I keep forgetting all these important dates! Maybe I just need some sleep! 43 years ago this month, on May 10th, 1983, the Atari 2800 landed in Japan. With a massive budget, a huge library of games and practically no competition, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to conquer a new market. However, history shows that Atari in Japan was not much more than footnote in those days. Each time Atari tried to make it "Big in Japan" something always got in the way. To learn more, check out this video filled with rare images and information you can't find anywhere else.
TEN YEAR REFLECTIONS PART TEN This video debuted 10 years ago! May 27th, 2016!
The event in this video was perfect timing! The channel was up and running, doing ok for being so new, and I was starting to rack up ideas and topics that were unique enough to give people something new to see, but also in search terms were still general enough that it could bring in new viewers.
There isn’t much to say. The event was fun! Everything you see in the video was there and playing it all was great! Recording in the place was a challenge. It was very dark inside and with everything very crowded, I just recorded as much as I could and worried about it later. When I got home, all the videos were black! But I was lucky enough to tweak some Final Cut settings to bring the brightness up. It doesn’t look too bad! Also this and a few videos from this time were written “backwards.” Usually I know what I want to say, write it down and worry about footage later. But here I had to experience it first. Ok not a big deal.
So, I thought I had a winner on my hands. There were other game museum vids out there with hundreds of thousands of views, but it wasn’t time to stamp my ticket just yet. It went to about 1,000 in a month and died. Not bad for the time but it just didn’t catch fire.
In 2021 I went back and retouched the old footage and re-recorded the voiceover. That still only got to 4,000 and died. Flipping through game museum videos today I see a lot with 500-5,000 views. I guess that’s all who are interested. The handful with several hundred thousand views... well... I have no idea how they did it.
Four months in and it was time to gear up for the discoveries that will hopefully be written on my tombstone someday.
Pac-Man turns 46 years old today! According to Gaming Lore™ the first Pac-Man machine was put out in public on May 22, 1980 at a Tokyo movie theater. So where was this mythical place? I think I found the answer....
This video was released 10 years ago today on May 19th, 2016!
The lessons learned from past videos started to make an impact. Having newsworthy or “clickable” videos get more views, which leads to more comments and that will drive the video to other places where the cycle repeats itself. I mean yeah, no duh, but you have to learn that on your own. Being featured on websites and getting external views was also eye opening. It was a ‘cheat’ that brought in more people without any effort. And all you have to do is chase the right story for that to happen.
Sometime in April or May 2016, this crazy idea popped up. Some guy wanted to make game cartridges for the iPhone. I don’t really understand way, other than you can find enough people who are attached to the idea of old game carts, and sucker them out of enough money to have a comfortable life from it. You’d probably be better off just making a game in the App Store that’s a hit, but ok, whatever. It was an interesting talking point and most importantly for me, I could scoop everyone else (in the English speaking world) if I bought one of these and tried it out. I paid up for the kickstarter. Actually It was not “kickstarter” but some thing that was like it with a different name. It was about halfway funded by May 19th, and had 2 more months to go. If it reached the goal, I would get Ninja Ja Ja Maru Kun on a cartridge that somehow worked on an iPhone.
The scoop was that you had to be in Japan to buy these. You needed a Japanese Credit Card or figure out bank transfers to order one, meaning I was probably the only one who could do it. With that I made this video. It was meant to be a two-parter, where after the game arrived I could show it off. Except that it never happened. I think it made it to 60% funding and then just died.
I got the money back, it took until September.
So we will never know what Iphone cartridges are like. It was never explained how they worked and since you needed the headphone jack they’d have no use today. But! The video made some rounds, including Nintendo Life and Real Clear Technology, maybe some others. That made this the first time a video reached over 1,000 views in 24 hours, so it was a nice feeling. It just would have been nice to see the plan to the end and play these things.
