This is me.

[Author's note: What you're about to read was originally intended to be a video script. I've been trying more and more to do more personal "video essay" style videos, and wrote this as I explored the genre.
Both reactive to major YouTube changes over the past couple of years and an ongoing (yet unrealized at the time) identity shift, it reads more as a manifesto of sorts. A declaration of who I am and my intent to not allow the YouTube "algorithm" and trends to change me.
I think it still merits reading, but I'm not sure it will ever end up as a video. That idea got channeled more into my "How to survive online." video.]

Whenever we ask kids “What do you want to be when you grow up?” - we anticipate a pretty rigid set of answers. We expect them to fill in the blanks with a choice of cliche job they might pursue within the capitalistic machine, what role they will serve in society, which norms they will adhere to. It is a loaded question, after all. We’re not asking who they want to be, we’re not asking what kind of life they want to have, what kind of happiness they will seek. We’re simply trying to assimilate them and send them on their path.

Kids who think out of the box are immediately mocked. They’re asked to be vulnerable, to reveal their inner desires and their aspirations for the scary life ahead, and for responsibilities they can’t yet fathom - and we mock them. We shut it down. Anything creative is “unrealistic,” or at the very least laughed off and devalued on the assumption that it won’t be the most lucrative career path. This trend is heartbreaking enough - it’s one of the earliest moments a child learns they aren’t actually 100% safe to be themselves even around those they trust - but it’s gotten worse with time. Now, if a kid answers that they want to be a streamer, a YouTuber, a TikTok star, pundits leap to declare society to be ruined or that their generation is doomed. When in reality, the kid just wants to do what they love and share that with friends. Is that really so bad? Instead of trying to help them find their way to a path of their dreams, most would rather crush those dreams entirely.

Me, on the other hand… I’m not sure I ever really had a concrete answer, at least not one I believed in when I said it. As a young child, my cousin and I would always say we wanted to be architects, but there wasn’t a lot of meaning behind it. Not long after, my tech prowess got me swept up in the typical 90s nerd “You’ll be the next Bill Gates” pressure, with me saying I wanted to become a “computer programmer” and go to M.I.T.. Until burnout led to me flunking my senior year dual credit coding class and I ran as far away from the field as I could. I went to college with no career prospects. At least, none that survived.

Hell, I could never really wrap my head around what my ideal career would be. It’s easy now, with web media, freelance work, entrepreneurship running rampant, to imagine working for yourself doing work you’re interested in - but back then, that didn’t exist.

I wanted to be a movie director (or camera man), I wanted to be a sponsored skateboarder, I wanted to be an actor, I wanted to be a singer. I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to review video games for a living for gaming magazines.

I wanted to be creative and share that creativity with others. For as long as I can remember, all I’ve wanted to do was share what I loved with the world.

This has never changed.

That drive was not unwavered, though. I never adjusted to shifts in trends well. I wasn’t interested in the things I loved because of what other people thought, but when other people suddenly stopped being interested - or rather started having a direct negative response to something that once easily garnered a positive one - it bewildered me. I didn’t know how to cope.

An early example was the shift from grade school, where everyone from the nerds to the jocks loved playing Pokemon on the GameBoy and battling and trading Yugioh cards to middle school, where the very mention of it elicited laughs from basically everyone. Before, I had my GBA and my entire Yugioh collection stolen at different points, and had some of the kids I’d get into fights with help me reclaim most of my collection from those it got distributed to. In middle school, I got kicked in the head and my ear bud smashed in my ear just because I dared like the card game.

I spent a year or two embracing androgyny, as I had just been exposed to it and really liked some of the androgynous girls I saw in popular media at the time. I had no aim with it, no help or sense of style, but I was exploring. Naturally, that came with all manner of gender-related harassment, which eventually led to me all but entirely giving up on my appearance until only a few years ago.

Another example was the jump from middle school to high school. I was always incredibly late discovering music for some reason. I remember finally really “hearing” AC/DC for the first time and falling in love with some of the well-known songs and asking my parents if they had heard of the band - only for them to basically fall on the floor in laughter. They’d both been to multiple AC/DC concerts themselves and I’d grown up hearing the songs constantly, this wasn’t a new discovery. Less mocking and more “welcome to the club” vibes there.

