PROBABLY THE MOST PERSONAL BLOG I'VE EVER WRITTEN

We got the above comment on the latest Digi video. There’ll be others. 

It’s a complicated thing, Digitiser, with a complicated history. It means something different to me than it probably does for much of its audience. I know for a lot of you reading this, and for many who remember it who aren’t on here, it was part of your formative years.

People can feel a sense of ownership over something that means so much to them… So I get that when it changes, or doesn’t behave in the way they’ve come to expect, they can feel let down. 

A whole new audience watches it today that has no memory of its original Teletext incarnation… but at every step of the way, even back then, it has just been a way of expressing myself. I went all-out with Digi Level 2 to give something to people who grew up loving it – and to those who loved those years I collaborated with Gannon. It was a final hurrah.

I know I’ve flirted with doing Digi Level 3… but the viewing figures have been dreadful on the last couple of eps, and the hoo-ha over my use of AI in that final episode have kind of left me wary. Never say never, but I don’t think the audience is there. We’re still doing Drong’s Challenge, and we may yet do something like Digi Deluxe or The Golden Bean on the second channel, but I need to be in the right headspace. I can't just be spontaneously funny on demand.

When we get comments like that - yes, I know it was on a different channel - it makes it feel like it wasn't worth the time, love, and effort we put into it. Still I'd given my all to Digi Level 2, and felt I’d earned the right to make some stuff just for me. Which is what our Poland trip was all about. 

OOT AND ABOOT

When Sanja and I knew we were enjoying going out and making what were – at first – tongue-in-cheek documentaries, we knew that we wanted to bring as many of you with us as we could. 

As I’ve said elsewhere, we’d been finding the sofa and desk videos increasingly difficult to do. In part, that’s because we were trying to please the audience before ourselves, and so the ideas just weren’t flowing. In all honesty, I was very much pushed by Gannon into covering old toys and stuff – they’re much more his area. 

Plus, there was always part of me that felt I had to be funny. I’m not just talking about on Digi – but my whole life. But I’ll get to that…

I stuck it out because, well… it’s nice to have people accept you, and being funny brought more of that acceptance. That was healing in a lot of ways, but I grew beyond needing to heal that part of me, and needing to rely on that. 

We knew the change might not be for everyone, so it was a gradual process of moving to more serious subjects – we kept the characters popping up here and there (as recently as the Big Cats video), we had a ludicrous ending to our UFO video last December, and I think there are some really funny bits in all three of the Poland videos. They’re not shoehorned in – they’re just us being us. 

But nevertheless… every time we’ve put out a video now we get people telling us they prefer the old stuff.  Even though they already had two-and-a-half hours of the ‘old stuff’ in Digi Level 2 this year, along with a bunch of Let’s Plays, which are anything but serious. And there’s a lot more to come! I swear!!

Ballbags. See? I swear.

BALLBAGS

So, we’ve really tried to bring people with us and smooth over the transition to these big, bold, proper documentaries. We did this even knowing that we’d lose people along the way. We hate that, frankly, because – since telly imploded – we rely on the Patreon income. But we also understand it’s the price we pay for being fulfilled creatively.

Yes, there’s an argument to be had that we should’ve started a new channel under a new name, but all of this kind of happened organically. Plus, in my head, they’re just me being me… only more so. 

Digi – the YouTube channel – was never that defined, so the out-and-about format, and then the documentary format, sort of snuck up on us just as much as they probably did for many of you. For me, there’s enough humour in there for them to still feel like what I define as Digi.

Even so, by the time we realised “Oh, this is what we do now” we were a whole way into it, and the videos were doing better than the old ones. Getting twice as many views at least, sometimes many more – and the channel was growing again. So… hard to just change the name and start afresh. 

THE CRUX OF IT

Here's the thing… when I was a kid, being The Funny One was a defence mechanism. 

It was a way to make friends – so I felt less alone. It was a way to – at least temporarily – win over the bullies. At home, “being funny” was accepted in a way that some of my other emotions, feelings and thoughts weren’t.

Heck, I even married someone who would’ve preferred it if was just the clown and nothing else. I ended up squashing myself into a tiny cube and hiding it deep inside my soul. 

It wasn’t until I did my counselling training, and I met Sanja, that I finally started to embrace the whole of me, and learn that the other parts of who I am had worth, and were worthy of love.

