I like to think there is always a silver lining. No matter how dark things may seem, they aren’t always completely dark. You can always find some light, one last bit of hope. For 10 years, up until the summer of 2023, I was living off of that. 

From the outside looking in, everything seemed to be going fine. Without getting into much detail, I found myself in a situation I could’ve easily changed, but emotionally, I couldn’t make those decisions. Years went by, and now I’m not in that place anymore. I’m blessed more than ever, and I’m grateful for where I’m at in my life.

So here I am now. And I want to discuss YouTube. It played a huge role in my life, and still does. I’d love to do a complete history, but that will be for another time. In this blog, I want to share some specific details about my channel and its events. It was in 2016 that I made a big comeback to YouTube. In the same year, I brought back Breegull Mail, rode the hype train for a new Banjo-Kazooie game, and Banjo in Super Smash Bros., played the Switch when it was a fairly new console, and dabbled in the Banjo-Kazooie mod scene when it was just kicking off. 

I went through two moves in the same year (2019), and found myself in a new home, right before 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic. This is when life took a drastic turn for many people around the world, and I was no exception. I ended up having no internet access at home for a while, and my phone used the free version of TextNow for its number. Near the end of 2020, I found myself having to rent a hotel room for an indefinite number of weeks, and I made a video on my YouTube channel asking for help, with a link to a GoFundMe. Life was harder, and finding a job was and still is difficult. 

I found solace in some things, though. The love for my two pet parrots, Sans the cockatiel and Papyrus the conure, truly keeps me going. But to fill up my time, I would consume lots and lots of media: videos on YouTube, movies, episodic shows, music, and video games. The following year, 2021, was when I tried to rebuild myself. I thought I had something good going, but nothing ever amounted to what I wanted them to be. 

It was my 15th anniversary year, and I never did the anniversary video I wanted to do. Usually, channels would lose subscribers here and there, but that year saw a drop that took the rest of the year to recover from. Why this happened, I didn’t know. I guess people who subscribed because of Banjo in Smash didn’t see a reason to keep watching. Nevertheless, several premieres and live streams didn’t do much for the channel. The games, GTA III, Threads of Fate, Resident Evil 4, and Gex, were made to expand my audience, but they didn’t go anywhere. I uploaded classic videos in full on Facebook, but underestimated their value. 

In 2022, I live-streamed a lot more Banjo-Kazooie mods. They did better, but still didn’t really push the channel to any heights. I did more than mods, but overall, they all made fantastic memories I will always look back on.

In 2023, I made Banjo-Shorties episodes, and again, they also went nowhere. But in late June, early July, that year, I found myself in a living situation that gave me the willpower to do something more with my life. I started working as a journalist through a work experience program for local news and then returned to college. In 2024, I left my journalist job and decided to put college on hold for a while. Things are going great currently, though. I work for a retail data company, and started a nonprofit for citizen journalism. I needed something better in my life, and I feel like I’m there now. I see bright things happening in my future.

It’s been one year since my last YouTube video, but I want to keep making videos. I will. That time will come, and it will be worth the wait. I guarantee that.

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