I remember that metamorphosis sparked by hearing “One Step Closer” from Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory album on some sweaty headphones at a FYE in the mall, convincing my parents to buy me the CD, then rushing out the door the next day to put it in my neighbors boombox outside to blast “Crawling” for them to awake the same creature inside them. Except that album had been released a couple years earlier and was old news by that point. Regardless, I was catching up.

Yet transitioning to high school and within the first few months, someone who was supposedly “my friend” made a 4Chan post wherein they showed an iTunes screenshot with an iPod loaded exclusively with Linkin Park songs and my full name as the iPod name just to make fun of me, and printed it out to bring to school.

Between that and Nickelback’s quick drop in perception among my peers at the time, I stopped sharing my interest in music, and being open to new music for a decade.

Close to the end of high school, a Skype group of my peers started sharing around some of my older Minecraft videos. It likely wasn’t as malicious as I interpreted it to be, but they got a laugh out of the videos, regardless. My peers, who once were stoked to participate in these videos, were now exploiting them for comedy. In a rash moment, I deleted the entire channel permanently. To this day, most of that content is gone and I still regret the choice, mourn the loss of those memories and moments. It’s a gap in my journey I can never fill back in.

I look back on these memories not with the “boo hoo” of self-pity, but with a renewed understanding and appreciation for both my drive to share and my battle with extrinsic motivation factors. Once other people’s interest - or at least the reward of provoking a positive reaction - come into play, the spirit is tainted, it’s ruined. I shut it down, sometimes for years, sometimes forever.

That makes my job particularly difficult.

I might be chaotic, messy, overwhelming even. But my intentions are pure. I want to share, I want to teach, to help, to learn, and to express myself.

I don’t want to be another number in the system, another failure who couldn’t make it, another mediocrity.

I have never fit in, anywhere, at least not truly. Not without some masking involved. But this path I carved just for me, for myself when no one else was doing this, not in the way I was. When everyone laughed at it, when there was no financial element at play, when the entire world was trying to force me down a completely different path, I made this happen.

I worked harder than I probably ever worked in my life to juggle everything at once, and I survived. I did it. I was one of the rare YouTubers of my wave or generation to actually make a full-time living. I supported myself into starting a family. I bought a house! I got published on tech publications, gaming sites, I sold photography, I sold video art, hosted panels at conventions I was invited to, collaborated with some of my favorite creators. I accomplished so many dreams that the pimple-faced kid with a camcorder and no clue how to hold up their own body would never have imagined actually coming true!

But that taint of extrinsic motivation corrupted things at nearly every turn, scaling in intensity with each passing year. Each time, a new system or mechanic gets put in place to try to tame the chaos.

How could anyone put so many people on the same site, all free to speak their mind, and expect anything BUT chaos? This whole thing was supposed to be recess, and now it’s turned into walking one by one in line on the right side of the hallway.

My process has always been a little… unusual.

I’ve fielded comments calling me everything from a hoarder to disgusting slob to distracting and impossible to follow to mad genius.

It’s easy to make demands of creators you watch, even of people you’ve only watched one video of. Demands to present differently, to adhere to gender norms better, to slow down, speed up, have a less interesting backdrop, cover things more hand-holdy than is reasonable.

The chaos isn’t my uncharismatic quirk to be tamed, it’s not the dark smudge on my otherwise professional and relatable demeanor (haha). The chaos is the point.

Those demands hold little value. Neither do the comments. Neither does the unusuality. I don’t do this for anyone else. I do this for me. My path these past 18 years on YouTube has simultaneously been the most selfish path I could have walked in life, and yet also one of the most selfless.

What I’m doing today is also far from unique. Where I was the only one in my schools who would always be found with a camcorder in their hand, where I was the only one of my peers making movies and uploading to YouTube, where I was the only one trying to cover tech from a gaming POV and educational perspective, where I was the only one teaching OBS to would-be live streamers and YouTubers like myself, where I was the only one live streaming my homework from the college library or my marriage proposal to my wife… Everyone does this now. Thousands of times every day.

I can look back on my path to bring me to this point with pride and humility. I spent years being embarrassed by my projects, shamed for wanting to share - but I was the one doing something to make it happen! I was the one (apparently) brave enough to put myself out there, to be awkward, to fumble and not know what I was doing, to mess up and fail over and over and over just so I could eventually get here!