I mean, I can still be the clown – she and I very much bonded over laughter, but also over our feelings, our thoughts, the things that interested us. Before her I’d never had a relationship where I could be all the things that I am… and be loved for it. I had never met somebody who would so defend my right to be me, who would fight for me, the way she does. 

Because of my formative experiences, because Digitiser was funny in its original format, because of how I related to the world growing up, because of the clown-face armour I wore, I kind of became labelled a comedian by accident, but I was always trying to find ways to express other parts of myself.  

EDGE

Back when I was writing my column in Edge magazine, it was – originally – rarely funny. Then one day I got an email from the editor Tony Mott asking me to make it more of a comedy column. That lasted about three months, and then I just reverted back to what I was doing, because I found it too difficult and unenjoyable. 

So, when we get these comments… it takes me right back, and it really, really hurts. It feels all over again that I can only be accepted if I’m The Funny One (and to hide any other less-acceptable sides of my personality). It feels like I’m not allowed to be anything else. Just be funny. Make us laugh. Stop having feelings. Stop having opinions and thoughts. 

I spent too much of my adult life hiding all those sides of myself, because they weren’t accepted. After everything I’ve been through in recent years, I no longer want to hide them.

That doesn’t mean I’ll stop being funny – of course not – but this is where I am, right now, and when people tell me they prefer what I was doing before… well, it feels like a rejection.

I understand – it’s honestly not a complaint. I get that people are disappointed that we’re not just doing all-out-chaos comedy like we used to. They’re very free to unsubscribe, cancel their Patrons, or whatever – and they are doing that! Patreon used to more or less cover a bunch of our most vital bills… now it doesn’t. But it’s okay. We get it. Completely.

We’ve pivoted to something different, and we’ve lost a lot of our most passionate audience members as a result. It was always going to happen, and we’re trying to play the long game here to make a go of doing the thing we’ve discovered we really enjoy doing.

I'd rather have an audience that wants to be here for what we are, than an audience that is here begrudgingly wanting me to be something else. Again, I've had relationships like that. No more thanks.

I mean, I feel we’re always going to have an element of comedy in what we do. Always. Because that is part of who we are – that’s our relationship. The first two Poland vids had loads of funny stuff alongside the serious. There was actually more funny stuff filmed - which some of you will get as outtakes - that I edited out, because I had to ignore that learned impulse, and be true to what the video wanted to be.

TRAUMA

But that feeling of rejection for being something other than a benign funnyman… it’s too familiar. It’s too painful. It’s too rooted in early trauma. I can’t spend forever just running from that pain, and so wherever this path leads… I need to follow it and block out those sorts of comments and voices. Though that’s hard, because we like engaging with the audience (90% of which continues to be supportive).

Something I dealt with last year when my mum first went into the nursing home (and I’m still dealing with to be honest), was facing up to the realisation that she’d always probably had some sort of mental health condition.

I don’t know if it was BPD – borderline personality disorder – but it was something very much like it. I knew she wasn't like other mums. She could be unpredictable in ways that were terrifying. If I was anything other than a wee cheeky chap… I’d get into massive trouble. Sometimes I’d get the silent treatment for weeks on end, and then she could explode at me out of the blue, and the screaming could last for hours. 

I still love my mum - she could also be kind, loving, and warm - but it was a very transactional sort of love. 

Making these newer videos – as well as being work I’m so proud of – is really about reclaiming myself from that. In my lovely dad’s final few years, I’d take him to hospital regularly, and we’d talk, and it was clear how unhappy he’d been – how much living with my mum, had taken its toll, whittled him away. After we lost him, we kind of got the full force of her, how utterly impossible she could be, and realised how much he’d shielded us as adults. It brought up a lot from childhood. Like I say... tough few years.

I mean, with these videos I get to stretch myself in so many different ways – they feel such a rich experience to make, from the artwork, to the music, to the editing, to the performing, to the research. They feel like flying, whereas before when I’m sat on a sofa talking about Stretch Armstrong while dressed as Snowmobile Dundee, or whatever, it’s… like being trapped in a cage.

That isn’t to criticise ANYONE for preferring that stuff. If my favourite comedians suddenly started doing serious documentaries, I’d probably lose interest too, but this isn’t something I’m even really doing by choice. It’s something I’m compelled to do, because I’m absolutely loving it. So is Sanja. And you can blame it all on her for loving all of me.

Except when I get talc all over the floor.