If you're not one of the small but loyal group of followers my YouTube, Twitch and other content has had, you can probably skip this one. For the rest of you who have been wondering where all that went, read on.
I've made a lot of content over the years. Over a decade nearly uninterrupted on YouTube, multiple years on Mixer and then Twitch after that, various starts and stops of this blog, plus the ramble podcast I made on my commute when I had one. There was also 12 marathon streams for Extra Life and almost $28,000 raised from you amazing people in there too.
What Happened
Last year, it all got put on indefinite hiatus out of the blue. I still get asked about it once in a while and I appreciate knowing that it meant something to a few people. I've spent a lot of time reflecting during this hiatus about what my life priorities are, what brings me joy and satisfaction and what I want to do going forward. I thought I'd give those that care some insights into what I'm doing and why.
So, why did things stop so abruptly? I had a sudden onset mental health crisis that lasted most of last year and a chunk of this year. I've suffered from anxiety and secondary depression from that almost my whole life, fed in no small part by my ADHD. Generally, I manage it alright these days. But one Monday in 2024, I woke up with my anxiety at what I would call an 8 or 9 out of 10. For those who don't suffer from it, the best way I can describe it is feeling like you've just been jumpscared, but are stuck like that all the time. Now think about living your life like that. This happens to me once in a while but usually subsides. This time, it carried on for months, bringing another bout of depression along for the ride. Looking back, it's a wonder I was able to keep getting through my work days and core life obligations, but I managed somehow.
This continued to spiral and I eventually had to get back on medication that I thought I'd finally managed to kick for good. Anti-anxiety/anti-depression meds aren't something you just start and stop. It takes months to get on them and months to get back off and if you don't do it slowly, things can go real bad. As in potential violent outbursts and suicidal ideation bad. So I spent months on that grind, clawing through each day to stay functional, with only fumes left in the tank come evening. If I sat down for more than a few minutes, I'd start to nod off. After many agonizing months, I finally reached a dose of medication that started to stabilize things.
I won't go into details, but between personal reflection and therapy, I realized the bulk of that was triggered by stress over the relationship I was in. That relationship ended a few months ago. Since then, I've started ADHD medication again and have found one that actually seems to be helping the anxiety and I've started slowly decreasing the other medication again. ADHD people are starved for dopamine and are often anxiety prone from that. ADHD meds replace dopamine and can often counter the anxiety on its own. Things still aren't perfect and I still have the occasional bad day, but they are much better than they were and heading in the right direction.
The Content Problem
With all that going on, I couldn't even think about making videos or doing streams. But it also gave me a lot of time to reflect on what I've been doing in life, what it's been bringing me and what I could be doing instead. I'm really bad at realizing when an idea or project has run its course and when it's gone past the point of sunk cost. In other words, I tend to keep at stuff long after I should have quit and tried something else.
I've said that success in content creation is minimum 90% luck and I stand by that. You can make the best stuff in the world and if you aren't in the right place at the right time to curry favour with an algorithm, no one will see it. Beyond that, I'm not a bombastic personality, I don't trend chase and I don't make clickbait garbage designed to rile people up. I'm not going to lie, it still makes me bitter seeing how many gifting scumbags continue to thrive while so many more genuine, quality creators go unseen. I made stuff about indie and retro games because that's what interests me but content about a niche is a chicken and egg problem. You want to bring attention to a niche that doesn't get enough of it, but to do that you also need attention on your stuff. I never figured out a way to crack that formula without compromising my principals.
I also didn't have the time to make videos more complicated than the very simple "unscripted live to tape with minimal editing" ones I did, at least not while still being able to cover the games I got codes for in a timely manner. Some creators can succeed with that basic a formula, but it's a small number. So my choice was to either devote essentially all my free time to making fancier videos less often or keep on the grind I had been, hoping to beat the lottery-like odds and that the robot senpai would notice me. Neither was appealing. It also likely didn't help that my channel was originally a personal one I posted random stuff on back when YouTube was new. It was likely deep in an algorithmic black hole before I uploaded my first gaming related video and was never able to crawl out of that. I could have burned that channel and started a new one, but that was no guarantee either.
Twitch was better in some ways and worse in others. Streaming doesn't require editing, scripts or even much in the way of research. Plus, you get to interact with your audience in real-time. But a middle-aged white guy playing indie games doesn't trend so well on a platform whose front page is covered by political grifters, bimbos in hot tubs and the latest live service slop. That's not to say you still can't find an audience, but it requires a lot of ugh..."networking" and I know this is going to sound weird, but while I liked doing streams, I don't really like watching them. I much prefer to watch YouTube, but make streams. Weird, right?
So I was stuck with this dichotomy. Some people will always pipe up and say "If you enjoy making it, stop obsessing over numbers!" Two things with that: First, you don't make stuff and post it publicly not wanting people to see it. You're just keeping a journal then. Just because you don't want to be the next big "influencer" doesn't mean you don't want to build a community to make your efforts fulfilling. Second, even though I make a good living, I can't afford to buy all the games I cover. I had to rely on press codes and PR companies don't give those out to people with no audience. Despite my best efforts, I also couldn't play anything without thinking "I should do a stream or a video about this!" and it was becoming frustrating both to me and to friends who just wanted to play stuff with me.
