I Owe You Thanks.

Written by Optimus
 Today, I owe you thanks.

You maybe haven’t done anything direct for me other than

watch some of my videos. Maybe you followed me on Twitter and you
shared a few posts of mine. You could’ve even gotten merchandise of
mine in the mail. Although you’ve likely never done anything for me
face-to-face, you’ve contributed to me as a complete stranger. For
that, I owe you thanks.

I come from a working class family, born in Ohio and raised

during one of the most uncertain periods of time imaginable. As
many of you did, I went to school in an era of constant school
massacres - raised in the post-9/11 era United States that grappled
with economic turmoil and consistent overseas conflict against
enemies that perhaps damaged the world we were given more than
we could ever envision.

Growing up and seeing all of these constant negatives wasn’t

good for us. When many of you had your family lose jobs, it wasn’t
good for any of us. Yet, our generation was given a unique set of
struggles: struggles that continue today, even. As we became adults, a
second economic recession slams us with a global pandemic. It’s been
hard for so many of us - and because of you guys, I felt like making
content could still be a sanctuary as the world outside went to hell.
For that, I owe you thanks.

Coming from where I came from has been unimaginable - literally.

My community grappled with the pain of being a center of the opioid
epidemic. I’ve watched people overdose before my very eyes, clinging
onto life by a string. I’ve watched my community decline to extreme
lows. A disturbingly high amount of poverty and lack of perceived
opportunity led to an escalating crime rate.

It’s heartbreaking when someone your age gets murdered.

 Oftentimes, I think about that stuff. Sometimes I think about the fact
that it easily could’ve been me, or any of my friends, in many of these
situations. Sometimes I think back on some of the traumatic shit that
I’ve seen during my life and wonder about it. I think about the time
that I nearly hit someone delirious from drugs stumbling through the
street one night a few years back. It hurts me to think about shit like
that, but I do a lot of reminiscing.

I never necessarily saw myself as someone with any sort of

potential for most of my life. My family was always proud of me and
told me that I would become something, however, teachers would
mock me when I told them about my dreams. One even told me at one
point that if I was ever famous, “Make sure to send them a check in
the mail.” while laughing. It really discouraged me at the time when I
was nine, but now when I think about it, I don’t feel discouraged
whatsoever.

A lot of the time I spent growing up I didn’t necessarily view

myself in a positive light whatsoever. I didn’t necessarily even feel
purpose. However, I don’t feel that way anymore. I figure that the
opportunity to entertain people hundreds of millions of times by the
time that you’re even able to legally buy a drink is quite the
opportunity! And I have that opportunity every day. For that, I owe
you thanks.

I love to create. Making YouTube videos has been a hobby for

me since the age of twelve. I’ve watched YouTube since I was in
elementary school when it was still newer. YouTube has been an
insanely large part of my life for a long time. It was monumental in
helping me get through rough days. I’ve always known that I’d be
making YouTube videos one day.

The concept that I would do it for a living was, however,

unfathomable. Not only to me, but to everyone around me. Being an
influencer online is a relatively new career path. The Internet has
really only been a thing for a few decades, and has an even shorter
life thus far when you consider the commercial availability on a
widespread scale. Never did I think that I would have an ‘online job.’
That wasn’t even really a concept that entered my mind.
 When I was three, I started using the computer at my
grandmothers. Mostly for Nickelodeon.com, which at the time was
actually a good website, but I digress. This early interest in computers
is likely the reason, along with video games, that I even have this
dream career in the first place.

I realize that I’m all over the place here, but just bear with me.

Age three was also when I was introduced to video games. As

insane as it’ll sound, my father allowed me to play Grand Theft Auto
III and Madden 2003 at the time, which many parents would find
criminal. However, this early interest in video games also created a
lifelong obsession that led me to create YouTube videos.

As a kid, my parents worked their asses off to do the best that

they could for me (which I am eternally grateful for.) I didn’t get
everything that I wanted, but I had a lot of it. I got my own laptop at 11
for Christmas, an iPod Touch for my birthday at 12. Within those two
gifts, I had what I needed to start making YouTube videos. And so, I
did.

When I was 12, I started my channel as ROBLOXandCODvids. I

filmed my small TV screen with an iPod Touch set up on some stacked
books and whatnot playing Modern Warfare 3. Or, I’d upload clips
from my trackpad-and-slow-laptop combination of me playing Roblox.

At that point, without realizing it, I built my future. Having

nearly 50,000 subscribers by time you’ve graduated high school is an
exhilarating feeling. Yet, many others are in the hundreds of
thousands of subscribers by that point, or have millions on TikTok.
That hobby I picked up at age 12 led me to being able to drop out of
college instead of chasing a career I didn’t want.

Like I said, I love to create. But, I don’t like to create at the

demand of another person. Sitting in a cubicle for a boss or standing
on a manufacturing line being screamed at was not my destiny, I felt.
In fact, I knew it wasn’t. I literally would have rather died than to do
that for the rest of my life and not be able to creatively satisfy myself.
Because of your consistent support, I’m able to make all of the
YouTube videos that I want to. I can make the biggest passion project
of my life something that rewards me financially and creatively. I can
afford to make music for fun on the side. I’m able to design clothes for
my merchandise store. I’m allowed to make whatever I want, and the
majority of you will not crucify me for that. For that, I owe you
thanks.

As I’ve chased this wild and lucrative career path, I’ve realized quite a
lot about myself. A lot of people always thought that I was lazy
growing up because of many reasons. For instance, my grades went
from stellar in elementary school (to the point I should’ve graduated
at the age of 16 had my family agreed to let me skip grades) to subpar
in middle and high school. It was always looked at as laziness, but it
wasn’t. I wasn’t interested.

I didn’t want to sit in class all day learning some bullshit

propaganda history class - even though I love history. I didn’t want to
be preached at about the Pythagorean Theorem for the seventh math
year in a row. I wanted to be learning about investing and creating. I
wanted to be learning about things that are practical - which school is
not a place to learn them at.

I was different than most people, I think. I didn’t want to run off
to college or the military. I didn’t want to work a dead-end job that
would make me blow my brains out. I didn’t want to sit around and
be a bum, though. I wanted to make something. Not only of myself,
but I literally wanted to make something. YouTube was such a good
outlet for that.

For that, I owe you thanks.

The things that I’ve been able to do with my life because of you
all have been incredible. The situations that I was able to fix. The
change that came from me as a person. The amount of creative output
I’ve been able to make in such a short period of time.

For that, I owe you thanks.

 I have incredible plans for the future, as well. I want to reach
ten million subscribers on the Optimus channel. I want MoreOptimus
and OptimusMusic to both break 100 thousand (MoreOptimus has.)

I want to raise +$100,000 for charity.

I want a million on TikTok.
I want 100K on Instagram.
I want 100K on StoryFire.
I want to set examples.

I have the opportunity to do these things, too. It all really comes

back to you all, though. So for that, I owe you thanks.

Thank you.