Being proud of myself.

I've been doing this streaming thing for quite some time—back when I first learned how to set up OBS. Things were really different than they are today. Nobody knew what this industry was. It would take a long time before it got to the point where Drake was streaming Fortnite with Ninja. The terms “content creator” or “influencer” weren’t yet commonplace in the public lexicon. Nobody knew what I meant when I told people about the hobby I had taken up.

I remember once explaining to my dad that I was essentially running a cable access show from my apartment on the internet and making some money from it. He responded in a suspicious tone:
"Are you sure those are real people and not bots? This all sounds like a plot to make people stupider."
Maybe he was onto something there—but not entirely. Eventually, my parents came around as they saw more of the things I made and watched me succeed over the years. But I developed some really bad habits in the early days.

When someone asked me back in 2016 what I was doing for work—shortly after I had cut my hours at my fast food gig to try and make this work full-time—I’d generally respond with “marketing” or “digital media” to kind of toss off the question. This was partly because, by the time I was doing this as a job, being a “YouTuber” had a lot of stigma around it. We all have people like the Paul brothers to thank for that.

"Ew, so you’re an influencer?" was a response I got while talking to a friend of my ex-partner. That pushed me into a place where I became so reluctant to tell people what I did for a living that I would avoid the conversation at all costs—and frankly, I dreaded it whenever it came up. Even though, in reality, most people are just simply curious.

I've always had a few problems being social. Small talk doesn’t come easy to me. When you add in the additional stress of being afraid someone will ask “What do you do for a living?” the problem tends to get worse, not better. Outside of the mostly self-inflicted stigma—why is this a problem?

Technically, it's not. In the early days, I should have owned it—as a member of a newly minted industry that was set to take over the world of marketing! Or something. Content creation quickly became something really specific: the model on Instagram hawking fake eyeliner that gives kids a rash; the hot lady thumbnails unrelated to the YouTube video you just clicked on; and never forget the incredibly poor-taste comedy sketch videos from those early days.

I felt like people would get one of three impressions of me when I said I was a content creator:

1. Broke and unemployed, pretending I had a job.
2. An online grifter.
3. An asshole.

I should note that a lot of this stemmed from my own anxiety and worry about my self-image. I was afraid to give details because, whenever I saw news about something someone in this industry had done, it made me want to talk to people even less.

I went to therapy in 2023. I'm still not sure how I ended up there. It started with a phone call from the diabetic outpatient center—checking in on me. This is a quarterly habit for newly diagnosed Type 1 diabetics here. The conversation ended with me being sent a referral to a psychiatrist and a therapist. This process has taken me over a year. Therapy didn’t last that long because I only had so many sessions. While it helped, I wouldn’t say it formed the whole picture. I wish I had more time in that process, but I wasn’t afforded that luxury.

Since then, I've been slowly working on myself and trying to develop healthier habits. I spend a lot more time out and about. I've become the guy sitting at the end of the bar with a notebook or laptop. I’ll sit in coffee shops and write these posts or edit shorts. Working in public spaces helps me feel a bit more connected to the community around me. I'm already extremely socially isolated in the day-to-day, so I have to find small ways to combat that.

The big change happened when I moved. This is probably something that happens to anyone who successfully pulls off a huge goal. It’s also an odd discovery I’ve made about my life. When you buy an apartment, house, business—or anything of high value—something shifts. Maybe this also happens when you buy a car?

When I bought this apartment, something changed. People ask me where I’m renting, and I respond with “Well, I bought the place,” or something to that effect. Since making this move, not one person has questioned me when I respond to the second question: “What do you do for work?” Hopefully, the days of responding “Marketing” are behind me, and I can just simply say, “I'm a YouTuber.”

The positive effect here is on my level of self-esteem. There’s a feeling that happens when you hide something about yourself—I think it’s called shame. Telling someone I have a weird, not-real-sounding job after complaining about rent going up gives people a certain impression of you. However, saying that you’ve become something kids want to be—and mentioning you own your home—feels different. I think it's helping me own what I do. And even in the last few weeks, I've started to feel like I've done something cool. Instead of just being some weird panhandler on the internet.

I'll be heading to my parents house this coming weekend. It is my Dads Birthday and that means family time. I got a good amount of work done on some upcoming projects already this weekend. I should have this next project done within the month. If all goes well.

This week I will stream Tuesday - Thursday.