I’m Addie. You probably know me as “EposVox” or “The Stream Professor.” You might know me as “lost saves” or “analog_dreams.” One of you might remember me as “d3m0l1sh3r” or “MindFreaks13.” I’ve been making “content” (I hate that word) on the web for a long time. This is where I’m supposed to pitch you on supporting me here on Patreon (or perhaps over on Floatplane - or by becoming a Channel Member here, here, or here - or by subscribing on Discord or Twitch… you get the drill) so that I can keep making the wonderful content that I’ve been making for the past 18 years. But I’m terrible at that.
I hate asking for money, because I, myself, struggle under the weight of subscription overload and I know what it’s like for money to frequently be tight. I also feel stressed trying to keep all my eggs in one basket and really go “all in” on one platform, as you can tell by my menagerie of support options available above. So instead, I’m going to tell you a little about myself and what I do, and what my plan for the next 5 or so years is - since that’s about as frequently as I remember to update descriptions on Patreon and such.
And hell, if you can’t support financially - feel free to follow the Patreon page for free anyway, as I’ll be using it to share regular updates and such for everyone.
The Stream Professor
While I got started on YouTube (and with web “content” in general) way earlier, starting in 2013 I began the path of becoming a tech educator. I saw a gap in the blossoming YouTube tutorial scene for good guides on how to actually make tutorials and other screen capture/gameplay capture videos and wanted to help. I’d spent the previous 6 years scrubbing through Doom9 forum threads, reading photography/videography books at the library, and experimenting with all the ways to record my screen and share it with the world myself, so I thought I’d contribute back.
I covered FRAPS, Dxtory, Camtasia, Bandicam, Windows Movie Maker, Sony Vegas, Wirecast, all of it. Then a unique little tool called “OBS” released. It was free, it was open source, and it was confusing as hell for people who weren’t terminally at their computer. But I got it. So I started making guides on it. Within the first year or so, my original guides on recording and streaming with OBS gained nearly 4 million views. Combine that with my newfound interest in trying and reviewing other tech gadgets, and my pivot from failed gaming YouTuber to tech educator was pretty locked in.
I spent the next 11 years teaching streaming and content creation with OBS (and OBS Studio), gear coverage, Windows and Linux guides, physical media ripping and management, game backups, and other general tech topics. All for free. All with the number one priority being to provide the highest quality tech education possible and to try to help curb the deficit in tech literacy brought upon by the smartphone/tablet age (and the school systems’ subsequent lack of proper tech education). Of course, a close second priority was just getting me to play with cool new tech toys.
Full Time Content Creator
My early years were fraught with unclear paths and various different career choices. Being a 90s kid who was “good with computers,” I was constantly told I would “become the next Bill Gates” and was pushed into Computer Science both in high school and for my college major. But undiagnosed ADHD and my creative interests had other plans and I switched majors right away and nearly dropped out of college. Thankfully I found my bearings in another university’s journalism program and graduated, picking up a job with a YouTube MCN in my junior year.
By time I made it to college, there was no doubt in my mind that the only job I wanted was YouTube/media-related. I grew up wanting to write game reviews for gaming magazines, then to go work for TechTV/G4TV, and with the first generation of YouTubers I wanted to move to L.A. to go work for Machinima. (Spoilers: Both Machinima and G4TV went under before I graduated college.)
Getting that YouTube MCN job in 2014 was effectively being a “full time YouTuber” - achieving my dreams, and I later left the MCN to go completely full-time self-employed in 2017.
The Game Streamer/Creator
In 2017 when I went solo, my wife had just started a new job during the day and I had a lot more time on my hands to focus on my work. I’d obviously been following the streaming scene closely since the Justin.TV days since it closely tied into the videos I made and interests I had, so I decided to upgrade our internet plan and give regular streaming a “real try.” I’d say for about 6-9 months I was more of a “full-time streamer” than YouTuber, as I was streaming 3-5 days/week to Twitch, streaming games like Nioh, For Honor, CoD4, and Devil May Cry. A couple months into streaming, Twitch introduced the Affiliate program, and I was among the very first to become Affiliate on Twitch - basically just being told “hey we have this new program and you’re an Affiliate now,” allowing me to monetize my streams.
