THE SEARCH (you tube beginnings part 1)
3 min read
It interrelates!
It’s one thing to talk about past events, despite the advent of fuzzy recollection in my advancing years. It’s another to talk about what is going on now without falling into the trap of advertising for oneself. There is a difference between advocating and self-promotion, but in this case, I’d rather do neither. I would just like to stick to the facts of why I decided to start a YouTube channel.
For quite a while I was in a creative glut. I had my weekly D&D game. That wasn’t going away. But I cut down on the number of comics I was reading; my ambitions to go pro on the Magic the Gathering pro tour were quashed; and I hadn’t written anything in years. I was still reading, casually. It was about the time when I finished reading, The Crippled God, by Steven Erickson that something hit me. This book made me cry. It hit me that hard. I had to talk to someone about it. My friends and family listened to my mad ramblings, unable to reciprocate. I wanted to do something about it but had no release. It was bottled up and put on the shelf like many other creative ideas over my lifetime.
I had a similar problem with my favorite band, Dream Theater. I would get their latest release and be amazed at the level of musicianship. Fortunately, there are many in my circle that are more familiar with my music obsession that I am quite content in my discussions there. Still, the pandemic hit, and I found myself with time I didn’t know I had. I searched around and discovered a woman on You Tube that did vocal analysis of metal songs she had never heard before. She was an opera singer discovering heavy metal for the first time. Her channel is called The Charismatic Voice and is fun to watch if you get the chance. I found her because she analyzed a Dream Theater song.
As I listened to more of her stuff, I started paying more attention to the channel itself. What was subscribe? What was the like button? People could comment on these videos, and she would respond! She did interviews with vocalists and there was this chat going on that was live! I found this fascinating.
The Crippled God was still bugging me though, whispering in my ear like the depraved god he was. I started searching for more information on Erikson. You would have thought I would have put two plus two together and started on You Tube, but no, my linear mind didn’t go there. I dove deep into the rabbit hole of wiki land and discovered that it wasn’t much fun to be involved in the information of the world without being involved in the storytelling. If that makes sense. I went to other websites as well, which were cool, but limited.
Then I started a search for interviews with Erikson. The search that stood out to me was a You Tube channel called A Critical Dragon. A You Tube channel that I could talk to the creator and make comments upon. To be continued…
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