At the end of the day, while my community is great and I appreciate you all, it was and remains a very small one. When working a full-time job, plus a side business, and looking after a home and three pets by myself, doing videos and streams didn't leave time for much else. I had a list of other projects and interests I kept pushing aside for "when I have time" and that time never came because there was always a stream scheduled or a video in the queue. The rare video that would do relatively well (or really, less badly) had no rhyme or reason as to why and YouTube analytics are terrible at giving you insights into that and that would stress me. When talking about this with a friend, he said something that hit home: "That's not a hobby, it's a second job that you aren't getting paid for."
Since then, I've seen YouTube getting more and more infested with AI slop which they are doing nothing meaningful to combat, while also making changes to their algorithm that have suddenly seen even large creators take huge hits to their viewership without explanation. The platform is becoming more hostile towards the people who made and keep it popular. I've paid for YouTube Premium for years and have never run an ad blocker, but damned if I'm not reconsidering both these days. Even being a viewer is frustrating, much less thinking about being a creator again.
I've also gotten back into playing games purely for fun and I didn't realize how much I'd forgotten what that's like. Just firing something up to play it and nothing else was how I'd spent most of my life with the hobby, yet I'd forgotten so quickly in pursuit of the content treadmill. Sure, I don't have access to the volume of new games I used to but aside from that being good for my backlog, those "free" press codes weren't free, they required hours of unpaid labour if I didn't want to screw over the people giving them to me, which I refused to do. I'd much rather have fewer things to play and more time to enjoy them.
The Remaster
There's a lot more about my life that I've been reflecting on and changing over the last while, but this post is long enough as it is and a lot of it's personal. People in middle-age sometimes undergo what they call a "life reboot" (which I think is just a modern synonym for "mid-life crisis"), but I like to think of mine more like a "life remaster". I've changed some priorities, but many remain the same, I'm just choosing to allocate my time to different places to see if I get better results. I'm not upending everything, just tackling what I already had in a different way.
I made the decision on what to do several months ago, but wanted to make sure I was certain before announcing it. I wanted to relaunch Geek Bravado first as I had the urge to write again and I've been enjoying it a lot. Plus, this is something I can do when I'm able to and I fully control the platform it's on. Sure, algorithms still play their part in terms of search engines, but I care less about that, plus a lot of the posts are evergreen and things I can link back to over time.
As for YouTube, I've decided I'm done making content for there indefinitely. I just don't have the time to make higher quality stuff about the subjects I want and I have no enthusiasm for continuing to contribute to a platform that has so little respect for its creators. I'll leave all my videos up, but I don't plan to add more. If I ever do YouTube again, it will be about a different subject on a new channel, but there are no plans right now.
I do want to stream again, this time with an exclusive focus on retro games and other nostalgic content like scene demos, showing how gaming worked back in the old days, and even other weird stuff like old commercials. I've had The Deep Backlog for years now and have done nothing with it. Tackling these classics with an audience I think would be really fun and cool and I know there's a small niche looking for that. The thing is, I can't tell you when that's going to be. I want to redo the stream setup from scratch, both to reflect the new theme and because so much has changed in the last year, but I need time for that, then time and drive to be able to stream on a semi-reliable schedule and I just don't have either right now. I probably will some day, but I don't know when yet. Hell, I might even start just doing the streams on my Discord, then scale up from there, I'm not sure.
I know "I'm going to stream again but I don't know when" isn't a satisfying answer, but it's the best I have right now and I think that's better than just staying silent. In the mean time, I'm going to keep focusing on my job, finally starting to learn electronics repair, trying to get my weight down as I recently found out I'm right on the line of being diabetec, and just continuing to enjoy playing stuff, which is what games are supposed to be about after all. My love of the medium is as strong as ever, I'm just getting back to basics with how I experience it.
I've also been contributing a lot of scans and running the Bluesky account for the awesome BigBoxDB.com, which you really should check out if you haven't. The Bluesky's been neglected for a bit because I had a few really busy months, but I'm getting that back on track soon. It's a fun community of retro weirdos that I hope I can do more with.
Conclusion
I'm under no illusions that this is something most people will care about. My community was small, always was and probably always will be. But for those of you who do care, I thought I owed you an explanation and a window into what led me here. It's been a weird journey and not one I originally planned, but I'm hoping this "life remaster" will end up being for the best, both for myself and for what content I do keep making.
Whether you're someone who watched my stuff, engaged with it, donated to my Extra Life, a developer who took a chance by sharing your own art with me or some combination, I appreciate you all immensely. I started making videos both as a creative outlet and a means to get better talking to crowds and I've achieved both of those. However, life's always changing and I think it's time I start embracing that, rather than ignoring it at my peril.
Subscribe to Geek Bravado as there's more stuff coming here and when I do stream again, you'll definitely hear it here first! Thanks for reading and for watching.
