Variety

Life and art need more than just a few flavors.

• MUSIC; “Midsummer Sky” by Kevin MacLeod
  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

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VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Hello, Earthlings. You’re watching Adam the Alien, and today I think I want to talk a little bit about variety.

I recently saw two movies on the same day.

The first one was Annihilation.

The second was the new Jumanji.

Now, obviously, these are very, very different movies. Definitely not thematically linked in very many ways at all. And certainly not linked in terms of mood and tone.

But after the intensity of watching Annihilation, I found myself very grateful to be watching Jumanji second.

I’ve never been someone who likes a whole lot of the same thing all at once and never seeming to end. Even if I’m marathoning a bunch of episodes of the same show, if those episodes feel too repetitive, I get bored. I need another taste. I need to try something else for a little bit. I need a break.

I can’t even handle the same genre too many times in a row. Too many YouTube comedy videos and I’m out! I’m done! I need some drama! I need some plot!

And in the case of watching both Annihilation and Jumaji on the same day, this was definitely at play. Just that feeling of needing some spice, some variety, something new.

I remember referring to Jumanji as a palate cleanser. Because while I enjoyed Annihilation a great deal, I definitely didn’t want to watch another thing like it right afterward. And something more lighthearted, to set my mood in a different place was exactly, EXACTLY what was needed in that moment.

Over the years I have often received tips on how to make my YouTube channel better, faster. And over the years I have frequently looked at that advice, and often just decided, “No. I don’t want to go that way.”

One of the most biggest and most frequent pieces of advice I’ve received is that I should make all of my content more the same, more similar, or I should pander to what is successful. I’ve even had people telling me I should make more Fedoras Are Awesome videos just to get the hate views, and thus be more successful.

D’you know what? THAT IS NOT MY IDEA OF SUCCESS.

Especially because I would be SO BORED with the things I make, myself. And I can get bored even doing things I love. I don’t need to add to that!

Back when I first joined YouTube, I kinda took the “channel” idea to heart, and decided, “Oh, I don’t have to make any specific thing, I’m just gonna slap up whatever.”

And I’ve kept that.

I see the word “channel” as meaning you should expect to see a variety of content.

Now over the years, the times when I have been least happy with my presence on YouTube is when I’ve been making a lot of the same things, and having the stuff I really liked more never quite make it to the Internet.

Which is part of the purpose for this Vlog Every Day April thing this year, for me, is that I’m trying to just get stuff OUT instead of having it just sit on my hard drive, and in my editing timeline, and not go anywhere.

In the very first video, I mentioned Ze Frank and the concept of brain crack. And if you did not follow that: brain crack is when you get caught up with the idea of something that you want to do, rather than DOING it. So this is me DOING it.

And what I want to do is make a variety of content. I never want my content to become too much the same. And going forward, I plan on experimenting a lot more. That’s something that this month has given me, as well, is the freedom to really play around.

I guess I always had the freedom, but it gave me the excuse.

And I plan on running with that. This channel will always be something that I have trouble describing to people when they say, “Oh, what do you upload?”

Well, you know, pretty much…anything. Anything. From the stuff I’m really proud of, from the stuff that’s scripted, from the stuff that requires more than just me to make…all the way down to just the worst, most trolled, and strangely most viewed.

Until next time, I’m Adam the Alien. Fare thee well!

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