The justification for this was I was taking a microscopic look at being a streamer and all the tech/requirements involved - and the entire time I was writing the scripts for my “OBS Master Class” which I filmed in Q4 2017 and released through early 2018. This is what many people know me best for, a 5+ hour-long video course dedicated to everything you need to know to use OBS and start streaming. Most of it’s still relevant today!
I stopped streaming as regularly once I began production on the OBS course, and never quite returned to full-time streaming, but I did miss making gaming content. As mentioned, gaming content (writing, TV, videos, etc.) has always been something that hugely appealed to me and it’s the kind of content I had originally imagined myself making in my theoretical career as a “YouTuber.”
I also hate being put in a box. In fact, I rejected the “Stream Professor” branding for years before finally adopting it, as I didn’t want to be seen as the guy who “only covers streaming.” Any time I feel like my videos are being too limited by format, expectations, etc. I want to run away with it and do something totally wild.
To support this, I launched lost saves at the start of 2022 with the primary goal of having a platform (free from the decade of dead subscribers/dumping ground uploads like my previous gaming channel/now VODs channel had) where I could make the gaming content I wanted to see on YouTube - whether it’s nostalgic deep dives into retro hardware and CRT televisions or casual, 2009-era gameplay commentaries, game preservation, and the occasional discussion of modern games.
I’m very grateful that in the last year, lost saves has seen some serious traction and competes with my main channel on viewership - allowing me to balance my ever changing interests and ADHD rabbit holes, without worrying about how that would impact my ability to support my family.
The Artist Inside
Ultimately, my creative outlets throughout my career stem from my artistic side. I was attached to technology from the beginning - my first DOS PC game I learned to play at 9 months old - but I never really wanted to explore that through programming, it was always artistically-oriented. I was constantly playing with MS Paint, making crazy WordArt, or building wild visuals in PowerPoint or early PhotoShop Elements copies. I had a passion for taking photos of the world from my perspective, recording all of my friends’ shenanigans on camcorders, and editing cringey “sponsor me” skateboarding videos in Windows Movie Maker. And in the physical realm, I was always trying to make something with my hands - drawing, painting, building, piano, guitar, or just generally making a mess. Plus, I’d always been a pretty solid writer my entire life.
I never really got the hang of the whole drawing thing, I could never stick with the grind of guitar lessons, but I was always an artist at my core.
I’m very grateful that I was able to find a way to express myself artistically through writing, video editing, and photography. These tools allow me to vent that crucially-important creative energies. As I got older, however, I frequently found myself wishing I had spent more time learning the other artistic fields, mastering the technical skills to make real, physical art, and had more ways to express myself. The consequence of your hobbies becoming your job is that they stop being a personal hobby anymore.
I found escape in spray paint, analog video and glitch art (returning to my roots), and - weirdly enough - D&D miniature painting. Plus various other crafts or combinations of the other mediums.
That’s why in late 2022, I launched analog_dreams. This channel would house my artistic endeavors that didn’t necessarily have a good home on my normal channels. Here I’ve been able to showcase my glitchart setups, spraypaint projects, design experiments, miniature painting adventures, and crafts.
Most recently here in 2024, I finally sat down and produced my first ever music album, Desolate! I’ve been experimenting with analog and digital synths for a few years now and really wanted some specific music vibes for a few videos, so I decided it was time I just made it myself. Inspired by having lived vicariously through our Backing Track music label for streamers (all produced by Will/IceOrb), I learned Ableton (one of my favorite programs now) and produced my own album. Desolate is weird. It’s very experimental, most of the tracks are ambient and textural, probably not what you’d expect - but it kind of represents how my learning process works. I needed to master the tools to make something, and I have to have a project to do that, and now I want to expand on those skills to produce more synth and electronic-style music in time!
