Why I quit making videos on YouTube

Hello, so I thought I'd make a quick video

update on, you know, just what I'm doing

these days. It's been a few weeks since I

last made my last video. I think it's

actually the first time in about 4 years

that I haven't made a video in 2 weeks,

and it's kind of been nice having a break,

getting away from the whole stress of

trying to get views on YouTube. I don't

know if other I guess most of you don't

know what it's like having to depend on

YouTube for views for most of your income,

but it's really stressful. And ever since

I found a way to make better money on the

stock market, I've just kind of— I don't

know, I've been doing a lot of thinking,

I guess, about do I really want to

make videos if I don't desperately need

the money? And I guess the answer was that

without the motivation to make money off

of YouTube, I guess I just don't really

have that burning desire to make videos

like I used to do. I guess I'll still make

an update video every now and then just to

talk about things that I'm up to, but you

know, because of the lockdown and stuff

like that, I can't really travel anywhere,

I can't go anywhere. I'm not really doing

anything that you guys would find

interesting. I'm just, you know,

researching stocks and trying to find out

what stocks to buy and which ones to sell.

I don't really think most of you are

interested in that. So instead of

desperately trying to churn out videos on

random topics that most people probably

won't care about, I think I'll just, you

know, slow down a bit on the whole video

upload stuff. I'm not quitting videos,

but I think I'm just gonna reduce it down

to maybe one video a every few weeks when

I feel like it. I was just planning to do

livestreams and focus on streaming, but as

you may be aware of, the whole Tim

Schofield situation didn't really pan out

in a good way. Um, basically he just

completely ignored me. I sent him a few

emails, I messaged him on Instagram, I

messaged him on Twitter. I even went onto

his Twitch livestream and tried asking him

about it, and his moderators just banned

me straight away. So he's not responding

at all. I don't know if he saw my apology

video. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. I

guess he doesn't care. So I can't really

do anything about the strike. I tried

appealing to YouTube, but they said that

there's, there's no reason to approve of

my appeal. So my appeal got rejected. I'm

stuck with a copyright strike until April

22nd, so I can't do any streaming. I guess

I could go over to Twitch, but I just

haven't really been desperately wanting to

stream because, like I said before,

nothing really is happening that I can

talk about, and I don't think you want to

hear me talk about stocks for hours and

hours and hours. So now that I've found a

better way to make money and I don't need

to desperately churn out drama or try and

find ways to get views or chase YouTube

views, I've been doing a lot of thinking,

really. I've been doing a lot of

retrospective thinking back on the last

few years where I was just completely

obsessed with chasing views and coming up

with drama and having conflicts with

people to get views. And it's just

kind of— it's kind of embarrassing. I'm

actually a little bit embarrassed of

myself that I fell so low and

I was just completely taken over with

trying to become famous and trying to

cling on to my fame and just trying to

chase fame no matter what the cost, no

matter who I upset or who I cheated on or

who I said bad things about. I just, I

just didn't care. All I wanted was views

so I could make money off of YouTube. And

I'm just kind of— I don't know if I— I

don't know if I regret it. I guess I do

kind of regret not getting into stocks

sooner so I didn't have to depend or rely

on YouTube so much for views. But I guess

I just feel kind of sad that it ended up

like that and I ended up upsetting so many

people. And yeah, I guess I do regret

doing certain things like cheating or

saying horrible things about people who

thought they were my friends or using

other YouTubers' names in titles just to

get a couple hundred dollars is kind of

embarrassing, I guess. When you become

famous or, you know, just even a tiny bit

famous on YouTube, it can be really— it

can be really addictive. It's like a— like

some kind of addiction, and you see those

numbers just blowing up and the money is

going up and up and everyone loves you and

it takes over your life. Well, it took

over my life. I was really scared of my

channel fading away and the views going

down and then eventually not being able to

make enough money off of YouTube. And my

biggest fear was my channel dying because

I just really didn't want to have to go

and get a normal job again. Really hated

all of my previous jobs. And when my

YouTube channel took off and started

earning me enough money for me to be able

to not have to get a job, it was the best

thing in my life. It was the best thing

that ever happened in my life. It was my

biggest dream. My biggest dream for

pretty much all my life has always been

to, to find a way to make money online and

not have to wake up at 8 AM in the morning

and get on a train and go to work in some

place with a bunch of people I don't like

for 8 hours doing some boring task that I

really hate. And when my YouTube channel

took off, I felt like I achieved that

goal. I escaped from having to get a

job, and it was the best thing ever. And I

was just really terrified of losing that,

and I was willing to do absolutely

anything to cling on to the

viewers and the fame and to carry on

living that lifestyle. All of the things I

did in 2019, uh, I did out of desperation.