The main lesson was that ‘breaking news’ gets views, and the news does not even have to be anything real or interesting. Just talk about something, build it up and it will get views. At the same time, my setup made it impossible to rely on this for views. I tried a few other times in 2016 , 17 and 18 but eventually fell into the long form ‘evergreen’ format, which does work very well for someone who can’t run to the camera at a moments notice. The views after May 19 also show this was the right plan. It’s been basically zero or 1 view a day for ten years after that first weekend. Occasionally picking up when some other channel steals the story with a “Hey remember this? Wasn’t this crazy?” hook which sends people back here. If only they’d stay…..
And I almost forgot about it, but some of those photos of old game cartridges were from the very first time I went to Akihabara with a digital camera, ages and ages before 2016, which is why it looked so blurry.
TEN YEAR REFLECTIONS PART EIGHT This video debuted 10 years ago today! May 13th, 2016!
Early on I had the idea of videos having an "A-side" and a "B-side." One would be a big draw, maybe pull in some new people, come at a topic big and bold, while the next one would still be good of course, but different, something that goes a bit off the map, but someone who liked that A-side might also appreciate. Since games were becoming the focus, I thought that other weird things in Japan might be a good way to take a break from that but still offer something interesting. I mean just talk about games all the time, or any singular topic, and I think you might go nuts from it. So I put down some ideas that became B-side videos.
One of these was this video, when I walked into the local recycle shop and saw this big giant chair that was for no good reason insanely expensive, like everything in Japan that costs so much money and the only reason why is because the people selling stuff wants a lot of money so they don't have to get a real job. That's basically the video, wondering aloud why this thing exists and complaining about how expensive life in Japan is. Part of the gag behind the name of Gaijillionaire is that even though it sounds like he's a millionaire, he's both poor and cheap.
The response to the video was ok. There were actually some good comments at the beginning. Looking back its funny to see my responses 10 years later. I would probably still respond in the exact same way. But again I failed to realize that YouTube doesn't work the way I wish it did. Where people actually visit a channel for a while and hang out, watch a few things and have a conversation with someone about what they're seeing. Instead it's just whatever millions of people have already seen thrown up on the homepage with no reasoning behind it, just follow what's "trendy." Since the last video was about Mega Man and since this one isn't even close to that, it ended up going out to a different set of people who didn't check the back catalog and had no interest in it anyway.
Too bad because it is a neat little short film! I still stand by this video and would place it in the top 20 of all the videos I've done. It's funny because many well meaning people say "I love this channel!" To which I reply "Did you see the pink chair video?" and the answer to that is "No, I watched only one video about Super Mario World, what are you talking about?" But that's ok...
Over time the B-side video concept got dropped. People would complain "Why are you talking about this non-game stuff! Talk about Mario again!!" All the new subscribers from one would run to the door when the next video would be about the PC Engine or whatever. It reminds of the Simpsons episode where Mark Hamill is at Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con and just wants to help nerds save money on long distance.
It's been about 3 years since the last one. Maybe it's done for good.
Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there! There are many stories out there of all the hard work Moms do, and they all work very hard for us, but what if your Mother has to balance family life with saving the world? Back in 2020 one Japanese TV show told the tale! Also a perfect follow-up to the Dragon Quest video, incase it just wasn't enough.
New video coming tomorrow! Until then... TEN YEAR REFLECTIONS PART SEVEN
This video debuted 10 years ago today! May 6th, 2016!
If you want to point to a video and say “this is the origin point for GTV,” this would be it. Giving up on the idea of a”Tamori Club” style show where a group of people (starring me!!) would do a bunch of stuff and comment about it, I came upon a new format: news package styled videos spoken from my point of view with a stream of consciousness that intersected with facts and figures. This, I would say is the template for nearly every GTV video and its production process. When I drift away from that style, the views go up and when I come back, they go back down, but that’s beside the point.
This was the first video made after the channel was created and in motion. Keeping with the idea of showing places to go and things to see, I happened across a Mega Man sale at Animate shops where some of the things here were on sale back then. Combine that with my other Mega Man stuff accrued over the years and you got yourself a video!