Again, this is another vehicle for my work, allowing me to balance out my ADHD rabbit holes and interests without feeling like I’m “wasting my time” since real investment requires full focus and concentration. To follow up on this, I’ve since also launched my shop (featuring lots of effects packages, LUTs, photo prints, etc.) and my portfolio site (though I need to find more work for this).
The Combined Pitch
This is usually the part where I tell you this is the best way to support me, I’ll work extra hard to give you benefits and make it worth your while.
I won’t.
I struggle enough to keep up with things as is. My videos take a lot of work, and I struggle to maintain 1-2 videos/week as-is. I used to be able to juggle 3 videos/week plus bonus content and streams and yada yada for 10 years of my career - but since having a kid, my time is MUCH more limited and I need to focus on doing what I can with my time. I’m not going to promise to deliver extra stuff when I don’t have time for it.
I will have occasional behind-the-scenes videos and some early access content. I often like filming extra bits to show you all something, which don’t make sense for a full video - so it’ll get posted to Floatplane and uploaded as Unlisted to YouTube to present here. Every once in a while, I’ll have a video done early and share it early.
The plan is also to use Patreon as my mailing list - so if you can’t support me financially, follow anyway! I’ll be sending out updates as I can to share what I’m working on and thinking.
The tiers are mostly unchanged, but are as follows:
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$3 Hall Pass - If you just want to support the efforts, or get some early access/behind the scenes content and some WIP feedback, this is for you. We’ve got secret chats, early looks at videos, and some fun events (game night priority slots, etc.)
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$25 Teacher’s Pet - This is the “mastermind group”. This is for fellow content creators who want to have myself and others with experience consult on your work, provide feedback, generate ideas and bounce ideas off of each other. We already have groups going to provide thumbnail and title feedback, “The Classroom” to discuss deep dives into hardcore topics like the YouTube Algorithm and content planning, and it’s growing every day!
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$75 Final Form - This is for you amazing people that just really want to contribute. There’s nothing I can offer that makes this kind of pledge worthwhile, but you certainly have my thanks.
So what’s the plan with all of this?
Honestly? Sustainability. I want to keep doing what I’ve been doing - and expand upon it - and I will use your contributions towards those goals.
- I’ve got bills, like anyone else.
- New tools to cover require having money to buy them.
- I want to hire someone to help keep up the StreamGuides website. I think it’s more important than ever to have written versions of guides and updates when everyone has moved all info to video-only, but it’s less sustainable to do so.
- I want to contract an editor from time-to-time for the less-personal videos to keep content flowing.
- The glitch.lgbt mastodon instance, the forums, upcoming PeerTube instance, and my various websites cost a lot to keep online
I want to expand my EposVox content to include more projects, more personal tech videos, and more sustainable tech use/literacy content. I want to engage in more art projects for analog_dreams and produce more music. I want to keep cranking up the nostalgia vibes on lost saves. I want to build more to list in the shop, to host more on dedicated websites and help keep the web on the whole more sustainable without the thumb of corporate social media crushing us all. There’s a lot I want to do.
But I want to do it my way.
I don’t want an empire. I don’t want a 100+ person staff. I want a small group of like-minded people working together towards a common end goal - and to feed my family and make sure my kiddo is well taken-care of.
While I will take the occasional individual video suggestion, I don’t want fan funding to dictate what I make.
David Bowie once said “Never play to the gallery. […] It’s terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfill other peoples’ expectations. They produce their worst work when they do that.”
It’s all to easy for Patreon to become a trap of focusing too hard on producing fan service and not building the things that made you follow that person in the first place. I would like to think that after 11 years of educating on this platform, I have a solid-enough track record of what I can do that you can believe in whatever my vision of the future might be. If not, why did you read this far?
Thanks in advance if you choose to support me here (or on any of the sites listed at the top). It truly means the world to me. I’m not sure where I’d be in the world, if I didn’t get to do what I love for a living. It’s stressful, anxiety-inducing, exhausting, but it’s what I live and breathe.
“If you feel safe in the area that you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth, and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.” (Bowie again.)
Remember to be kind, rewind.
~Addie