Boomer

Modern Military Shooters BEFORE Modern Warfare has done extremely well in its reception and its viewer numbers. According to YT, it's my biggest video in a long while.

It's in this environment I got a phone call from a family member asking something to the effect of "are you going to jump on this?"

"The next one's going to be something similar right?"

This is someone that two years ago, I laid the ground rule of "Don't Come to Me About Youtube" because uploading wouldn't be met with a "congratulations" but a "This only got 200k, what are you going to do?"

I got very angry at them. I shouted at them.

I'm not proud of it.

But I did because this is what people think you do it for… Numbers. Views. Growth. I watched the video from its entirety with this family member next to me, witnessing first hand their eyes glaze over explanations of the Somalian conflict, True Soldiers' graphics, and COD4's qualities, 40 minutes of mostly silence with a "I don't get the point you were making" when you spent weeks trying to make that impossible to miss.

Having that person go from not understanding what you've made, to then reading comments and seeing the views to say "you should do that again…"

The reason I got angry, is it makes me feel like they don't care what I say, as long as other people like what I say… but there's another angle.

This is, as the kids call, a Boomer.

Someone who grew up in the generation of punk rock, muscle cars, and the cold war. Someone who still types with their index fingers exclusively. Someone who calls to ask about Nigerian Email Scams, and is it a Scam?

This is not my normal audience, they're not familiar with anything I discuss, and won't understand my points no matter how clearly I make them, but they'll get my points through how other people react to them. Reading people's nostalgia, personal tales, and expanded points of view, helps him understand what I'm doing. The more that people watch my stuff, the more this family member understands me.

I can respect that.

In the end though, I don't do what I do for them, or the algorithm, or a specific audience, I do what I do for me, and hope what I'm passionate about is infectious enough for people to listen.

Thank you, for helping me continue to do that.