Why Did I Start Posting On YouTube

About two weeks ago, I ended up leaving a toxic job behind. The job was so awful that I felt the need to vent about it, so I went on Reddit. I ended up getting the message shown above. Now, I have reason to believe this message is from a guy that I used to work with. This coworker does have a reason to be upset with me, as I do with him. We had a ‘friendship’ that went sour, but I was open to having a civil conversation with him.

He did, however, bring up a point. While the things he said about me are mostly false (I am trying to lose weight), he did throw in one crumb of truth. My YouTube channel (listed under Jade Geezenstack) sucks. YouTube was never my passion, and I probably wouldn’t have created a channel if not for my ex. My ex always had a desire to be seen, heard, and paid attention to. He constantly wanted me to go to loud parties with him when I just wanted to hang out with my dogs. His need for attention caused him to constantly bring up the idea of us making a YouTube channel. He even wanted me to start a channel on my own where I put on makeup (but I later came to learn he just wanted me to wear a full face of makeup around the house).

He wanted us to build a gaming channel together, since we were both into video games. He talked about it so much that I started researching what I would need to make this happen. The number one thing I needed was a capture card, but those were expensive. I ended up getting a second job around Christmas time so that I could afford to buy one. I worked myself to the point of exhaustion, but at the time I thought it was worth it. I believed I was investing in my relationship, but I was wrong.

While I was working my butt off to buy him a nice present, my ex was doing the babe minimum. He washed clothes a total of one time, folded them and stuck them on my chair, just so he could get mad at me for not putting them away as soon as I entered the apartment. I felt that we were headed towards the end of our relationship, but I didn’t want to admit it, so I bought the capture card, and gave it to him during the worst Christmas I’d ever had.

We recorded gameplay from Mortal Kombat, Brutal Legend, and Rare Replay. If you look back at those old videos, it’s clear that we didn’t know what we were doing, but we uploaded it to the YouTube channel I’d created for us. I can still remember the excitement I felt as I counted every view. We had a lot of plans to post videos together, but our relationship only lasted a few more days.

When we broke up, I gave him back everything he’d ever given me, which included a ring, earrings, a picture he’d drawn of my dog, and some Funko pop figures. The only thing I asked of him was if I could have the capture card back. I wouldn’t normally ask for something that I’d given to be returned to me, but I had worked so hard to buy him that. It was clear he didn’t appreciate it. He complained, he but gave me back the capture card when I informed him that he was getting his ring back.

Now that I had the capture card, what was I going to do with it? I thought about selling it, decided to make videos with it instead. Those first videos were bad. They included me dancing with my now deceased dog while playing Happy Wheels. The videos I made weren’t very good, but they were attracting people who interacted with me. I would have been able to grow my subscriber base if I had kept it up.

My content quickly changed. My ex found out that I was working at Harley Davidson and he was angry. When we were together, he’d given me a list of places I wasn’t allowed to work. He thought working at Harley was like working at Hooters. He couldn’t stand the thought of men flirting with me (despite us not being together and him supposedly being overjoyed about this), and he made that known. He told me it made him sick whenever a man liked one of my pictures. He left a comment on one of my YouTube videos, stating that I was ugly and boring. I guess he didn’t know it would post under his name, because he deleted it as soon as he posted it. I still saw it though, and I saw who it was from.

I stopped putting my face in the videos soon after, but that wasn’t enough for him. He flagged all my videos, causing me to lose that channel. I fought to get it back, but when I did the options were limited. I could only upload gameplay, not my voice or face. I tried to contact YouTube about this, but they didn’t care. I made a new YouTube channel, Jade Geezenstack, but I wasn’t as passionate anymore. It didn’t occur to me until recently that I was still making the content my ex liked. I wasn’t doing what I was passionate about, and it showed.

So, what are my plans for the semi-new channel? Well, I’d like to take it in a new direction. I’d like to play games that I like, and not just the crappy mobile ones that get views. I’d like to do geeky character inspired makeup videos and read my horrible fan fictions that I wrote when I was nineteen. There’s so much that I would like to do, but I don’t know if I have the courage anymore. I always keep thinking about my ex, and if he’ll come back and write something nasty under my videos. I realize that I can’t let that hold me back, and that I’ll get hate comments regardless of if they are from him or not. I just have to go for it, and not let him hold me back anymore.