I'm writing this (and part 1) during the break because I have a lot of thoughts that I don't want to forget. This is more journaling, and not likely to be the bulk of the content moving forward. I do know I'm going to create, but I'm still not sure what yet.
The first week of the break was literally doing nothing but detoxing from social media. I unfollowed a lot of people on Twitter and YouTube, and have only been watching Rekieta and VivaBarnes for anything remotely culture or politics. Aside from that, I've played some games, finished House and I've been having a lot of fun. I do still see some political and cultural stuff on Twitter, but I've gotten good at resisting the urge to rail on about it, and I have no interest in making videos about it anymore.
I've also done some writing, but that project is on hold for now because of the amount of time that will be required. I just can't write a book while also going back to creating content on social media. At least for now. And I've made some artwork that I might turn into a comic and/or children's book (see the thumbnail of this article).
I've discovered a few things during this break.
- I love laughing at stuff.
- Levity is important.
- I love telling stories and having conversatioons with real people.
- I love the building blocks of good storytelling.
- Large amounts of people have no interest in solutions.
- Very few creators to the right of Stalin do anything besides report on and/or complain about current events without talking about solutions. (The left pushes their proposed solutions to their percieved problems everywhere).
- I have very little interest in culture war bullshit (but I do like talking about culture).
I'm still working on my plans, but the rollout will be slow and deliberate. My intention is to have fun and laugh. I'm still going to talk about culture some, but I won't focus on the news quite as much, and when I do it will be full of laughter and mockery (see Jim, but I know I'm not him). I also want to tell stories and talk about them. I want to talk about entertainment and create entertainment. Again, minimal culture war bullshit, but there might be some mockery of Disney losing their shirts and so on. For example, if I had been making content about the UFOs in February, there would have been a lot of mocking and fake and absurd conspiracy theories while casually pointing out the fact that it was a perfect distraction from Nordstream and Ohio.
Another thing I've done is replace the time I'd used to look for news and create videos with exercise. I've been lifting nearly every day, and almost every week is a new PR with my lifts. I end up not getting as fatigued doing other physical things, and I'm feeling (and looking) a lot better. I've also been able to be more present with my wife and kids. My son coslept with us as a baby, and that has made it very difficult to get him to transition to sleeping in his own bed overnight. While I was streaming, he would not go to sleep unless my wife was holding him, which meant she would fall asleep in his room, then move to our room in the middle of the night, then he would wake up and come to our room. We were both so tired it was just easier to let him sleep with us, which meant we woke up tired a lot. I've been able to sit in his room and help him fall asleep on his own. That means my wife is able to get more and better sleep, and he doesn't wake up as often, and when he does we can get him back to bed in his own bed.
All said, I know what I don't care about and a lot of what I don't want to do. Now I'm figuring out what I do want to do.
I do have a roll out plan laid out, but it's very flexible because I don't want to over stress myself again or get back into the old habits. Muscle memory is easy to return to.
- Last week I published my first article here. I plan to put a lot more effort into Locals this time around.
- Starting next week, I plan to start posting reels/shorts on Instagram/YouTube on Tuesdays and Thursdays, focusing on memes and jokes. I also plan to post picture memes on Instagram (potentially based around conspiracies, bigfoot and aliens to be decided during the process) and maybe my little cartoons. I'll also cross post a lot of that here along with exclusives.
- The next step will be to make ONE video per day on YouTube and Rumble. I'm thinking of a specific kind of series that will tie back to exclusives here. I will also bring back audio rants (comedy routines) and story narration which will have all but one per month behind the paywall. (Timeline for this and all steps after still to be determined)
- After that I'll start weekly exclusive videos here as well, and all but one per month will be paywalled.
- The next expansion will be to make TWO Rumble exclusive videos per week. I'm seriously considering tying it into Twitch streaming, but it will be different than the daily content.
- For streaming, I don't know what capacity I'll pick that back up. Part of that will be finding schedules for it. I would like to do watch parties and games while discussing real world parallels or story telling elements in the content. Gaming itself is doable on Rumble, but watch parties require Twitch. I like the idea of putting a lot of effort into Rumble, and I don't want to overextend myself. That's why streaming will take some time to get to. I do want to stream on Locals sooner, but that would most likely be making artwork and talking with the chat. Very casual.
Stay tuned
