Hello, everyone.
With sincerity, I wish everyone who’s reading this is doing great. I know it’s been a while since I’ve made an update for y’all and I apologize for my long period of absence. I’m here today because I wanted to share how I’ve been doing and what to expect for the future of my YouTube content. Today marks the beginning of a new chapter and the end of an old one.
First, as some of you may know, I’ve been struck with an illness both mentally and physically around late June. To this day, I’m not exactly sure the exact illness I’ve received other than the symptoms I’ve been experiencing. Constant headaches, dizziness, body aches, weakness, and even fungal infections. To tell you all the truth, working a full-time job and YouTube at the same time is the worst thing anyone can do to their well-being and as usual, I learn things the hard way.
Point being is this illness I’ve received has made me reflect on my life and my future. The things I hold passion to, the things I love, what I want to become, and so much more. I’ve never valued my own health more than I do now. I personally feel that I’ve reached this breaking point in my life because of the bad habits I’ve developed along the way because of my daily routines. I would start my day early in the morning to go to work and then after an 8-hour shift, I would sit on my computer for another 4-5 hours working on YouTube content. Adding to that, my meal would be McDonalds. By the way, that’s one meal everyday (I’m underweight and have a high metabolism). After that, I’d go to sleep around 4-5AM then wake up 8AM to get ready for work. If it’s a closing shift, I’d wake up around 11:30AM.
That was my life for one year.
In short, my daily was 4-5 hours of sleep and I’d eat one meal of McDonalds everyday.
I still don’t know the exact origin of this illness, but I strongly feel the illness I’ve been experiencing was because of all this. I did this to both meet my expectations at work and to fulfill my schedule on YouTube. My body, however, can no longer tolerate this lifestyle I’ve setup for myself.
New Beginnings
I was five years old when I first picked up my dad’s Panasonic Digital Camcorder. What I did with it is placed my action figures of Super Mario and recorded them in their “adventures”. Fighting bad guys and saving the day. I did this so often up until the beginning of my YouTube days. Around 2010, I’ve discovered PC gaming and realized a whole new medium of telling stories. That evolved into animations, and then here we are today.
I’ve known throughout my life that filmmaking was what I’ve always wanted to do. Even as a kid, lying to my fourth grade teacher that I wanted to be an “astronaut”, I’ve always had a deep passion to tell a story in a fun and exciting way. For the big silver screen. For all my life, I’ve always felt happiness being surrounded by all forms of entertainment. I love video games. I love music. Of course, I love film. All I ever wanted from anything in life was to live closer to these things and be a part of the communities in them. I still may be young, but I’m already feeling the fear of having entertainment fade away from my life due to old age or poor health. Unfortunately, many people out there don’t understand this passion I have. Not even my own parents do, despite their support for me.
In regards to my YouTube, short animations and content was never something I’ve really enjoyed doing. Sure, I have fun making them once in a while, but that was never the channel’s main purpose. Nor was it my main purpose. Producing short contents and on a weekly basis took plenty of mental energy and time. An unhealthy amount, as previously stated. The only reason I make this content was in return to gain exposure and hopes that my Patreon will take off to financially relieve me and that I can finally focus on longer content. Such as short films and documentaries on the side. As some of you noticed, I did gain that exposure, but I didn’t gain my Patreon followers. I fell into my own trap fearing short content would overtake my bigger film projects and they did, as a result from all this. These were the animations I stayed up late for after work. I’ve gained plenty of benefits for doing so (and a silver play button!), but the costs outweighed the benefits by a good portion.
I despise saying this, but I have to tell the truth for what it is. I’m too financially unstable to pursue something like YouTube, where I would sacrifice my own health and well-being to make too little in return. Bills are too tight and I don’t have the financial connections or means to put resources into YouTube. I have to put an end to all of this, once and for all.
The Long Haul
As of today, I will be discontinuing my current YouTube schedule. My YouTube channel will no longer have an emphasis on short-form content and will continue to divide its attention to longer forms of content, which was the original purpose of the channel. Furthermore, I will be putting less time on my YouTube as I want to focus more on pursuing my career and dreams in filmmaking. So yes, this drastically will affect how often I upload videos. However, this does not mean I’ll stop producing short videos. This simply means I’m putting more of my energy to longer videos.
On the side of all this, I will also be away from social media more often to try and live a healthier social life outside of my work and hobbies. I’ll check up every once in a while, of course.
I apologize to those waiting for my three main projects I’ve announced a while back. Luigi Meets A Combine Soldier, Headstrong 3, and Started From The Bottom will once again be put on hiatus and won’t be in development until the time is right. I’ll be focusing on projects that aim to better my well-being and skill and elevate my career status.
My time will also be dedicated to Blender and the experimentation of the software. I’ll be continuing my research on the platform as I want to continue pushing boundaries and making breakthroughs in my personal skills for both animation and filmmaking.
Quest For The Best
I will clarify that these decisions were not made overnight and were decisions I’ve thought long and hard during my 5 weeks of absence. This is just the reality I have to confront with. There’s no way to sugar coat it, either. I’m too broke (let alone, mentally prepared) to continue my YouTube journey. Of course, this would all be different if I received support financially either from Patreon, YouTube, or TikTok. But I haven’t made a significant amount of income from any platform, let alone sustainable.
This was a long issue I’ve had and for a decade, I tried to make YouTube my source of income so that I can continue working on such projects. It’s no longer feasible for me to continue hurting myself for such things.
I still see myself uploading several videos here and there, so I don’t want to add worries to my new subscribers. What I can confirm, however is, the channel is no longer a first priority for me and I’m reverting the channel’s original upload schedule. Only uploading when I can. Just like the way it was before. For the sake of my health and for the channel’s.
I’m a filmmaker. I’ve always been a story teller. Not just a content creator. I have much more to say to the world then what I currently have out there. I want to do everything I can to make it happen. Properly, of course.
Thank you to all my YouTube subscribers and followers who’s been supporting me in anyway they can. Especially for the past 10 years, it’s amazing the amount of support I’ve received from many of you. I deeply apologize this is how things turned out, but I had to choose between my own health and family against my previous convoluted lifestyle. As much as it hurts me, I feel like I’ve made the right choice.
Until the next time.
– Adrian