Looking back, it’s a fun ride and there are so many touches that can be seen in later videos, that all began here.
1- Classic game story time fun. Not a review of any game but just memories about them.
2- The G Can! It was the first serious logo for the channel and was seen for many videos afterwards. I kept it for a while thinking that if someone went through many videos at once it would be like flipping through the channels on a TV, but the Bug would be ever-present. Of course YouTube doesn’t work like that, sadly, but it wouldn’t be long before every video had its own unique Bug, with the G Can comeback every now and then.
3- Fame. Whenever I turn up the dial on this, and some one-and-done viewer comes across it, it’s confusing, the comments bear this out. But part of what makes Gaijillionaire’s character is the desire to be a big shot YouTuber, a dream that can never happen, but also the bewilderment, exasperation and disdain of people who are famous, often (no, always!) for no clear reason. The ending of the video basically spells it out! Call me up and let me hang out next time! I can be important too! I have something to say!! Funnily enough, Enmochiya actually saw that and told me it was funny. The brush with fame was nice, but I haven’t heard back since. Over the years comments pop up “why do you hate this guy or that guy?” Because they’re rich, and I’m not! They don’t have to work and I do! And we’re all doing the same thing (I say I do it better…) Nothing more complicated than that!
I thought a lot of people liked it and hey, at least I’m trying something different every time.
5- Something I can’t define in one word but slight hints in the video that even though games are fun, they are kind of a waste of time. Why am I buying Mega Man for the 4th time? Shouldn’t I be outside or something? Kind of an irony that I’m trying to make it here on YouTube and still into games at age 40 but knowing in the back of my mind sometimes that I’m far to old and some of this stuff is pointless. But I guess it’s good to know you’ve got that grounding, to have a life balance.
6- Schedule. From here on out the usual space between videos was 2 weeks and always going live at 11:00pm on a Friday. Though this is not a hard and fast rule and this year, well... I don't know what happened.
Also I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that this was the first video to get some ink and finally wider exposure. Nintendo Life ran the video on their website which was awesome and a great honor. From there, the subscriber count jumped to 50. Some of them are still watching 10 years later which is unbelievable and I am still grateful for every day.
10 years later the video sits at 11,200 views, not bad! And with “the new GTV” ready to roll, it was time to take everything learned so far and roll on to the next…
I've been so busy with the next video that I literally forgot the day and date of the last few weeks! Only because Golden Week in Japan is here do I now know that its April 30th! Wow... Anyway the next video is coming, its taking a long time because I want to make sure all that 1988 TV footage is clean as possible and serves the topic at hand perfectly! So probably expect it around May 8th, though if it's done before then, you might get a sneak preview if you ask nicely!
But since I had no idea what day it was, I forgot to celebrate Guts Pose Day on April 11th! Not a true national holiday but a day that celebrates the invention of the little dances Mega Man Robot Masters do. Why not check it out?
I've been pretty busy working the next video while slolam-ing through "real life," but that doesn't mean other channels don't have something else worth watching.
I was quite pleased to see the great @Funkyspectrum999 return to YouTube recently and he's back with a fun video about some new Neo Geo thing which I don't have the time or money to get into. But, one can dream....
This video was released exactly 10 years ago today! April 15, 2016!
To expand upon the “lore” of GTV you have to go back over a year before it started. That’s because the channel came about from originally working on another one. In December 2014, a place I used to work recruited me to make educational videos for their channel. These don’t exist anymore, you can’t find them, they were not interesting anyways. Just videos for English education. It’s kind of funny because I would make these things and then put it on a USB stick then walk it over to some office and they’d deal with it for there. I never actually watched my own videos on YouTube, because, as mentioned before, I didn’t watch YouTube. But I was allowed to get creative somewhat with ideas. However, many of them were vetoed for not being educational enough. It was very similar to the wall I would hit all the time working in radio and TV back in the 90s. Stop talking about gaming so much. Don’t play games on the air. Don’t use game music for talk beds, etc. etc. Now, I wasn’t making game videos in 2015 but I wanted to make things that I felt were more interesting and you could still learn something from. This video is one of them! The idea was flat out rejected, but I liked it so much I decided to use it when finally breaking out on my own. It was around November 2015 that I realized I can just make a channel and do whatever I want and be my own boss, and of course here we are now.
