My YouTube Channel Is Back Online
New videos will still only be available to paid subscribers first.
About two years ago, I stopped publicly sharing my YouTube videos and only made about 15 long-form ones shared with paid Substack subscribers.
Since then, several people have left comments on my YouTube channel and other accounts asking what happened and whether I would ever start posting videos again. Most of those viewers were People of Color who had enjoyed seeing someone challenge the status quo in overlanding and RVing communities—merely by existing.
However, that challenge wasn’t without its consequences.
I received a lot of virtual hate mail from racists who told me I should stay away from White people and that my racial experiences were an excellent reminder that I wasn’t welcome in the space. The worst was shortly after I had to give up my property in New Mexico, and UncleFjester—an old, White overlander with an FJ—posted to tell me that I deserved to be homeless.
Over the years, I guess people have reported these comments because there aren’t as many of them now as there used to be. These were some of the ones I was able to find.
I needed a break from the “morans” and the “dumness”!
I am all sass and no chill, so I fought fire with fire in the comments. Still, arguing with people just got tiring. So, after a while, keeping up with YouTube didn’t seem worth it.
Over the years, many people have tried to get me to restart the channel—not least among them, my family, who really enjoyed being able to see me out in the wild in color. Still, this comment was what really pushed me to do it.
I don’t know why this particular comment stood out to me. Maybe it’s someone else acknowledging that I really had a lot of crappy trolls on my page that they likely saw in the comments. Or perhaps it’s my refusal to let the goblins win.
In any case, it was the catalyst.
YouTube videos are time-consuming.
Trolls aside, I stopped making YouTube videos because they were time-consuming. It's a lot easier for people who simply talk to a camera. When you take a more storytelling approach and stitch together dozens of candid footage plus voiceovers, like I do, it’s a whole different ballgame. It took me 4 to 8 hours to produce the 5-12-minute videos I usually had on my channel.
Still, I’ll give YouTube another go and see how it turns out. I won’t commit to a weekly video, but the unlisted ones have been scheduled once or twice monthly until June 2024. The first one is already live, and I’ll start working on a few more so (hopefully) we don’t run out. Enjoy.