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Sept. 24, 2018 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
10:01
Phase 2
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Hey folks, how's it going?
I'm pretty good.
I'm pretty good.
I'm tired though.
You know, I'm tired.
I've been in the trenches of the culture war for like five years now, and I don't feel like I've ever had a break.
I feel like even when, you know, even if I go on holiday or something, I'm still on my phone, I'm still following the news cycle, I'm still owning the progs online, things like this.
And I just, I want to take a break.
You know, I think I've done a lot of work recently and I've got to a point where I think I can produce more useful content if I essentially unplug from the internet and just start ignoring what other people are doing and focusing on what I want to do.
I'm going to take a break.
And I don't know how long a break I'm going to take from the news side of it, that sort of thing.
I'm going to produce the content I want to produce.
And yeah, that does mean the Starship Troopers video.
One of the things that holds that up is the constant need to keep up the news cycle.
So I'm really looking forward to getting off that treadmill.
Because frankly, it's tiresome.
And it turns you into nothing but a culture warrior.
And honestly, that's what I've worried that I've been becoming recently.
Just a hardcore culture warrior.
And honestly, with my debate with Carrier, I really felt after Christ, I didn't give them a fair hearing.
And I was making an ass out of myself.
So I'm not happy with what it was turning me into.
And so I'm going to change that.
I will still share things to my social media presence online, obviously.
But it won't necessarily be about hot topics and hot takes about news items.
It'll be things, again, that I think are interesting rather than things that I think are going to help drive the conversation a certain way.
I'm sure there are plenty of other people who can do that.
And they're going to have more time and more energy for that kind of work than I do at the moment.
I need to recharge.
And I need to do the things that I want to do.
Frankly, I want to stop chasing numbers.
Because part of the game is that you're always chasing high viewing figures.
And I mean, that's all well and good.
But it is tiring.
And I am genuinely just one guy.
And I really think I can better focus my efforts elsewhere.
But that doesn't mean I won't be doing things.
I'll still be assisting UKIP as and when I can.
I'll still be interviewing MEPs and whoever else that is useful to interview on my live channel.
I will be doing things on the Thinkery, obviously.
And I will be uploading content to my main channel.
It will just be far less frequent and it will be far more, I want to say polished, but let's say crafted.
Because, you know, my video editing skills have never been good.
So what does this mean?
This means that I will no longer be producing This Week in Stupid.
And I will no longer be producing regular videos specifically commenting on pertinent and topical news items.
I know that's probably a disappointment for some people.
But like I said, I really need to unplug for a while.
I need to get off the treadmill.
I need to relax.
Because I think that there's a depth of feeling among some communities, shall we say, that they think that I'm doing this for me.
And I really want to be able to show them I'm not.
I don't do any of this for me.
And what I'll be doing now from now on is making content for me.
Maybe the content that I want to make.
Things that I think are interesting and I want to say, the things that I think are valuable.
Now, like I said, that doesn't mean I'll never be anywhere or anything like that.
I mean, I've got like a string of engagements at universities and various other places that I have already committed to.
And so I'm going to do those, obviously, because I'm a man of my word.
But after that, I probably won't commit to anything.
Because I mean, another one of the problems of being so active is all the traveling.
I mean, I've just been away for a week, and I'm really not happy with how it went.
And it's not there was anything wrong with the MythCon guys or anything like that.
It was all me.
Nothing to do with anyone else.
And so I want to change that.
I want to put a stop to that.
I want to make sure that I'm doing what I think is best.
But like I said, I will still produce content.
So it won't, but it won't be just sort of like political machine gunning.
There'll be a lot more to it, hopefully.
And there'll be topics that I cover that might not necessarily look like they're pertinent to what's going on.
But I think that the metaphor of what I'm doing should be able, you should be able to extract that from the content that I've made.
So hopefully I'm making good and informative and entertaining content that is also educational in a way that's not so much on the front line of the war, not so much confrontational with other people.
Because I don't know whether you've seen my beard recently, but man, it's getting white.