The video was actually a cool idea! Its a restaurant with a river running through the middle! I mean come on! Who wouldn’t like to see that? That has viral hit potential. Anyways, it didn’t land. 21 views on the first day! Ouch! Probably chalk it up to a small channel with no direction. Lesson learned. After this the channel started to change more into what GTV would become. I would probably call this the “worst” video on the channel. There’s nothing bad about it, but it just doesn’t match the style of what someone discovering the channel in 2026 (maybe that’s you!) would expect. Even 2017 for the most part. Still, its nice to get some experience in something different, and actually use an idea I had rather than throw it out never to be seen by anyone. Take that boss man!
What’s funny is that even though the video was DOA and gears soon shifted another way, this video did have 15 minutes of fame on Facebook in 2022 when someone shared it and a bunch of people saw it.
With only 5 videos out there, the channel was still not defined as anything, and in this primordial ooze of video ideas, whatever can crawl out and survive can and will carry the course of the future. But this was not it. But the next video would set many rules in place as to what GTV should be and who Gaijillionaire actually was.
GTV Japan
I keep forgetting all these important dates! Maybe I just need some sleep!
43 years ago this month, on May 10th, 1983, the Atari 2800 landed in Japan. With a massive budget, a huge library of games and practically no competition, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to conquer a new market. However, history shows that Atari in Japan was not much more than footnote in those days. Each time Atari tried to make it "Big in Japan" something always got in the way. To learn more, check out this video filled with rare images and information you can't find anywhere else.
15 hours ago | [YT] | 18
View 2 replies
GTV Japan
TEN YEAR REFLECTIONS PART TEN
This video debuted 10 years ago! May 27th, 2016!
The event in this video was perfect timing! The channel was up and running, doing ok for being so new, and I was starting to rack up ideas and topics that were unique enough to give people something new to see, but also in search terms were still general enough that it could bring in new viewers.
There isn’t much to say. The event was fun! Everything you see in the video was there and playing it all was great! Recording in the place was a challenge. It was very dark inside and with everything very crowded, I just recorded as much as I could and worried about it later. When I got home, all the videos were black! But I was lucky enough to tweak some Final Cut settings to bring the brightness up. It doesn’t look too bad!
Also this and a few videos from this time were written “backwards.” Usually I know what I want to say, write it down and worry about footage later. But here I had to experience it first. Ok not a big deal.
So, I thought I had a winner on my hands. There were other game museum vids out there with hundreds of thousands of views, but it wasn’t time to stamp my ticket just yet. It went to about 1,000 in a month and died. Not bad for the time but it just didn’t catch fire.
In 2021 I went back and retouched the old footage and re-recorded the voiceover. That still only got to 4,000 and died. Flipping through game museum videos today I see a lot with 500-5,000 views. I guess that’s all who are interested. The handful with several hundred thousand views... well... I have no idea how they did it.
Four months in and it was time to gear up for the discoveries that will hopefully be written on my tombstone someday.
2 days ago | [YT] | 48
View 0 replies
GTV Japan
Pac-Man turns 46 years old today! According to Gaming Lore™ the first Pac-Man machine was put out in public on May 22, 1980 at a Tokyo movie theater. So where was this mythical place? I think I found the answer....
1 week ago | [YT] | 62
View 2 replies
GTV Japan
TEN YEAR REFLECTIONS PART NINE
This video was released 10 years ago today on May 19th, 2016!
The lessons learned from past videos started to make an impact. Having newsworthy or “clickable” videos get more views, which leads to more comments and that will drive the video to other places where the cycle repeats itself. I mean yeah, no duh, but you have to learn that on your own. Being featured on websites and getting external views was also eye opening. It was a ‘cheat’ that brought in more people without any effort. And all you have to do is chase the right story for that to happen.
