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Alarmkid23

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  4. YouTube Emulation Extravaganza

    in Emulator Chat

    Posted

    On 17/12/2021 at 18:45, Chopaholic said:

    Thanks everyone I do genuinely appreciate all the comments. It was a bit of a wrench to delete the channel as (1) I'd put so much time and effort into all the content on there and (2) Whilst it was a small, niche channel, the videos were viewed many hundreds of times on average, with some getting quite a bit more than that, and I didn't want to 'let down' those people.

    (As an aside, the more popular videos were managing over 1000 views, with some getting to 1500+ or even 2000+, such as the Psycho Cash Beast Club video. The most watched video on the channel was 'Roshtein - fake money streamer?', which last time I'd checked was around 175,000 (!) views.)

    Ultimately though it's supposed to be a hobby, and when a hobby has started to cause you a degree of stress and worry, it's probably time to change things.

    @wearecity is quite correct that the channel ended up going in directions I really wasn't expecting when I started it, once I began dropping little anecdotes and stories into the videos - (which I did very early on, and it was very well received) - they morphed into something far more personal, culminating of course with the first Gambling Low Ebbs video, which became a series.

    (I remember recording the first Gambling Low Ebbs video, it was late one evening and I'd had a small sherry or two, and the idea of getting some of this horrible stuff 'out of me' had been percolating in my head for a while, so I went downstairs and just recorded it, it all just came out. It was a bombsite and the footage sat on my hard drive for months, I didn't think it was salvageable but I decided to try and edit it together one evening and managed to get it into a coherent state, and the first Gambling Low Ebbs video was born, it got a really positive reaction in the comments (as well as here at DIF) and I leaned more into the personal story/anecdote/feelings side of things going forward.)

    The simple truth is though, that many of those videos contained a lot of personal stuff, including descriptions of activities that were flat out illegal, and we all know how stuff can 'reach through time' to bite you on the arse these days, and I didn't want that to happen.

    (I'm not going to go into specifics here, and nothing horrible happened, but I will say that my online name and channel, crossed paths with my professional real life in a way I really didn't like, and it made me realise that a genuinely malicious actor could make serious trouble for me if things had gone in a different direction. (It's not just that, there's some other stuff too.) Oh yes and there was also an attempt to hack my Google account, that came as a result of the Online Slots stuff, mutil-factor authentication FTW there. Oh and the guy who threatened to track me down and beat me up over the Alien method video, which was nice. Ultimately though it was the IRL crossover, along with some of my changing circumstances, that made me go ahead and delete the channel.)

    This is not the exact scenario, but imagine you're working with a new customer on a big project, there's a lot of money at stake and you're a key resource on this project, and your online identity and YouTube channel are known to the customer, something goes wrong and/or someone decides they don't like you, and they're also aware of (multiple!) videos where you graphically describe taking drugs, dealing drugs, abusing alcohol, stealing, and being utterly consumed by gambling to the point of self-harm, hospitalisation, hunger and desperation - are you potentially compromised by those videos?

    I did consider doing a 'sanitising sweep' on the channel to leave behind only the 'safest' videos, but that idea was dead in the water because the personal stuff was woven so much into so many videos, plus I really hated the idea of butchering my own content, to me it either had to be 100% genuine or not at all. I also considered self-censoring future videos either during the recording or editing phase, but again, that felt totally alien to me and I knew I wouldn't be able to do it and not hate what I was making.

    It wasn't a rash or impulsive decision to delete the channel, it's actually been bothering me for a while now, and whilst I am genuinely sorry to those who watched and enjoyed the channel because it's no longer there, I can't lie, it's actually a weight off my shoulders now, so I know I made the right decision. I know it sounds harsh, but as wearecity notes above, it's a big risk to take for videos that are often only getting a few hundred views and generate no income. (The channel would have only earned pennies even if I did monetise it, but I was adamant that it should purely be a passion project so never went down that route, or asked for donations on Patreon or anything like that.)

    When I started the channel I had no earthly idea if anyone at all would watch it, so it was nice to see it grow into a reasonable little channel, and I'm delighted to have been able to introduce new people to fruit machine emulation, Arcade Simulator, and of course the community here at Desert Island Fruits or elsewhere such as The Mecca and Dad's FME.

    Please note that I did a hard-delete on the channel, it doesn't exist on YouTube anymore so the content is gone in that regard, thus I do not have the option of sending out private links to anything such as @Boulderdash asking above if he can have a link to the Ebbs videos. However, I have got backups of every video I made for the channel, so if there's anything anyone wants a copy of I'm sure we can work something out. (I'll PM you about the Ebbs videos Boulderdash, and @dad you're welcome to have a copy of the DAD Tribute video :) )

     

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