I'm not saying I'll never go back to doing the sort of frontline culture warrioring or anything like that.
But I want to produce things that are, I guess, slightly higher level than what I've been doing because I think I am genuinely capable of that now.
So I think I'm going to try that.
For anyone who's a patron of mine, if you aren't happy in the direction that I'm going, so I appreciate that you may well have been a patron to keep this week of stupid going or something like that.
And if you're not happy that I'm taking a break to do content that's less direct and more enriching, I completely understand.
I do not begrudge you at all if you want to end your patronage or anything like that.
I mean, I'm still going to be on my Discord server and all that, so it's not like I'm going away from the internet.
I'm just changing my focus from the front lines.
But as I said, if that's not the kind of content you want to support, I don't begrudge you for a second.
And I hope you find good content creators in the alternative media sphere who are also on the front lines fighting the culture war.
And let's be honest, they need your support as much as I needed it.
So don't be afraid to change if you need to change.
I completely support that decision.
I'm sure that I'll be able to get along by what I'm doing.
And if I can't, then I'll have to return to the front lines again, won't I?
But I'm sure I'll be okay.
And I'm sure that the content I'll produce will be worthwhile in and of itself.
So hopefully it'll be self-funding and self-perpetuating anyway.
Not sure yet, though.
So we'll have to see.
But yeah, it means that I'll be able to do the videos that I've wanted to do for quite some time, but just never found the time to do because they require me to sit down, not follow extraneous news sources constantly all day, every day.
And as Not So Obvious said in the comments of the last This Week in Stupid that he stood in for.
Thank you, man.
It is an awful lot of work to produce videos like that.
And it's also an awful lot of work to produce videos not like that.
And I'd like to start making the videos not like that from now on.
So again, I'm sorry if I'm disappointing anyone, but I really, I'm really looking forward to actually doing things for myself for a while because I feel like for the past five years I've been doing things for everyone else.
And again, I'm not begrudging anyone anything.
And I appreciate all of the support and all of the people who watch and enjoy my content.
I really can't thank you enough.
But I need to do something else for a while.
I'd like to do something I find enriching, something that makes life worth living.
And I've never wanted to be involved in politics.
And I've never wanted to be a news pundit or anything like that.
So I am looking forward to letting someone else shoulder the burden, at least for a while.
Like I said, I'm never saying never or anything.
I mean, I don't know how long a break I'll want.
Maybe I'll take a month off and really miss it.
Really miss the fight.
Because I'm not saying that there isn't a part of me that enjoys the fight.
There certainly is.
But I'm just one man.
That's the thing.
This has always just been one man.
So, you know, I'm going to work on myself for a while.
Do the things that actually interest me and what I want to do.
But I think that some good content will come out of it.
I'm absolutely sure some really good content is going to come out of it.
It's just going to be slower.
I'm not going to be producing two videos a week, for example.
And I'll be putting nonsense on the other channel as usual, obviously.
But again, it'll be less about chasing the news, which, oh man, I'm looking forward to getting out of that.
And I don't think I'll be attracting as much drama either.
But I'll still be around.
So I'm not going anywhere.
You know, you'll still be able to contact me.
You'll still be able to email me, message me via Discord on my Facebook.
I'll be around.
In fact, I'll probably have more time to talk to people if I'm operating like this than I would if I'm constantly working.
So just letting you know.
But this video is going to mark a clean break in my content.
So no more political shenanigans like I was doing before.
No more This Week in Stupid.
And a different tone to what I'm doing.
And hopefully it should be less serious, less me being angry at the world.
And more, here, here's something really interesting that you can listen to while you're playing video games or while you're doing your exercises or whatever it is, you know, you're doing the dishes.
Here's something to make your day better rather than to make you pissed off all the time.
But again, I'm not gonna, it's gonna come from my political worldview, obviously.
And so it should be quite interesting.
But yeah, so don't be afraid if I don't upload for a while.
I will upload.
It'll just be fewer and further between and better.
And I can't tell you how long I've waited to be able to say this.
And this feels like the right sort of time for it too.
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