Sometime in April or May 2016, this crazy idea popped up. Some guy wanted to make game cartridges for the iPhone. I don’t really understand way, other than you can find enough people who are attached to the idea of old game carts, and sucker them out of enough money to have a comfortable life from it. You’d probably be better off just making a game in the App Store that’s a hit, but ok, whatever. It was an interesting talking point and most importantly for me, I could scoop everyone else (in the English speaking world) if I bought one of these and tried it out. I paid up for the kickstarter. Actually It was not “kickstarter” but some thing that was like it with a different name. It was about halfway funded by May 19th, and had 2 more months to go. If it reached the goal, I would get Ninja Ja Ja Maru Kun on a cartridge that somehow worked on an iPhone.
The scoop was that you had to be in Japan to buy these. You needed a Japanese Credit Card or figure out bank transfers to order one, meaning I was probably the only one who could do it. With that I made this video. It was meant to be a two-parter, where after the game arrived I could show it off. Except that it never happened. I think it made it to 60% funding and then just died.
I got the money back, it took until September.
So we will never know what Iphone cartridges are like. It was never explained how they worked and since you needed the headphone jack they’d have no use today. But! The video made some rounds, including Nintendo Life and Real Clear Technology, maybe some others. That made this the first time a video reached over 1,000 views in 24 hours, so it was a nice feeling. It just would have been nice to see the plan to the end and play these things.
The main lesson was that ‘breaking news’ gets views, and the news does not even have to be anything real or interesting. Just talk about something, build it up and it will get views. At the same time, my setup made it impossible to rely on this for views. I tried a few other times in 2016 , 17 and 18 but eventually fell into the long form ‘evergreen’ format, which does work very well for someone who can’t run to the camera at a moments notice. The views after May 19 also show this was the right plan. It’s been basically zero or 1 view a day for ten years after that first weekend. Occasionally picking up when some other channel steals the story with a “Hey remember this? Wasn’t this crazy?” hook which sends people back here. If only they’d stay…..
And I almost forgot about it, but some of those photos of old game cartridges were from the very first time I went to Akihabara with a digital camera, ages and ages before 2016, which is why it looked so blurry.
1 week ago | [YT] | 33
View 0 replies
GTV Japan
TEN YEAR REFLECTIONS PART EIGHT
This video debuted 10 years ago today! May 13th, 2016!
Early on I had the idea of videos having an "A-side" and a "B-side." One would be a big draw, maybe pull in some new people, come at a topic big and bold, while the next one would still be good of course, but different, something that goes a bit off the map, but someone who liked that A-side might also appreciate. Since games were becoming the focus, I thought that other weird things in Japan might be a good way to take a break from that but still offer something interesting. I mean just talk about games all the time, or any singular topic, and I think you might go nuts from it. So I put down some ideas that became B-side videos.
One of these was this video, when I walked into the local recycle shop and saw this big giant chair that was for no good reason insanely expensive, like everything in Japan that costs so much money and the only reason why is because the people selling stuff wants a lot of money so they don't have to get a real job.
That's basically the video, wondering aloud why this thing exists and complaining about how expensive life in Japan is. Part of the gag behind the name of Gaijillionaire is that even though it sounds like he's a millionaire, he's both poor and cheap.
The response to the video was ok. There were actually some good comments at the beginning. Looking back its funny to see my responses 10 years later. I would probably still respond in the exact same way. But again I failed to realize that YouTube doesn't work the way I wish it did. Where people actually visit a channel for a while and hang out, watch a few things and have a conversation with someone about what they're seeing. Instead it's just whatever millions of people have already seen thrown up on the homepage with no reasoning behind it, just follow what's "trendy." Since the last video was about Mega Man and since this one isn't even close to that, it ended up going out to a different set of people who didn't check the back catalog and had no interest in it anyway.
