Big 'Ole Update

Hey there,

I've been wanting to do this for at least a couple months now...and it just hasn't happened 'cause of one thing or another...but fuck it, it's happening now.

This is gonna be my attempt at a big update. And since we're only like 5 on here, I'm just gonna go all out and talk about a whole bunch of things in detail.

So, be prepared. This is gonna be pretty long and pretty personal by the end...I feel like I owe you all an explanation since I've been completely 'radio silent' on here.

Hopefully this will answer a lot of the questions you may have had.

A Quick Overview at What's Coming Up in The Near Future

When I release the video I'm currently working on (more details on that in the next section), I'll be releasing another shorter video with it...a kind of channel announcement/update video.

In it, I'll announce the Patreon page and talk about a few bigger picture channel ideas, like: 

- What I think might be a reasonable and realistic output frequency for me

- The 'rewards' I plan for the Patreon, which will be a mix of long supplementary videos and shorter/personal videos (all still 'essay-like', but without all the pressure that comes with the long-form stuff on the main channel) 

- The b-channel where I'll upload all of that stuff to

- And finally pitching the idea that, though all this 'extra content' will happen because of the Patreon and folks's support, I nonetheless want it to be free for everyone to access on the b-channel

I obviously go into a lot more detail about that in the video. 

Anyway, once everthing here is updated and I 'officially' announce this Patreon page, I'll start to properly interact with you guys on here the way I always planned to (i.e. frequent updates, some blog posts or audio things etc..) 

I'm sorry I haven't done any of that so far. It still completely baffles me that you guys went out of your way to find this page (or specifically emailed me about it) and decided to pledge...I fully understand if you've been feeling frustrated about the lack of updates/videos..so I just want you to know that that's going to change once things officially start.

With that said, let's talk about the next video and where I've been in general

The Next Video

The main thing I wanna say about the next video is that it is much much bigger than I originally envisioned. Though that has more to do with how I envision things rather than the project itself.

If you follow me on twitter you've maybe seen the occasional tweet where I whine about this. So, I wanna be clear about what's happening here:

The project is not suffering from "feature creep" (to borrow a term from game design), where new idea or sections are constantly being introduced.

The skeleton or outline I'm working with is more or less the exact same one I've had since the month after I released the Coco video...it's just I hadn't really considered that to actualize that plan, the video was going to be pretty fucking big (by my standards, at least).

If we look at my other videos' outline-to-final comparison, it might make more sense:

- The Brave video had no real plan in terms of length or scale of the video...It was my very first one and my focus was just to get it done..I had no context or precedent for anything.

- The Ocean Waves and Coco videos, on the other hand, were both originally planned as 15-20 min videos. Obviously that's not what ended up happening, with the former being 30 min and the later 42 min, but the 15-20 min mark was what I aimed for with the original outlines.

- This current video was planned from the beginning to be a longer video. Something closer to the length of the Brave one, maybe 50 min to 1 hr.

Well, I'm sure you can guess by now how my complete inability to look at an outline and accurately estimate its length just scaled upward for a video that I planned to be an hour long.

In preparation for this post, I copy-pasted everything I've written so far - at least the stuff that's more or less readable - into Word. (I mostly do my writing in an application that doesn't show me page/word counts so that I can purely focus on the arguments regardless of length. And then move it to Word to get a page count).

And at the moment, it's about twice as long as the longest script I've written so far.......and I'm only about halfway through the plan haha

So, it's with a mix of controlled excitment and extreme panic that I'm trying to stay focused on that plan and just do the necessary work.

Also, I'm being pretty vague about what the topic of the video actually is because I don't want to spoil it.

I know that when I think of my favorite creators, I don't necesarily want to know what their next video topics are or what their angle on the topic is going to be. It's usually enough for me to know that they're working on something and maybe a bigger picture idea of what it is. 

Like, for example this next video is also about a film (as opposed to some other broader topics I have for future videos)...but that's all I'll say for now.

­However, again, it's your call. If you want to know what it's about in more detail, just shoot me a message. I'd be more than happy to tell you

A Quick Dip into Private/Personal Details

I've always been careful about how much personal information I share online...for many reasons, such as personal privacy..but mostly because I'm very, very conscious about people developing a Parasocial Relationship with me 

I mean, I'm not delusional..I don't think I'm this big creator/influencer or anything like that. (I've only released 3 videos and altogether they amount to barely 2 hours). However, I've received messages/emails and comments by folks who have probably rewatched my videos a bunch of times and have clearly formed this imaginary version of me in their heads. I have no interesting in feeding into this relationship in any way.

Like, I still reply to pretty much all messages I get (except the ones that very clearly cross the boundary into harassment) and I'm more than happy to answer questions, but I make sure that the distance is pretty clear.

On the other hand, I also worry that sometimes by keeping almost everything private and not sharing anything, even when things could be explained fairly quickly, I end up giving the wrong impression (like that of laziness or disineterest)...especially to you guys...so that's what I wanna try to clear that up here

This whole preamble was just to let you guys know that I'm gonna share some details about what's been going on with me...but also to request that you please not form a parasocial relationship because of it haha

Ok, so..during the last few months of last year, everything kind of fell into shambles. The trauma of what happened in Aug. with the port explosion finally caught up with me.

Initially, I was able to 'put it off' for a bit with the release of the Coco video and ride the wave of the response it was getting but, by the end of the month, I was a complete mess..as was almost everyone else in the city to be honest.

Add on top of that the fact that: 

1) Covid was starting to go hog wild because some 300,000 people were displaced as a result of the explosion 

2) the political situation was at a breaking point

3) the country's economy was going through a historically bad inflation, which directly resulted in all the banks being more or less closed and all the basic needs (groceries, medicine) fluctuating in price so wildly that people have literally died as a result.

Shit was, and continues to be, bad.

Compared to other folk however, I've been relatively priveliged. I don't mean to imply that I've had it easy (as some politically-connected or upper class assholes have had it)...just that thankfully it wasn't a worst-case scenario for us.

I tried to work during this time..like I really, really tried. But it just didn't work.

So many days I'd force myself to sit down and work but I'd end up just staring at the blank document on screen in front of me for literal hours. It was like I couldn't get my brain to work properly.

I had the plan for the video completed, as I said earlier, and I could tinker with that and make adjustments but that's not really work. That's not actually progressing on the project, that's just playing around with the idea of it, you know? Like, who was I kidding..

This went on for a number of months and it kept getting worse and worse...to the point where I genuinely considered just not making videos anymore.

But, my family was able to help me and get me out of that environment, at least for the moment. And after a few months of recovering, I was able to get a lot things back on track...especially my mental health. And that's more or less where I'm at right now.

So many thing are still up in the air..but I've at least been able to restabilize myself somewhat. 

I've technically been working on this project since January...like consistent, solid, daily work. And I'm making progress on it that I feel good about.

I'm also slowly making progress on my relationship with the channel and the idea of possibly making this whole thing work.

Anyway, I hope this post clears some things up or at least explains where I've been and what I've been up to.

I just reread the whole thing and I can tell it's a bit of mess, especially at the end. Sorry about that.

Usually in my normal writing process this would be the time when I'd go back and clean things up, maybe rework the structure and clear up the ideas etc.. But at this point I'm actively taking time away from working on the main video(s)..and I don't know if you guys would want me to do that haha

So, just in case, if there's anything you'd like me to elaborate on, please feel free to comment below or message me.

Otherwise, I hope you all have a great day. Take care