Half as long. Twice as bright.
I'm always interested in seeing how content creators deal with burnout.
As more and more people decide to produce things online for entertainment and make it their career, it’s inevitable that they will hit "the wall". It's that point where you say to yourself, "I'm not enjoying this anymore." It's a really tough thing to describe to most people. I know that I'm lucky as hell to do what I do for a living. I also know that I have, and continue to work my ass off to keep it. Just because you like your job, doesn't mean that it isn't work.
It very much is.
There's a big ticking digital clock that sits directly behind me. I installed it on April 28th, 2021. We had just wrapped up Theriathon and I wanted something there to remind me that the next one is only 1 year away. This would be our tenth year and it needed to be special. And so, it started ticking away in the background. Every time I turn around, it’s there. When I jump into a call with folks, it’s in the background. When I turn the lights off in my office at night, the red lights fill the room with the reminder that tomorrow is another day. I could not have guessed what would have happened in the time between Theriathons.
Part of being a content creator is that you get sort of decent at many jobs. Writing, editing, producing, advertising, budgeting and so many more tasks that need to be done. It’s unrealistic to think that you’ll be good at them all, but you need to put some effort into everything. Spreading yourself thin to ensure that nothing gets too neglected. It creates a stressful environment. While you’re writing a story or working on a song or editing a new video, you know that something is getting ignored somewhere. Most people can’t afford teams to delegate to, so these things just fall on 1 or two people most of the time. It’s not uncommon to work 6 to 7 days a week and not clock out until you’ve put in 12 hours or more.
When you do clock out, you aren’t “done” with work. You’re always a little plugged in. You simply need to be. The buck stops with you, so if something goes wrong with a server on your day off, guess what? You’re working. My thought process is that nothing lasts forever. One day Dungeons and Randomness will be done. I have no way of knowing how that may come about, but I do know one thing. It won’t be because I was too lazy and didn’t try my very best.
I mention all of this because we are smack dab in the middle of the biggest set of changes to ever take place for the show. While I’m writing this, it’s 7 am on the west coast on a Sunday. I’m just about to open Photoshop again and work on some more assets for the relaunch. Off the top of my head, the list of changes for the show includes:
Switching to Cortex Prime from D&D
Moving to a new recording standard
Editing in both audio and video
Hosting a stream for each new episode
Working with other content creators to host giveaways each month for 2022
Trying to get better at social media and keep you all more informed
Rework our entire Patreon to make it better for the folks that support us
Create more art for the show
I’m positive that there’s more, but I don’t have it all in front of me.
This is a long and rambling post and I promise that they won’t all be like this. I want to try and convey what both myself and Bri are feeling. Working so hard day in and day out without knowing if it’s even the right thing to do. We’re both stressed and worried and excited all at the same time. I think we just both reached a point last year where we had to say, “I’m not having fun anymore”.
That needed to change.
This isn’t something that only affects small creators either. Even if you have a team of people behind you and all the support in the world, stress is always a thing. Me and Bri have argued before over what the right call is for a given situation. We’ve butted heads over make or break stuff. We always find a middle ground though, no matter how heated something might get.
Bringing this back to my opening thought. I’ve always been interested in seeing how creators deal with this kind of stress. I’ve been a fan of Epic Rap Battles of History since their very first video. That was almost 12 years ago now. It was started by two guys who loved creating stuff but never quite found their “thing” on their own. Together, however, they found that they had a ton of chemistry. They started creating a YouTube series where famous people and even fictional characters would rap battle one another. These were done with a $50 budget and they started to take off. 5 seasons, 6 years, and countless views later and they were both totally spent. They needed a break and handled it in one of the most creative ways I’ve ever seen. The two battled one another and threw every gripe and problem they had with one another into it.
Peter vs Lloyd
That was 5 years ago on this day.
They made it clear that they needed time to recharge and were fed up with working together, but didn’t hate each other. They came back 2 years later and were better than ever with a relaunch.
I’m not sure what is going to happen on January 22nd when we stream the first episode for Arc 5. I’m excited about the future though and I hope you know that we’re giving everything we have to make it something special.
I guess we’ll find out together.