This is big number, sure is good but more importantly, having persistent audience and possibility of being sustainably paid to do something good at, meaning I can do it more and worry less about other things. Not much to say, thanks, will keep making videos. Did mini-thanks in outro of Lawn Defender.
More concerned about making stuff than celebrate too much, want to make sure of this.
Still full steam ahead for TF2 videos at least for "while" – not sure how long, but doing full commit long period to TF2 channel before adding another of my main channels to "main" in addition to my TF2 channel. Feeling obligated especially to newly growing audience, all these people came here to see what I can do, and I want to
Hope I can keep the steam up. This is it/could be it. Yes, lots not saying, maybe not much known about me before this TF2 phase. If relevant, will probably bring something up if it affects my video production. Maybe alienating to be less personal in speech, but more personal in work. I am not really relatable personality YouTuber that talks in the camera with the face, despite this, people have gravitated here in such scale. Yes, elmaxo helped (in a strange way), but the people stayed.
Future plans
Looking at my animation channel, hard to say when if ever, since getting in TF2 video maker mindset. I should be uploading across my various channels and/or improving other skills (art, music, etc.), at least between TF2 uploads. Help break monotony and add more possibility to serve decent/high-quality videos about various games/subjects.
Can't have TF2 taking too much of my life, even though it has become much more prevalent lately. My YouTube "empire" of many channels – which channels will grow, will I have improved my various skills, challenging myself, keeping it all together, that is for future/now.
Copyright stuff
Copyright sometimes (lot of sometimes) worry, I don't know full extent of those laws but learn as I go. Generally try to be transformative and respectful, but sometimes that may not be enough. If I'm not sure, I upload test video with music I want to use, then see if there's problems. Grey areas.
Music made public to listen to freely but usage gets complicated:
- fair use? definition still muddy to me. Educational? Parody which must be wacky or make fun of the original work? Transformative?
- many people use copyrighted music without permission all the time and get no trouble: YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, etc. Various enforcement. Trouble seems more where money involved, people who do YouTube professionally. Lots you can see, but first hand experience may understand more.
- if recording/streaming a game is perfectly fine, why not celebrate and transform elements from the game to make something new like what I do (not something like ripping assets and redistributing/selling, claiming as own), this seems to work ok for many, even simply using videogame music as background music for commentary or for a stream
Also what of YouTubers/streamers watching/"reacting" whole videos or copyrighted film, with little to no pausing making surface level observations instead of anything more transformative/genuine commentary? All these politics (affairs of the cities) of video sharing and ethics becoming more relevant – what affects you, are you contributing to a good environment. Not completely sure about this "reacting" thing for content creators, better to supplement/transform an original work into something new so they both build on each other instead of disincentivize looking at original by showing original in entirety. Like Nintendo remaking Mario RPG (instead of making sequel/making original officially available for modern systems) – why?
Speaking of Nintendo, is good to find pages that give you more clue about their copyright stuff like this one from Nintendo. They don't seem to like people preserving their own soundtracks – people who in their own time get high quality rips of music from beloved retro-games and upload them in an organized matter because Nintendo won't do it themselves, not even for profit, as some sort of public service. I seem to be safe from this since I don't upload soundtracks by themselves, still that power still intimidating (their likely intention), using that power although in their right, was it really right to use on the preservers?
Accepted new YouTube monetization policy in July, was unsure when watching YouTuber Louis Rossmann's video covering it, seems system could be abused easily, but to what extent and could it be abused easily before? Was worried about if running ads could cause more harm than good.
Accepted, seeing what happens, ultimately, my donation page (BuyMeACoffee) is currently my most reliable source in income for my work. I see YouTube ad revenue more as a bonus and way to give back for the bandwidth I use on the site. Maybe for more "viral" YouTubers who can mass produce videos ad money is reliable, not for me. I also tried to be more ethical with the ads with these settings. Ad money is a 60/40 split. See also: dodgy Google ad stuff. See also: uBlock Origin (use wisely, especially useful for sites that contain information but thrust disrespectful, obstructive/intrusive ads in your face). Whether ads should exist/cease to exist maybe another time, but seems to be large funder of things across the net. Nuance everywhere, limited lifespan, can only specialize so much/understand so much about certain things to certain degrees.