But now, what is that worth? When any dude with fancy hair, a few hundred dollars, and a charismatic smile can snake oil their way past me in a matter of months, what was all this for? What did I spend my life fighting to accomplish that can’t be taken from me overnight?

I’ll be the first to tell anyone else that “every person’s path is different” and that “comparing is unhealthy and counterproductive.” I know that. But somehow hearing it from yourself never feels as compelling. Simultaneously, it feels a little too self-righteous or egotistical to suggest that my work, my presence and mark on the world has more value, matters more, (matters at all?) just because I put in the work, because I “fought” for it. In a world where all that matters is results and the speed at which you can deliver them, intentions aren’t worth jack.

My intentions are certainly pure, or as pure as they can be. My motivations are transparent. I don’t have lofty goals, I don’t want to build an “empire.” I don’t want “prestige.” That misses the point. I want to share. I want to be heard. I want to help others be heard.

My focus is clear, my drive is sustained, but the system sure puts up a hell of a lot of smoke and mirrors. Remember that “being put down by extrinsic motivations” issue? Yeah, content creation is nothing BUT that. Analytics overload, 10/10 performing videos, every thought and photograph you publish immediately requiring you to look at how many likes and shares it has, all nuance or opportunity for worthwhile exchange being sanitized from the place. Self-expression died with MySpace; today success is easier than ever, but only if you don’t actually give a fuck about why you’re doing it.

I pride myself on being consistent and reliable. Despite all of this, I want nothing more than to consistently deliver on my promises. The chaos is not a distraction, it’s the fuel. As much as I can talk up the benefits of the way I do things, I fail to adapt. By the time I pick up the mind-blowing, genre-altering album, people have already moved onto other sounds. By the time I get good at the game everyone beat me at, they're on a whole new console. By time I see the potential in short-form videos, it’s hit peak saturation and becomes a slog of advertisements, while I can literally feel the brain rot happen in real-time as I scroll.

Despite a decade of internal battles, existential crises, utter panic, I always circle back to doing the same things I started doing. If you watch some of my oldest videos, they will resemble the videos I make today quite closely. I’ve grown, matured, shed some awkwardness. Sure, my gear and skills have gotten far better. But the core motivation and thing being conveyed? Still the same.

Everything else has changed. Consistency was once KING on YouTube. You couldn’t escape the flood of every YouTuber preaching it at one point. Consistency doesn’t matter anymore. Making good videos or having an important message hasn’t mattered for a long time. Pleasing your audience doesn’t even matter anymore. It’s all about how many new faces you can grab the attention of, as quickly as possible, and keep them around. It doesn’t matter if you’re shilling e-waste gadgets made from wadded up fast food containers to people scrolling their phones on the toilet, or waving your hands with every word you say flashing in on-screen text while continuing to up the stakes of absurdity, seeing just how little clothing you CAN wear in a live broadcast before they take your money away, or selling your soul to push kids into gambling so you can still have multiple houses while spewing hate speech all day. As long as you get enough faces around, you could be a literal donkey kicking the faces of your viewers and you’d be doing better than most of us.

Things aren’t great. I’ve tried making pivots, they haven’t paid off. I’ve lost count of the sleepless nights spent trying to find out what I’m doing wrong, only to be met with another systemic change that takes away even more of my sustainability in the name of “better” for a machine. Doesn’t matter if videos performed great and were loved by viewers yesterday, today they’re no good, because there’s a new lever to flip.

But I’m not quitting. I don’t want to be another creator making that video. I won’t be silenced, my drive to share isn’t extinguished, and I’m not giving up on the dream.

As a father, I’ve thought more about “what I leave behind” the past few years more than I ever have before. If I catered to the demands of the system and algorithm and COULD adapt into a “good YouTuber” expected of the 2020s, I would certainly not be proud of what I left behind here. I wouldn’t be making what I thought had an impact. I’d find it a lot easier to pay off my mountain of debt and not overdraft each month, sure, but I would be disappointed in myself, and (more importantly) unfulfilled. I wouldn’t survive, even if I could spend a couple weeks hyping myself to do it.

It’s taken an embarrassing amount of time to realize that the problem isn’t “me.” It never was. It took seeing so many of my peers, so many of my fellow creators whom I’ve watched grow and discover the journey alongside me crumble, lose control, or bow out. Every new face making the same quitting video made my stomach drop a little further, until a feeling of calmness swept over me. The problem isn’t any one of us. We’re not doing something wrong or unsustainable. The game just keeps changing and it’s not the game we originally signed up to play, not anymore.