Too bad because it is a neat little short film! I still stand by this video and would place it in the top 20 of all the videos I've done. It's funny because many well meaning people say "I love this channel!" To which I reply "Did you see the pink chair video?" and the answer to that is "No, I watched only one video about Super Mario World, what are you talking about?" But that's ok...
Over time the B-side video concept got dropped. People would complain "Why are you talking about this non-game stuff! Talk about Mario again!!"
All the new subscribers from one would run to the door when the next video would be about the PC Engine or whatever.
It reminds of the Simpsons episode where Mark Hamill is at Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con and just wants to help nerds save money on long distance.
It's been about 3 years since the last one. Maybe it's done for good.
2 weeks ago | [YT] | 36
View 9 replies
GTV Japan
Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there! There are many stories out there of all the hard work Moms do, and they all work very hard for us, but what if your Mother has to balance family life with saving the world? Back in 2020 one Japanese TV show told the tale! Also a perfect follow-up to the Dragon Quest video, incase it just wasn't enough.
2 weeks ago | [YT] | 46
View 6 replies
GTV Japan
New video coming tomorrow! Until then...
TEN YEAR REFLECTIONS PART SEVEN
This video debuted 10 years ago today! May 6th, 2016!
If you want to point to a video and say “this is the origin point for GTV,” this would be it. Giving up on the idea of a”Tamori Club” style show where a group of people (starring me!!) would do a bunch of stuff and comment about it, I came upon a new format: news package styled videos spoken from my point of view with a stream of consciousness that intersected with facts and figures. This, I would say is the template for nearly every GTV video and its production process. When I drift away from that style, the views go up and when I come back, they go back down, but that’s beside the point.
This was the first video made after the channel was created and in motion. Keeping with the idea of showing places to go and things to see, I happened across a Mega Man sale at Animate shops where some of the things here were on sale back then. Combine that with my other Mega Man stuff accrued over the years and you got yourself a video!
Looking back, it’s a fun ride and there are so many touches that can be seen in later videos, that all began here.
1- Classic game story time fun. Not a review of any game but just memories about them.
2- The G Can! It was the first serious logo for the channel and was seen for many videos afterwards. I kept it for a while thinking that if someone went through many videos at once it would be like flipping through the channels on a TV, but the Bug would be ever-present. Of course YouTube doesn’t work like that, sadly, but it wouldn’t be long before every video had its own unique Bug, with the G Can comeback every now and then.
3- Fame. Whenever I turn up the dial on this, and some one-and-done viewer comes across it, it’s confusing, the comments bear this out. But part of what makes Gaijillionaire’s character is the desire to be a big shot YouTuber, a dream that can never happen, but also the bewilderment, exasperation and disdain of people who are famous, often (no, always!) for no clear reason. The ending of the video basically spells it out! Call me up and let me hang out next time! I can be important too! I have something to say!! Funnily enough, Enmochiya actually saw that and told me it was funny. The brush with fame was nice, but I haven’t heard back since. Over the years comments pop up “why do you hate this guy or that guy?” Because they’re rich, and I’m not! They don’t have to work and I do! And we’re all doing the same thing (I say I do it better…) Nothing more complicated than that!
4- Mixing game and video. The list of shops at the end using the Mega Man font and the graphics from Mega Man 9 (10?) look cool! I like inserting those kinds of things where that line of the original game and the homage to it are blurred. You know, it came up just recently when I did the opening for The Legend of Zelda with ©️ 2026 GTV on it and @colinhagarty9002 called it and I quote, “disgusting!” Why? Why was it disgusting Mr. 9002?
Still waiting for that answer…
I thought a lot of people liked it and hey, at least I’m trying something different every time.
5- Something I can’t define in one word but slight hints in the video that even though games are fun, they are kind of a waste of time. Why am I buying Mega Man for the 4th time? Shouldn’t I be outside or something? Kind of an irony that I’m trying to make it here on YouTube and still into games at age 40 but knowing in the back of my mind sometimes that I’m far to old and some of this stuff is pointless. But I guess it’s good to know you’ve got that grounding, to have a life balance.
