On rare occasion very kind people will contact me asking advice on how to grow their YouTube channel. My general response is “watch what I do and then do the opposite”.

In other words, I am the last person to seek advice from on channel growth.

However, if you want to see YouTube’s algorithm sample your video, and then violently vomit it into the land of “nope”, then this video is a wonderful example to follow.

In this long and boring video, I spend nearly an hour walking the victim viewer through texturing an already partially textured Maschinen Krieger model, and then adding some simple damage to it. Then I wrap up the festival of excitement when I talk about priming with a rattle can, but not actually demonstrating said rattle can priming..

Strap yourselves in folks… Oscar material it ain’t.

The reason I do it this way is because I still believe there is an audience that wants the “why” question answered as much – or maybe more – as the “how” and “with what” question. Admittedly, it is a smaller audience.

YouTube puts out loads of info on what is being watched the most and for the longest times. And an old man building plastic toys very slowly and talking in a quiet voice, occasionally making dad jokes, just doesn’t hit their revenue markers. And while I appreciate the kind (and completely unwarranted) Bob Ross comparisons, the fact of the matter is few actually care. Bob Ross was interesting, helpful, iconic, and unique. A once in a lifetime artist. And he kept it under half an hour… 😉

Bob Ross I ain’t. If nothing else, I am too follicly challenged to qualify.

Yet the stubborn old man in me just clinches my jaw a bit and rambles on for a few more minutes. I suppose, to get far more philosophical than I should, it is a quiet rebellion on my part. I’ll admit I am growing to despise the fast paced, instant nature of this technology driven world. I grieve the fact that many times even having lunch with a friend at a local diner turns into “I’ve only got 33 minutes before I need to hit my next scheduled appointment ChatGPT has for me.” Whatever happened to sitting for two hours and just talking? Or maybe relaxing on the back porch, watching the birds and the squirrels and the clouds for 3+ hours? No music, no phone. No stupid tablet. No giant headphones. Just a rocking chair, and maybe a glass of iced tea and a popsicle.

So in a way my videos are me sitting on the porch with a slightly disgusted stare as the cars race by, the driver’s heads down as they text away, at the same time talking on their phone, all thanks to something called Bluetooth. It reminds me of some lines from a song of my youth:

Another working day has ended,
Only the rush hour hell to face.
Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes,
Contestants in a suicidal race.*

Indeed, it seems that is where the world is. Replace “packed” with “gazing” and here we are.

Yet now and again a friend stops by this metaphorical front porch, drops into the rocking chair next to me, and says “whatcha been doing?” And I smile, and then I ramble on about my little plastic toys.

So here’s another video from an increasingly anachronistic neo-Luddite old man talking for a long time about a silly model called a Seapig.

Feel free to sit for a spell if you’d like.

*To ramble on further, those lines are from a song called Synchronicity II by The Police, from their 1983 Synchronicity album. It was not yet available in stores, but the radio station was giving away a few in the days prior to it’s release.

They did the “caller number x” thing, whatever number it was. And like I’d done hundreds of times before, I called in. But this time I was the right caller. They even recorded the conversation, and I got to answer the question “What is the ROCK of Tallahassee?” And I shouted in my best rock and roll voice “D103!” This was back when rock and roll stations actually played proper rock and roll.

I got in my car with my freshly printed driver’s license, drove over to the station, and picked up my new cassette. I even got to chat with one of the DJs. I don’t recall her name, but I loved her voice, and it turned out she was a cute lady with curly hair if I recall correctly, and so far out of my league it was ridiculous. Yet she laughed at my stupid jokes, and gave me a hug, and thanked me for listening. I even got a bumper sticker. Looking back, I am quite sure she probably rolled her eyes and shook her head as I walked out the door. Dashing and handsome I was not…

I got in my 1978 Caprice Classic two door, plugged the new cassette tape into my boom box (my stereo didn’t work) and drove home like I was sitting on top of the world.

My biggest regret as I recall that day is that I simply did not appreciate fully the wonder of the moment.