Hello 2020 (Patreon)

Hi there!

I know I'm a little late with this message but I hope you all had a lovely new years and I wish you all the best for 2020! I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on the past year and also look forward to what is to come, both for the channel as well as in my personal life.

For starters, 2019 has been a great year for the channel, we passed 200k, 250k, and ended the year just shy of 300k subscribers, which to me still feels absolutely unreal. I tried to find a balance between presenting you with the kind of content you’ve come to expect from the channel, as well as explore some new things. For example; I played around with longer videos, most notably; the profile on Werner Herzog and my most recent hour long video on Death Stranding, and I covered some video games. If you have any feedback; things you liked, things you weren’t interested in, favorite videos, least favorite videos… etc. Please send me a private message and let me know, I’d love to hear your thoughts! 

Having made over 50 videos by now, one of the biggest internal struggles I had last year was the fear that I would run out of new things to say, or that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the same level of quality. I love making these videos, but the pressure to deliver a ‘masterpiece’ every 2 or 3 weeks can get to you at times, especially when I compare what I do to the work of film directors or authors who only deliver something new once, or even less than once a year. My mindset therefore has shifted somewhat from having to create something completely mindblowing every time, to also making videos that don’t necessarily present something brand new, but instead add nuance or expand on a previously discussed subject. I figured that, 1; a lot of the (complicated) topics I talk about warrant multiple videos as they can hardly be covered in one discussion, take for example how the video on Fight Club tackles the previously discussed book ‘The Denial of Death’ by Ernest Becker, but zooms in on a specific chapter and subject I hadn’t talked about before. And 2; I believe some topics aren’t grasped through a one-time revelation, but through repeated exposure and reflection. This is for example how the second video on Stoicism was born (this time using Gladiator as an example). Stoicism in particular is a philosophy that I think is easy to grasp on an intellectual level, but difficult to internalize on an emotional/practical level. The same goes for a lot of subjects that seem simple enough on the surface, yet somehow have proven themselves to be hard to master on a deeper, more integral level.

Moving forward in 2020, I of course hope to continue to provide you with insightful, entertaining and inspiring videos. As for some specific aspirations, I for starters aim to read more books and thus present you with more new concepts and ideas. I also want to do more director profiles like the Herzog video. In fact; I figured I hit the ground running and am currently working on a video on the legendary Andrei Tarkovsky which I’m really excited about! I also want to use this video to experiment with some different ways of conveying meaning/knowledge/emotion… I’m not sure how to explain it but I feel so many video essays on Youtube talk about things in the same informative way (with the occasional jokes and inserted memes) regardless of the subject they’re discussing, and I think video essays can be so much more. They have to be more, and I want to explore those boundaries to see what’s possible. 

Another important thing that’s currently going on in my life is that my girlfriend and I are looking to buy a house, so hopefully 2020 is the year I’ll become a home-owner! It’s exciting, but also really scary. As of April I became a Youtuber full-time, so I should probably change my current Patreon goal from “Making these videos becomes my full-time job” to “Makes me a full-time video essayist who doesn’t have constant financial anxieties.” I’ll get around to that. Anyways, together with sponsors, the support I’m getting on Patreon is probably my most consistent source of income and might actually be the deciding factor as to whether or not we will able to get a mortgage, which deepened my gratitude for all of you beyond what I could express. I never would have imagined I would one day get to follow my passion and have that passion be supported by the kindness and generosity of others, thank you all so much! 

Again, I wish you all the best for 2020! If you have any thoughts on things you’d like to see from the channel this year, if you have any book or film recommendations, any hopes, dreams, or concerns, anything at all, feel free to reach out!

Best,

Tom