The State of the Channel 2024 - Video

Hello, everyone; it is time for another channel update! I didn't make a year-end video last year but instead made a post. The channel has come a long way in one year, and I'd like to reflect on it. For a good while in 2023, the channel was not doing so hot; from about January till April, we were dead in the water, for lack of a better term. Don't get me wrong, I was still getting views but not growing as rapidly as I was in the winter of 2022, and if I'm being honest, there were several times when I wanted to stop making videos out of frustration and for school-related reasons. But I stuck with it and could make it through another school semester. Honestly, I was pumping out content. I had two full-length videos and one or two shorts a week.
Along with maintaining high grades at my university and social life, I was surprised to be a naval history nerd. Anyway, as the summer kicked off, I decided I would do YouTube as a summer job because I made decent enough money, and thanks to the support of my family, who gave me the green light, I did so. This is where things start to go great! In May, I started the new editing style, focusing a bit more time on making the visuals more presentable with the maps, pictures, and even videos on occasion. You all seemed to like this as in the summer of 2023, the channel almost doubled in size, and by the time I went back to school, we were well over 7,000 subscribers and on our way up! There have been some ups and downs as we went through the autumn, with some highlights being the video on the Gneisenau, Admiral Scheer, and Queen Mary! My favorite video of the year was the video on the sinking of Glorious, as I felt it was the most well-balanced. As autumn came, I had to decide to cut back on videos as there was no way I could make two full-length videos a week and do school. So, in this change, it dropped views somewhat. But, what picked up as I started making more was the shorts. They aren't for everyone, but I enjoy making them, and they are a way to promote long-form videos. As another semester ended, we were close to 10,000 subscribers, and the channel has been doing fantastic! There are some things I am worried about slightly; with the increase in views from shorts, it seems over the past month and a half, views on the full-length videos have decreased a lot, and I don't know why. I'll keep pushing ahead into 2024!

Speaking of which, let's look at what this new year holds for the channel and me! Full disclosure: I am entering the second semester of my third year at university and not returning to school. Instead, I am doing an internship for my future career in the accounting field. With that, I will work anywhere from 40 to 70 hours weekly. I'm giving you all a fair warning that weekly uploads for main videos might not happen. I will try my best to continue to upload because this is so fun to me, and I don't want to stop. However, work might prove to be too much! I can't control the situation, even though I wish I could. But if I upload it, I want to ensure it's good. In that same vein, the nice part is the internship is not even for the entire semester, so worse comes to worse. We'll be full bore in March or April. For the content, I will be producing.
I will continue naval history because you are all here for it. However, I would like to branch out and cover other topics I'm interested in. The videos are taken down now for fear of how bad they are. ButIenjoy reading about the French Revolution and the period from 1820-1848 in European history and might cover videos on subjects in that period. Or even the second world war. To be honest with you all, I'm more interested in telling stories, something more personal, rather than general facts and history, even though some videos are like that. which I was; I include quotes from sailors who were there in my videos. So, there might be more of that in 2024. I know I talked about a live stream Q&A at some point, but that has to take a back burner due to the internship and my internet not being up to snuff for it! Also, I have thought about some YouTube membership stuff and want to know your thoughts on it. There would be some perks, and I would hire an artist to create channel emblems, which come with memberships.

That said, I thank you for watching my content and the kind words you left me. I do read every single comment, so be nice to each other! It is just insane to me that after watching YouTube for almost my whole life, I would be able to have a channel with over 10,000 subscribers and consistent, awesome viewers. You all truly mean the world to me, and I seriously can't thank you enough for simply being here with me. It is so highly humbling. Here's to you all and a great year!