Sean Seanson
patreon
Update 29/5/25 - The 'I Love Youtube' to 'I Hate Youtube' Pipeline
🕑 Added 2025-05-29 12:22:03 +0000 UTCHowdy friends,
I hope all is good and that life has been treating you well. Once again, I'm back to tickle your email notifications via a Patreon update!
As you may have seen I got the Demo 1 video out a few weeks back, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out but I will say YouTube has tanked the reach of that video much harder than usual, it had a strong few days and then just flatlined, which isn't really that unusual for my channel but it literally went from like 100 to 0 out of nowhere. I won't lie, the past year has seen a noticeable downturn in my views and subscribers, which I try not to pay much attention to, but every time I open YouTube studio, it hits me with a bunch of...
"Fewer people are subscribing"
"This video is underperforming"
"This topic isn't generating as many views as other topics"
"Have you tried making shorts?"
"Have you tried turning on YouTube memberships?"
And while I understand why this happening, I mean I've personally avoiding chasing trends or marketing my videos in any way, it kinda sucks that I can't even avoid YouTube giving me shit for just using their platform. My goal when making these videos is to just talk about something I'm interested in, nothing more, and if anything, this unpredictable algorithm and Youtube actively negging me, actually kind of turns me off the YouTube experience, like it sucks to say but after nearly 5 years of doing this, this is probably the lowest I've been on well being a youtuber.
I remember listening to podcast a few years back with Mark from Classic Game Room, somebody who I always enjoyed watching due to his lighthearted and positive attitude to gaming, and in this podcast Mark sounded so jaded and bitter thanks to years of trying to figure out YouTube and make a viable career out of it, such a happy guy sounding so defeated and miserable, I just can't ever let myself end up like that. I can't end up jaded and bitter talking about something I love and care about. I can't sit around thinking of which video idea will make me the most money so I can treat my girl to a nice meal, or pay my heating bill, that sounds like fucking hell to me.
Making videos for people is a joy, and making a video about something you like is a privilege. I can make something, hit a few buttons, upload it to the internet for free, and thousands of people can watch it; that's unreal! I need to remember that.
I don't want to be in a position where I'm jaded and bitter over stuff not working in my favor, and I think the secret is to just stop thinking about YouTube as a potential career and focus exclusively on the hobby/passion aspect of it.
As long as I'm happy with the videos, and you're happy with the videos. It's smooth sailing. Some of my favourite shit in the world caters to a very small audience, and I would hate if somebody stopped making something I love, because it doesn't have a wide enough appeal, or it doesn't make enough money. That's loser shit, thats bozo behaviour, and I don't make stuff for losers or bozos, I make stuff for the freaks.
Anyway, that's just a little something I wanted to get off my chest. Unfortunately, I don't think you can exist on YouTube without getting a little neurotic from time to time, but moving on from that, here are the future plans for the channel!
-Merch & Website
So, a while back, I had planned to make a website and also update/migrate the channel merch to that. Sadly, I've had some difficulties creating a suitable website for what I had envisioned, which combined with hosting costs, and also the downturn in the channel viewership. I think, as of right now, it's a bad time/money investment. It's just another thing that will take away from my time to make videos, and with the viewer wheel and me needing to check comments and update lists, etc, it's already a surprising amount of admin to run this channel, and a website will just exacerbate that issue. So that's on the back burner for now.
On the bright side, though, I've found a more suitable and straightforward merch service. In the past, I used RedBubble since it was simple and offered affordable merch of different styles with worldwide shipping, which was kind of my goal: 'Keep it affoardable, keep it accessible' which worked well enough, but I've always hated how unintuitive the redbubble website is, so I looked into what other Youtubers were using and the best service looked to be a company called FourthWall, who essentially do what Redbubble does, just with YouTube integration and way more choice and customisation. This means I have more control over pricing, which brands of clothing to choose, and better yet, the merch will appear below the video window on the YouTube website, so folks will actually know it exists. I'm currently awaiting a few more merch samples so I can test the quality and make sure I'm happy with everything, but so far it's been above expectations, so that will go live relatively soon, which includes updated classic merch designs as well as a whole bunch of new stuff too. I'll share some previews in the images above alongside the token kitty pictures.