The system is going to continue to change and I will only shave more precious years off my life trying to keep up with it.

I am me, I’m not a sanitized persona to appeal to the masses, nor a niche checkbox for a system to tokenize and fill their quota. I am me for me, and to share what matters. To contribute what I have to offer the world.

I am a teacher. I am an artist, a photographer, a videographer, a designer, a glitch artist, a painter, a writer, a speaker, a gamer, a punk, a father, a cook, a husband, a lover of many things. I’m bi, I have a problem with authority, I like my toys - but only if I know others can like them, too, exclusivity isn’t fun - I like tech, but not too far as to get lost in the weeds, I’m messy and pretty god damn chaotic. But I’m me. I’m always going to be me. As time goes on, the system is not going to make me be less me, I’m just going to keep discovering myself and become more “me” than I was before. Where the modern internet has terrified newer generations of “cringe” and self-expression, I’ll continue wearing my passion safety-pinned to my sleeve.

I can’t find an organization system for my constantly fluctuating needs and hobbies, nor stick to an idea gathering system for more than 6 months at a time, and my studio looks like a completely different place every year - but I could tell you every fact, setting, application, and quirk about OBS or video editing from memory. That may not be worth as much as it was before, it’s still worth something.

This is the space I’ve cultivated for my work. A studio space that myself even 5 years ago couldn’t have dreamed of. It satisfies my need for stimulation, it houses everything I need to do my job, explore my art, play some of my favorite games, record videos, live stream, take a break, craft, explore my innermost thoughts. It’s chaotic and sometimes cluttered, but it’s because I’m trying to be the best I can be at all times.

I hate asking for money from people. I hate the perception, I hate the extrinsic drive, I hate the impact it has on my direction. I also hate feeling like I have no additional value to give. So I don’t have a pitch. I can’t commit to years of exclusive additional content when I’m drowning to be able to produce the minimal amount I can. I can promise that I’m going to keep making cool - and mostly educational stuff - to the highest capacity I can, and continue driving the tech education landscape forward. I hoard all this stuff because I want to get every detail and perspective I can, so I can do it right, so I can help those of you with a more targeted message or principle be heard and discovered. I’m going to keep pushing to spread tech literacy, to not give up on the younger generations as so many of my peers and elders seem to, and to keep pushing to make the web a more sustainable and enjoyable place again.

Some of this mission will mean shedding a bit of the burden of being “EposVox.” I need some more anonymity - even if you know who I am, anyway. I need more control over the expectations. I also need more control over my work and how you consume it.

Nothing is going away, and my focus on the primary work you follow me for isn’t weakening, I’m simply adding to the mix. I’ve launched forums - you know, a thing I can host, control, make accessible and searchable on the web, and not be dependent on VC funding for - at demodisc.zone. I’m renewing investment in the StreamGuides website for both written (and easy to follow) companions to videos, but also exclusive content that’s easier to produce than a whole video to get you more guides more quickly. I’m still going to teach streaming and content creation, but I also want to expand into full tech literacy. I want people to understand their technology - and more importantly their relationship with it - better. I want to push the world to change how we use the internet to make it less of a hellhole. I’m being more personal on analog_dreams and working on real art projects. I’m bringing some grounding back to gaming on lost_saves. I’m building some of the most helpful, while still reasonably-priced, courses anyone has offered. I’ll have other announcements in time. But that’s it, that’s my pitch. I have a Patreon, a Ko-Fi, Discord server subscriptions, a tip link. If you want to contribute, know that it means the world to me and helps keep this train going. But I also know that things are really, incredibly tough financially right now. I don’t expect anyone to give if they’re not comfortable doing so. Just know that just being here, watching, sharing, engaging in meaningful discussions, and maybe sharing my work makes a HUGE difference, and is all I ask.

Instead of announcing that I’m going to change, this is more an announcement of the fact that I am going to stay the same. I’ll always try new things, I’ll always grow and evolve at my own pace, but I’m not altering who I am to please the system, and that’s okay. The more the system pushes us to sanitize and fall in line, the more we need to embrace our weirdness.

This is me. This is who I am. I’ll never apologize for it. Embrace the chaos and remember to be kind, rewind.

I may not want to change, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to do more.