Not really because I really wanted to do

them, but because I felt like there was no

other way to keep the channel going

without taking desperate measures like

cheating and then exposing my own cheating

by myself so I could create some kind of

drama, or doing stupid stuff like fake

being fake homeless and getting a tent and

setting up and pretending I was getting

kicked out and pretending that my wife

divorced me. And then ultimately even

deciding to walk out on the marriage and

leave Japan and go to Korea because I felt

like if I didn't do that, then the channel

was definitely going to die and I wouldn't

be able to make any money anymore. I'd

have to go and work in 7-Eleven to make

money and The thought of that just really

scared me, so I felt like I didn't have

any choice but to just leave and go to

Korea and try and find some kind of new

adventure, start some kind of new story

that would hook viewers in and get them to

carry on watching. But even with all that,

even with going to Korea and then going

back home and then the whole Mila thing,

even with all those things happening, I

still couldn't stop the channel from

dying. I couldn't grow the channel. And

once I stopped doing all these crazy

things and I stopped making drama and I

stopped trying to expose people and expose

myself and attacking people, after I

stopped doing that, then, well, you look

at the views and you can see what happened

for yourself. And you might be thinking,

why don't you just make some fake drama,

start beef with a YouTuber? And yeah, I

thought about all those things. I thought

about coming up with a fake girlfriend,

and then we could have fake arguments and

could pretend she got pregnant and pretend

I got kicked out. And I just, I can't do

it anymore. I just, I can't even

force myself to, to pick up

my camera and go out in the garden and do

some stupid fake rant about some person I

hate so much who betrayed me and lied to

me and blah blah blah. I just can't do it

anymore. I cannot physically force myself

to do these stupid drama rants anymore.

It's just, it feels so dumb, feels so

forced. And if it's real

drama, then it's just damaging to my

relationships with my family and other

people. And I just feel like it's not

worth, it's not worth it anymore just to

make what $60 or $100 from the

views I get these days if I made like a

fake drama thing. So yeah,

even though I did a few— I tried doing

like a few fake videos when I was in

Rotterdam and I didn't even put any effort

into it. It's probably the worst acting I

have ever done. Still, that video got more

views than all of my other videos where I

was just trying to avoid drama. Which

makes me feel a bit sad, but I just can't

force myself to do these fake drama things

anymore. It's tiring. I'm just tired of

it. So what do I plan to do for content?

Well, I don't really want to do drama

anymore, and if I got a new girlfriend, I

don't really feel like talking about

her loads and loads because that kind of

backfired last time. I'd probably try and

keep her a secret or just keep it kind of

private and just say, yeah, I've got a

girlfriend, she's from blah blah blah,

she's 26 years old or whatever. I probably

won't show her face, or unless she wants

to, but I won't pressure her to be a part

of videos, although I guess that would be

nice. But I don't, I don't want

to make like toxic relationship content

like I did before because I don't really

want a toxic relationship. I want a nice

relationship. Where we don't fight and

things go smoothly. And I'm not cheating,

hopefully. So for content,

I don't really have any ideas, to be

honest. I don't really want to make videos

about topics before like I used to, you

know, like why Japan does this and that,

or 5 things about Japan you didn't know.

I can't be bothered. I'm not interested in

making these like wannabe video essay

type videos I was so desperately trying to

do, which also failed.

And I don't really want to talk about

stocks because you guys don't care and

they get terrible views. And it's not like

I'm an expert on stocks or anything. I

just read random Reddit articles about

stocks to decide if I want to buy it or

not. And obviously nothing interesting is

happening because of lockdown.

So my plans for 2021 are I

would like to go back to Japan, to be

honest. I kind of miss Japan. I don't

really feel like anything interesting is

going to happen here in England, and I've

been Googling when Japan's going to reopen

to tourists, and it seems like they're

looking to reopen in April because,

you know, the Olympics are gonna happen in

Japan in summer. So they're hoping that

they'll be able to reopen to all tourists

in April if vaccinations and stuff like

that goes smoothly. But you never know,

things could go wrong or things could get

delayed, could get pushed back to summer.

If the Olympics get completely cancelled,

then they might not even let foreigners

into Japan until 2022, which would really

suck. I feel a lot of regrets recently.

