-called ‘Adpocolypse’, and from writing that I learned a lot more about the industry I now work in. My anger and disappointment towards YouTube and my channel became the catalyst to better myself, and through that I turned things around, met Kurt, and got involved with X Vision Interactive. I feel that now I have proved that motivation can come from anywhere, and it’s never too late to succeed if you really want it enough.
I moan a lot in my videos and my streams. The reason being is I know that what I do isn’t the best on YouTube, but it’s still something I am incredibly proud of and want to share with as many people as possible. The channel was born out of frustration that not enough people made videos on the games I played. No one played games the same way I did. No one understood my methods, my reasoning, my style. I figured I couldn’t be the only one with that problem, and so I wanted to build a community where like-minded people could share thoughts and ideas. The frustration has never been about ‘making it big’ but rather the fact that I found an audience that weren’t willing to share the channel. People watch my content, and like it enough to subscribe and occasionally comment, but never went the extra step. But I get it, the reason the channel exists is also the reason it’s still small. It’s confidence. It’s anxiety. It’s the fear of being judged.
But here’s the thing, no one is alone in thinking that. If you go right back to my first video, you can tell that I was nervous. I had no idea what I was doing, I had no plans for any of my videos. I just started recording and winged it. It took me a long time to find my feet, and almost a year before I felt I was doing the right thing. Looking back now, I didn’t think it would last this long, but I kept pushing and working and here we are now. My big break came when I recorded Episode #1 of M4J3FFR135 Plays: Cities in Motion 2. At the time of writing that video has just over 19,000 views, an insanely high number! The success of that series made me want to make content creation my career, and that was the best decision I think I’ve ever made.
So the reason I get frustrated now is I’m always wanting the next series to be better than the last, but I know that for that to happen it’s not up to me. My audience are the most important part of M4J, you guys make the channel what it is. It is disheartening when I stream for 2 hours and no one talks. It is demoralising when I spend 12 hours on a video and only 10 people watch it. It is annoying when the only comments I got were “Your audio is slightly out of sync”. I always put myself in other people’s shoes, imagine how I would feel in their position. I’m the first to admit I’m still learning, but I’ll always do my best to ensure mistakes aren’t repeated. I listen to you guys, I take on board people’s comments and I do my best to give you what you want to see. Which is why I ask for you to do your bit as well.
My Discord is open 24/7. The same goes for my Reddit. My YouTube comments section was re-enabled so people can leave feedback. I want you guys to have a voice, to be part of the decisions. I also need you to keep sharing the channel as much as you can. Reaching 1000 subscribers is huge, but it is just the beginning. Again, it’s about confidence. I want you all to know that M4J is a judgement-free place. We all have our interests, and the M4J Discord and Reddit is a good place to discuss those interests. I used to shy away from being interested in railways, I used to keep it to myself as much as possible, but now I’m proud to call myself a railway enthusiast. To me, liking railways and trains is the same as someone liking football. You can be as casual or nerdy as you want, it’s entirely up to you. F*ck what anyone else thinks!
To anyone who did ever doubt me, I hope now you can appreciate the work put in to making this channel. From this, I got through some really bad times and even managed to graduate university having narrowly missed out getting a first class honours. I have an awesome job in an exciting company with some great friends. And once a week currently, I get to hang out with you guys and chat whilst playing games. M4J isn’t just me, it’s each and every subscriber past and present. We are all part of the community, and I want to build on that from now on. I say “we” a lot for a reason. This channel is me and you, not one or the other. Without either of those, the channel dies. We’re all in this together.
Thank you to each and every one of you for watching, hitting the like button if you enjoyed the video and series, dropping comments down below with ideas for future episodes and subscribing and continuing to support the channel. Without you, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
Thanks for reading, and until next time I will see you soon.
Here’s to 2000!