6- Schedule. From here on out the usual space between videos was 2 weeks and always going live at 11:00pm on a Friday. Though this is not a hard and fast rule and this year, well... I don't know what happened.
Also I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that this was the first video to get some ink and finally wider exposure. Nintendo Life ran the video on their website which was awesome and a great honor. From there, the subscriber count jumped to 50. Some of them are still watching 10 years later which is unbelievable and I am still grateful for every day.
10 years later the video sits at 11,200 views, not bad! And with “the new GTV” ready to roll, it was time to take everything learned so far and roll on to the next…
3 weeks ago (edited) | [YT] | 46
View 6 replies
GTV Japan
I've been so busy with the next video that I literally forgot the day and date of the last few weeks! Only because Golden Week in Japan is here do I now know that its April 30th! Wow... Anyway the next video is coming, its taking a long time because I want to make sure all that 1988 TV footage is clean as possible and serves the topic at hand perfectly! So probably expect it around May 8th, though if it's done before then, you might get a sneak preview if you ask nicely!
But since I had no idea what day it was, I forgot to celebrate Guts Pose Day on April 11th! Not a true national holiday but a day that celebrates the invention of the little dances Mega Man Robot Masters do. Why not check it out?
1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 40
View 2 replies
GTV Japan
I've been pretty busy working the next video while slolam-ing through "real life," but that doesn't mean other channels don't have something else worth watching.
I was quite pleased to see the great @Funkyspectrum999 return to YouTube recently and he's back with a fun video about some new Neo Geo thing which I don't have the time or money to get into. But, one can dream....
1 month ago | [YT] | 25
View 6 replies
GTV Japan
TEN YEAR REFLECTIONS PART SIX
This video was released exactly 10 years ago today! April 15, 2016!
To expand upon the “lore” of GTV you have to go back over a year before it started. That’s because the channel came about from originally working on another one. In December 2014, a place I used to work recruited me to make educational videos for their channel. These don’t exist anymore, you can’t find them, they were not interesting anyways. Just videos for English education. It’s kind of funny because I would make these things and then put it on a USB stick then walk it over to some office and they’d deal with it for there. I never actually watched my own videos on YouTube, because, as mentioned before, I didn’t watch YouTube. But I was allowed to get creative somewhat with ideas. However, many of them were vetoed for not being educational enough. It was very similar to the wall I would hit all the time working in radio and TV back in the 90s. Stop talking about gaming so much. Don’t play games on the air. Don’t use game music for talk beds, etc. etc.
Now, I wasn’t making game videos in 2015 but I wanted to make things that I felt were more interesting and you could still learn something from. This video is one of them! The idea was flat out rejected, but I liked it so much I decided to use it when finally breaking out on my own. It was around November 2015 that I realized I can just make a channel and do whatever I want and be my own boss, and of course here we are now.
The video was actually a cool idea! Its a restaurant with a river running through the middle! I mean come on! Who wouldn’t like to see that? That has viral hit potential. Anyways, it didn’t land. 21 views on the first day! Ouch! Probably chalk it up to a small channel with no direction. Lesson learned. After this the channel started to change more into what GTV would become. I would probably call this the “worst” video on the channel. There’s nothing bad about it, but it just doesn’t match the style of what someone discovering the channel in 2026 (maybe that’s you!) would expect. Even 2017 for the most part. Still, its nice to get some experience in something different, and actually use an idea I had rather than throw it out never to be seen by anyone. Take that boss man!
What’s funny is that even though the video was DOA and gears soon shifted another way, this video did have 15 minutes of fame on Facebook in 2022 when someone shared it and a bunch of people saw it.
With only 5 videos out there, the channel was still not defined as anything, and in this primordial ooze of video ideas, whatever can crawl out and survive can and will carry the course of the future. But this was not it. But the next video would set many rules in place as to what GTV should be and who Gaijillionaire actually was.
1 month ago | [YT] | 30
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