New Stuff I'm Doing and What That Means

This post is also available as audio (5:49). It’s just me reading this text verbatim so if you’d rather not listen to my voice feel free to continue reading!

It’s been nearly one year since my warehouse job let me go during the pandemic and I took on making things online as my full-time job. When I first made this plan I worked overtime days every day that I could at my old job, saving up enough to last me until January of 2021. It’s now July of 2021. Time has certainly flown, and I’m so grateful to everyone here for making this feasible for me. Now that we’re approaching a full year I’ve taken some time to reflect and assess where I’m at and what the future looks like for DaThings, Ellie-mentary, and beyond. So I’d like to share some of those thoughts with you now!

I’ve spent the last year making YouTube Poops on DaThings every 1-2 weeks, and have uploaded more than 30 unique videos spanning more than 3 full hours of YTP content. And while there’ll always be some variance in quality, generally it’s some of my best work in my view! I’ve been better able to challenge myself to do something unique with each new video now that it’s a primary focus of my work life. It’s something that I don’t think I can adequately explain in words, but making things feels much more satisfying and worthwhile now that I’m not trying to simply squeeze it into my free time. And the reception to this new level of output has been overwhelmingly positive too!

I’ve also been making some new video essays over on Ellie-mentary. I’ve released four episodes spanning a couple of hours in total since doing online work full-time. I enjoy putting these together and even though my initial goal was to make one of these every month, the time and effort it takes to put one together didn’t really work with the rest of my projects. I like the way I’ve been approaching them so far, not scrambling to make a video essay within a time frame no matter what, but instead waiting until I have something that’s worth communicating through the video essay format. A big creative factor for Ellie-mentary is that I’m only interested in exploring topics/media that I have something unique to say about instead of relying on whatever’s new, trendy, or baits reaction.

Within the last year I released two mashup albums: Borrowed Time, which was an Animal Crossing-themed project, and Feels Time, a general mashup album and follow-up to SweewS. I don’t really have a planned process for these, they just come about when I’m feeling in the mood to mess with some music. Of all of my works, the mashup albums are the ones that consistently get the least attention and feedback, but I’m still proud of my work and find the process enjoyable enough to justify the lack of fanfare they tend to get.

I’ve also begun to stream more on Twitch, doing weekly YTP captioning streams and playing games like Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Bug Fables, and Super Mario Galaxy 2. My girlfriend Bee and I have also been playing games together on Twitch like The Sims, Miitopia, and Later Alligator. Having the space to reflect on my YTP work each week and stretch my improv muscle a little has been a great way to supplement income and interact with the community in real-time. And in doing so I’ve grown to understand the craft of live streaming more deeply.

I’ve also recently been given the opportunity to work with Vtuber Dollip Daze to create stream highlight videos and flex my creative muscle in a new, more collaborative way. In addition, it was just announced that I’ll also be doing the same for SnapCube going forward. I’m beyond grateful to have this unique privilege and to create videos that showcase some funny and memorable moments from a couple of outstanding personalities, while lending my own flair to the mix.

As you can imagine, doing so many things can be a lot to juggle at times, even given my loose approach to scheduling and making obligations out of my passion projects. So naturally there’ll be some changes to how I operate, and I’d like to fill you in on some of the various ways that’ll affect content output.

Currently my arrangement with Dollip Daze is to release a new highlight video every week. Now that I’m  working with SnapCube, that means there’ll be two highlight videos for me to make on a weekly basis. They are both paying me to edit for them, so I don’t consider this under the umbrella of Patreon-related projects. Obviously I’d love for you to check those out since I put a lot of care and effort into each one (and Joy and Penny are wonderful creators who are worth watching regardless!), however I won’t be posting updates about those highlight videos here on Patreon unless it affects the other things I do.

I’d still like to upload a YTP most weeks on DaThings, but it may take me a while to get into the groove of handling everything. So output might slow down for a while (This upcoming YTP is the second in a row I’ve had to give myself an extra week to finish. Don’t want to burn myself out!) but they’re still the highest priority as far as my personal projects are concerned. I love making them and I still have a TON of ideas for new things to make over there.

The video essays will more-or-less continue as normal, only taking up my creative time/space when I have an idea that’s worth the commitment. There may be lapses of time without a new essay, or times when I have several relatively quickly. It’s bound to vary, and that’ll have to be okay. I’m not interested in turning the Ellie-mentary series into a weekly review show or topical discussion venue. I don’t have nearly enough to say to justify forcing episodes out.

Folks in my Discord are already privvy to the new schedule for Twitch, but we’re finishing up Fire Emblem and Earthbound, and after that point I’ll be cutting down to just two streams a week; one YTP caption-writing stream, and a game stream accompanied by Bee. There’ll still likely be a number of spontaneous streams, special events, and the like. But the streams are the one aspect of my job that I don’t have a *huge* passion for so unfortunately that’s the thing that’s going to see the biggest change as I adjust.

Mashups are a total crap-shoot. I do ‘em when I do ’em. I love making them but they’re also not a super high priority unless the creative cogs are spinning particularly quickly at a given moment.

When I started out I figured I’d reach a point where I would need to find part-time work to supplement the income I make online. I imagined that would involve me going back to warehouse work or finding a retail job if the online income (Patreon, Twitch, etc.) wasn’t sustainable. I was right about things not quite reaching a point of sustainability, but thanks to Joy and Penny I’m now able to effectively do that part-time work while still making things and staying in the at-home work environment where I thrive.

I’d like to thank every one of you, my patrons, for your continued generosity and support. It’s thanks to you that I’ve been able to reach this point and I’m so very grateful for the love and care you’ve shown for me and what I do. I appreciate your patience as I find my footing in the self-employed creative space and I hope I’ve done an adequate job of communicating how things are looking for the foreseeable future. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them below this post.

Thanks <3