Apologies and the Future

So in the coming week outside of 2 or 3 reactions for the main channel, my focus is going to be finishing Ted Lasso, OFAH, and Doctor Who in full. I've had life get in the way far too often and to be honest going from reaction to reaction even to stuff I'd rather react to and trying to take care of the house and school the kids has left y'all on the back burner far too often. So my plan is to finish out the major stuff we've reacted to in here. The plan is to have everything finished as much as possible by September 1st. I think Doctor Who and OFAH may prevent the entirety of everything being recorded and uploaded in full by the end of next week due to the amount of episodes coupled with (in the case of Doctor Who) length of episodes.

I'm doing this for two fold reasons. Number 1, I feel like I've been a piece of shit with the amount of or lack there of of content I've put up in here. Number 2, I'm making changes personally and content wise and I'd rather get everything finished as much as quickly as possible for everyone in here and at least give you everything that you've been paying for up to this point.

I've been doing reactions for 6 years at this point. First with music and then culture, comedy and history, as well as doing tv shows and movies. I love doing reactions but I'm no longer in love with doing them. I feel they're limiting. I feel also they paint the reactor into a corner. I've played the ah shucks half dumb American for 6 years and to be frank, I'm fucking tired of that schtick. I don't know everything but there's a ton of history that in the last 6 years was more refresher than the first time I've heard about it. I got a better than average education, mostly because I paid for it and the history teachers I had went past book level even if it was never on a test. I've also read a shit ton outside of just history books in school. I'm currently reading The Gathering Storm from Churchill's exposition on the events leading up to and through WWII. I've read quite a few tomes such as that, whether on historical events or biographies of people in my lifetime.

Outside of that these last 2 years, the comment section and myself have gotten progressively more political, even if on my part it's been unintentional. I've watched the sentiment on migrants, the changing landscape of British culture and traditions, and the amount of absolute vitriol against America and Americans in general hit a level to where, it's just tiring at this point. The changing temperature here and there has led me to do diatribes during videos that are wholly unnecessary. The anti American sentimenality as well has made me more patriotic than I think I've been since the few years after 9/11 happened.

I don't know who all saw the post on the channel asking about a channel where I do videos reviewing beer, barbeque on the grill (smoke meats) and cookout on the grill and talk sports as well as do watch alongs. I'm not doing that as a channel. I'll be doing that as a segment on the channel. I'm going to be recording some reactions in the coming days and in about 3 weeks you're going to start seeing more original content on the channel. For the future, I'll still do reactions but they'll be a segment and not the entirety of the content on the channel. I'll have a day where I have a reaction to something culture or food related (will play into future videos) and a day where I'll have a comedy or sports reaction and every other day will be original content, whether full on original such as a segment I'm calling Brews, Cue and Sports, or cooking cultural foods (first season is all British food and yes, I'm doing it in a season type format with episodes), hybrid and original revolving around 40k or other original content. 90% of the content is stemming from stuff I've reacted to on the channel in the past so everything with the exception of the Brews, Cue and Sports which will include watch alongs on Kick of Premier League, College Football, NFL, Rugby (when I can find it cause good grief the subscription prices monthly to view games is nuts) Cricket (I'm looking into options) and where I'm able Billiards and Darts since, well, I know there's a few of you in here that watch those. So it'll be more of an almost TV like format. Oh this day is this show, this day is that show, this day is reaction, until I can have 7 days filled out of content that's a mixture of original and reaction content.

For the cooking I've already got the first season planned out. I'll be going from what should be easier dishes and working up to attempting a Beef Wellington. I'll be starting with Welsh Cakes, then doing Yorkshire Pudding, then Toad in the Hole, then Bangers and Mash, then Fish and Chips, then Shephard's Pie, then Steak and Kidney Pie, and finally Beef Wellington. After that I'll be retiring the segment for a month to record the next month's worth of videos and it'll probably be French foods or maybe German.

I've got 2 other segments I'm going to work in as well. 1 centered around picking and building a Warhammer 40k army, and 1 looking at how US travel infrastructure lags behind the world in affordable access and access in general, whether it's the walkability factor, city and county transportation, as well as bus and plane travel.

All the reactions will feed into future original content for the most part outside of comedy reactions, which I will still be doing but every video won't be reaction, even if it's a result of it. I'm just, I think after 6 years, ready to spread the wings a bit. And I'll be honest. It's a risk. Personally I think the change overall, could be tough to swallow but if 30% of my current community sticks around to stay for the coming format which I'm hoping is more akin to a tv channel than a youtube channel since you can go to a tv channel and watch different shows, that's the concept I'm going for. I've done everything for the most part within the reaction realm, even when I've made "changes", I just traded 1 reaction for another. This gives the opportunity to explore things in a way I haven't before that stem from the reactions and allows for original content that can expand past reactions to either see new places or tell stories, or just satisfy the same curiosity that caused me to start reacting in the first place.

Doing all of this allows me to not be so focused 100% of the time on making sure I'm not tied down behind a computer 100% of the time when I'm not recording or doing housework because I'm editing, or searching for new stuff to react to. It allows me to get from sitting behind a desk at a camera getting out and doing stuff, even if that stuff is content related and it allows me to approach content from new angles. Instead of sitting behind the desk trying to figure out ok, this person has done this, but I don't see any reaction to this, I can go, ok, I've got this beer to review, this meat to smoke or cook, and talk about this is going on sports wise, or I'll go to this brewery because they have these 2 beers, then I'm going to this bbq joint to try their take or fusion and then I'll be going to this USL match, or my first hockey game, or shit, there's a rugby squad and league I can go check out and maybe talk to the players, or maybe ok, I've got these ingredients here, let's make sure I have everything set out properly so that the presentation and cooking look as good as possible. It allows me to go, well, most places, even in countier areas, there's still a level of accessibility in Europe and the UK, there's walking paths, here, you have to drive to trails to walk or your having to walk the shoulder of the road and keep an eye on traffic because you have a 10 mile walk, and the walkability of towns and cities seem to be better, what's the difficulty level of walking locally and in the nearest large city, or let's travel by bus and compare pricing, time it takes for a similar distance, why it isn't better, etc.

Also, between us, me and Daniel Arias of Embrace the Suck and Arias and the Nation are going to be starting a joint podcast we're calling Informed Idiots. It's going to be highly informal and there's no telling wtf we'll be talking about.

I apologize, and I will have everything finished up in short order and then I'll be making changes in here to better reflect what to expect content wise, more along the lines of early access and behind the scenes and cut content from videos.