And as a Patreon bonus, you can get early access to the store and merch before it goes live for everybody else by using the password - patreonlads
The website is here: https://sean-seanson-shop.fourthwall.com/
-Upcoming videos
As always, I've about 50 video ideas floating around in my brain. Currently, I'm working on Obscure & Forgotten Vol.17, which is the reintroduction of 3 games per episode, and the good news is that it shouldn't be too far off.
After that, I think I'm going to work on a longer video, I know people are still hyped for a big Konami video, but even now I'm still slowly piecing together a list of all the Konami games but I do have a finalised list of Every Taito game and I'm also thinking of doing a video looking at all the Army Men games on the PS1, because it's kinda weird that 3DO made like 13 of them in the space of 3 years and that might be a fun video.
Before anything, though, I'm going to release a brief channel update video just to highlight the changes to the wheel videos and also highlight the new merch store, so when you see that appear, you can assume Obscure Vol.17 will be following shortly after.
-Streaming
Another thing I want to announce in the update video is at least a tentative plan to stream a bit more frequently, at least once a month, which by streamer standards is very low, but by Sean Seanson's standards is a huge increase. It's mostly just so I have a way to engage with and be more active with my audience, and while streaming isn't my favourite thing in the world, streaming is by far the easiest way to go about connecting with people on masse, and if it means I get to play some old video games in the process, it can't be that bad can it!
Anyway, that's it for now, a little more wordy than my usual updates, but if there's one thing I'm consistent at, it's being wordy.
As always, a big thank you for your ongoing support of myself and the channel. Take care, look after yourselves, and I'll chat to you again real soon :)
Much Love,
Seán
Ps. Enjoy the belated cat pictures, they've been very needy and bossy lately, which somehow makes me love them even more.
Comments
Globe99
Yo Sean this merch is the dopest shit I want all of them. Hang in there with the YouTube woes buddy, you know you’re one of the underrated gaming goats on the platform. Stoked about future demo disc videos the first one was a banger!! Don’t get discouraged just keep providing the wheel goodness at the pace that makes you comfortable, we all know you will provide. 🔥🔥🔥
BleedingCart
Sean, my 50Hz PAL - bit of a long one so just when you get a sec. The YouTube algorithms and studio setup favours and encourages absolute slop. When a genuinely quality video gets views, it's like a glitch in the system. They don't want people fascinated by what they see and going off to investigate more, they want people slumped in front of a screen serving up unchallenging content they can't be bothered to turn off. I know - and you know - that you'd get more views pumping out shocked face thumbnails and hackneyed rubbish. A lot of creators have gone down that path when the views drop and they panic. It usually ends up in a death spiral where they're creating uninteresting junk they don't care about, clearly have no love for it and end up burned out, alienating existing fans or just giving up completely. I have to be absolutely clear here - you've done nothing wrong with your content. It ruled, it rules and it will continue to rule. You've taken a smart path where you can continue to safely build a very stable channel you can genuinely be proud about, making passionate content you like for people who like it a lot. Subverting the "worst games ever" trope to try and get people to at least appreciate what Bubsy 3D was going for? What a pro. For every glum automated message YouTube gives you about a supposedly underperforming video, I can guarantee you'll have dozens of real actual people taking the time to tell you how much they liked it, as well as thousands more who quietly enjoyed it. Loads and loads of views from people who truly want to see it, not something left on in the background or another YouTube villain to hate-watch to see what absolute nonsense they've come out with today. I'll also say that how good a channel is can be reflected by the quality of the fans. The fact you produce gaming videos and the comment sections below them aren't a hellscape of hate speech but instead... people saying how much they enjoyed the video, reconnecting with long lost memories, saying about the games they're going to end up purchasing off the back of it. That's unbelievably rare! Other than that, Patreon and merch are great to have, anything that you can do to make it so YouTube algorithms are just something that matters less and less to what keeps you doing the videos. Whatever hurdles YouTube put up, there's a lot of people behind you who will champion you - both on this Patreon and off. Even off the Internet, completely word of mouth, there'll be some folks on their lunch break sat round saying "yeah you ever seen these PS1 videos by this Irish guy? Really top tier stuff". All I can say is you're on the right track, don't put too much pressure on yourself or spread yourself too thinly, but do the videos you want to make. If you are genuinely passionate about it, do it. People will be caught up in it. I didn't think I'd be that bothered to find out about every Disney game and then I did find about every Disney game and I'm glad I did, it was great. Keep up the great work!