Regret for making a lot of bad decisions

in the last few years, and all these

decisions were made either because I was

desperate for views or because I

couldn't keep it in my pants, which is

also another thing I'm kind of

disappointed with. I'm not really proud of

the fact that I cheated so many times,

and I'm kind of disappointed that I wasn't

able to resist the temptation. I feel a

lot of sadness as well, sadness about how

things turned out. Sadness because of the

things I did for short-term pleasure,

which right now don't really— didn't

really result in anything good. I mean, I

don't have anything to show for it. And

now I keep thinking things like, if only I

got into stocks sooner. If only I put my

YouTube earnings straight into stocks

instead of wasting it on pointless things

like buying 2 gaming laptops, buying all

those cameras I didn't need, buying

iPhones when I didn't need them, wasting

it on Airbnbs and love dolls when I could

just put all that money into stocks and

then that would have made more money than

all the stupid drama videos combined. Or

what if all those girls didn't constantly

message me when I was married? That would

have been nice. That would have made it a

bit easier to not cheat. I just keep

imagining how, how much better my life

could have been in 2018 and '19 if I just

didn't have that desperation for views,

and I didn't make everything public, and I

didn't talk about every single private

detail of my life on livestreams so I

could make an extra buck or 2. So yeah,

those were my thoughts on my current

situation. I don't really know what's

going to happen in 2021. It's off to a bit

of a slow start. Hopefully Japan reopens

this year. Would be nice if I could

eventually go back. I'm not really sure

what I would do there or if it would be

interesting. I think ideally I would like

to try and— try and find enjoyment

in making videos again, try and rediscover

my enjoyment of making videos and

not try and chase views and not try and

make YouTube my main source of income.

Just keep it as like a side thing, like a

hobby to do for fun. Maybe that way I'll

start enjoying the video creation process

again instead of just getting sad all the

time because my views aren't going up or

nothing's going viral. This whole

experience of becoming a YouTuber and then

experiencing your channel die is just— it

messes with your mind so much.

And it's kind of shocking to look back and

look back at all the things I did and said

to get views. And I feel like what

happened to me, what happened to Daniel,

I feel like I became this, this completely

different person that I don't even

recognize as myself.

And I kind of just want to say goodbye to

that fame-hungry,

view-obsessed wannabe YouTuber version of

myself and just try and let it go, try and

let the obsession go. It really felt like

I was living 2 lives. Some people who,

who met me in real life or experienced

living with me in real life said similar

things, that it's like there's 2 Daniels.

There's like the real-life Daniel off

camera who is kind of, you know, just

quiet and reserved, and then there's the

online YouTube Daniel who says all these

weird things and rude things and crazy

stuff and does weird things. And I guess

that's like the exaggeration— exaggerated

version of myself that I, I created,

like a persona, to try and get people to

keep watching the channel. Because the

only way I could get people to watch was

by being weird. That was like my unique

selling point. The weirder I was, the more

it got people to watch because they wanted

to see you know, how weird I am and what

weird thing I would say or do next. If I

just acted normal, then people would think

it's boring. I don't really have any other

way to get people to watch. I'm not

insanely good-looking. I'm not really

knowledgeable on any kind of topic that

people would want to learn about from me.

So the only thing I had was my weirdness,

and I just thought if I just exaggerated

the weirdness as much as possible— so even

though I started off making videos you

know, just being myself, my personality

kind of split off into 2 directions.

There was myself and then this exaggerated

version of myself which I used to just try

and get views by saying ridiculous things

and doing really dumb stuff and saying

dumb stuff. I really started to feel like

I was having— like I had a split

personality, like there were 2 versions of

me, and I guess right now I'm kind of

having a bit of identity crisis. Because I

don't really want to be that person

anymore. I just want to be myself

again. But before, I was always worried of

just being myself because I was worried

that just being myself wasn't interesting

enough and that wouldn't get views and

it'd be boring and then my channel would

die. I think now that I've accepted that

there's not really much I can do to

prevent it from dying. I could say the

most craziest things, I could come up with

a bunch of fake drama, and yeah, maybe

it'll boost the views a little bit for a

while, but it won't last.

And I don't know if my channel has been

shadow banned by YouTube or something, or

the algorithm has just decided to turn its

back on me because the channel just does

not grow at all no matter what I do.

Maybe I'd be better off starting a new

channel, fresh start. I don't know. I just

don't really have the same energy that I

had in the first place to just make a new

channel and carry on making videos that

are of some kind of decent quality. I

think I'll carry on making videos, but I

won't really put any effort into it. So

yeah, that's all I had to say, I think.

Um, I guess I'll see you next time.