PLEASE, WHAT IS GOOD IN THE HOOD?

Happy Monday, top-tier gang. Hope you're all good.

So at the end of last week, I temporarily disabled comments on the YouTube channel... then made it so they had to be approved before I'd post them. It was pretty clear that one rabid idiot, with multiple accounts, was spamming the comments with "bring back Gannon/Larry/Eli"  and "this is shit content"-type posts - essentially paraphrasing me, because he obviously thought that was the best way to get under my skin.

It didn't. And it didn't bother Sanja either, thankfully. Or, rather, what they were saying didn't bother me - just made me more determined to continue in this vein, if anything - but it does rankle a bit when I know someone is deliberately trying to get a rise out of me just for the sake of it. It's just so tiresome. I mean, how old are you?!

But nonetheless, I'm not having our otherwise lovely YT comments section dominated by one or two twats. Who of course, then did the whole "LOL... I made you shut down comments, you coward... Not a good look" thing when realising I was deleting the comments. Even though I was screen-shotting them first before deleting them, and actually shared a few on Twitter. 

It was probably a mistake to do that, of course; that sort of exposure just encourages the troll... but I've always been of the opinion that you shine a light on that sort of limp behaviour, not keep it in the shadows.

That said, mainly it was so I could go "See!!! I told you all I wasn't making it up!" about those who didn't like the channel's current, Lockdown-imposed, direction (again, it has become clear that we massively underestimated the number of people we inherited from Barshens, who seem to only want all Barshens people all the time... who thought Digitiser was an extension of Barshens... and didn't understand that Digi, and me, had a whole history that existed before Barshens).

But aaaaaanyway... I'll get rid of the comment approval thing in a couple of days. We're actually meant to be filming with Gannon this week, but I'm wary, because now it risks looking like I've only brought him back because some CS fans threw their toys out of the pram. 

CONFIDENCE IS HIGH

Ultimately, since the rebrand, I've never felt more confident about what the channel is and isn't, and that we'll find our audience in time. And that I won't care if we don't, because I enjoy what we're doing, and plenty of you lot enjoy it, and that is enough. On the videos with Sanja, though they have been deliberately quite lo-fi and unplugged - chiefly because most of my energies have been going into Lost Footage in recent months - I love the warmth and realness of them, especially the Storytime episodes. They felt right for the time we're living in.

And of course... I've loved Lost Footage.

It has been good to get clear why I'm doing this - especially at my age, when I already have a career that's going just fine, thanks - and it's simply because I enjoy it. I enjoy the challenge, I enjoy messing about, I love making things... and the pace of proper TV production can be tortuously glacial. I love the community. I cease enjoying myself when I'm trying to tailor the content to people who want something different.

At the weekend, we were throwing around ideas for where we go from here; I kind of want to do something with a bit more production soon - just some set dressing, like we used to have with the desk, and a second camera. I know you probably don't care, but I appreciate it when it looks like we've put a bit of effort into the look of episodes. And Gannon episodes will likely remain at the desk, except for any we film outside. 

Over the weekend, I actually went and privated a few of the older videos, because I don't want them to be representative of what I want the channel to be. It's usually when the sex jokes get a bit too near the line that I get a little twitchy.

Yes, I know I was the man responsible for The Real Turner the Worm, but over the years I've mostly just peddled in innuendo, silliness, and weirdness, and not outright filth. That's more Cheapshow's thing, and I'm never entirely comfortable when I'm associated with it. It probably says much about the current - ahem - "subscriber readjustment" that many of these videos were among our most-viewed. But, once again, if I'm to claim ownership of my channel, I need to do it, and stick to my guns.

What's next will likely be one more Storytime video. I like things having a run of six episodes - the classic British TV series length - and that'll probably be about Chernobyl (though I could just do them endlessly; I'm not short of stories).

Not sure yet what we're doing with Gannon, but it'll be more akin to the Digi Minis we were doing. Of course, we're still limited in terms of what we can do because of current restrictions; we can't do more Digitiser Deluxe (or whatever I rename it) just yet, but I'm hopefully that we're going to ramp up gradually to better production values, and more ambitious videos once again - and more special guests. While also balancing it out with more personal sort of content. And more Sanja.

Like I've said; think of it like a TV channel, with different sorts of things on it. 

Oh! And we're sort of tentatively thinking of doing something special the weekend that was meant to be Digitiser Live. Not sure what yet, but if you've any bright ideas... please post them below!

Paul