Hi, I’m Shelby and this is my Youtube channel Tech Tangents. This is a bit of a different video
for me that I kind of have to make because I’m going to be in a bit of a rough patch
a few weeks or months. I have been renting in the place where I am now for nearly a decade and last
week my landlord decided to sell the house while the market is nuts and I have until the end of
next month to get out. So I have to start finding a place to go in one of the worst rental markets
in years and I don’t know how conducive to filming where I’ll end up will be yet.
Additionally, a couple of months ago I said I needed to take it easy and tried to make
some simple videos. Well I had to go to the hospital for something that ended up
not being an immediate threat but I’m still not sure what is going to happen with.
But either way I was uninsured because I’ve been making Youtube videos full time and don’t have
a traditional employer, and I now have a few thousand dollars of medical bills coming due.
So I’m at a crossroads where I need to figure out what makes the most sense for me to do.
Something has to change and I have started to consider going back to a regular job which would
really cut down on my time for videos. But before I make any big decisions like that
I wanted to put this out there, if you want me to be able to continue making videos like I am
now, and potentially even better than how I am now, then I need your help. And yes,
I am asking for financial support. I'll go into how later in the video,
but first I want you to understand why money can help so much and how it can make a difference.
Making these videos is expensive. I don’t want to get into exact numbers,
but last year I spent half of my income on the equipment I use to make videos.
And I’m not talking about the subjects I make videos about, last year I bought a camera lens,
audio recorder, capture cards, storage hard drives, and more that was thousands of dollars
in just behind the scenes stuff. This year is going to be much the same as I already bought a
teleprompter and as I try to improve more things like lighting. This isn’t me trying to chase
“perfect video quality”, the better your gear is when you make videos, the easier and faster it is.
The lens I bought for example finally has auto focus and is better supported by my camera.
The lights I want to get are brighter and will give my camera more detail to work with which
will mean I don’t have to use noise reduction in videos, significantly reducing render times.
So there are real reasons I continue to improve the tools I use for videos.
Something more difficult to change is that I also haven’t had a lot of space to work,
almost every video you’ve ever seen on my channel was recorded within 260sqft of space split between
two rooms that I have to use for this. And that's not even counting what is taken up by furniture
or giant computers. People comment frequently about my wobbly table here, I know it’s wobbly
and I would rather it not be. But I use it because it’s light and I need to be able to pick it up and
move it forward to get behind it for talking shots like this. I don’t have space for a dedicated “on
camera” set. I’m also always getting asked if I’ve been able to start working on the Data Generals,
and the answer is no, because I have nowhere to physically put the parts of them to start
working on them that won’t take up a spot I need to film other videos at. Any one part of
those computers would need a dedicated workbench for weeks while I work on it a little at a time,
and I just haven’t had the space to set that up. Now I don’t know if I’ll be able to move
somewhere I’ll have that kind of space right now, but I’ll probably be moving again in 6
months or a year when the market settles down and I can get a better deal. So I
would like to find somewhere with more space then. Alternatively, I would be really happy to rent an
office space to set up as a dedicated filming and workshop area for making videos. That would make
my life so much easier and not have to try to cram all my filming stuff into the same place I live.
Now those are examples of things that are limiting what I can do, but what could I do if I wasn’t
as limited? The biggest thing I can say is that having more financial support to help with those
kinds of expenses would allow me to be better set up to make more videos by making it easier to make
them. I really want to make huge videos that take complex topics and distill them down into easily
understandable videos that anyone can follow along with. Those are my favourite things to make and
are the most rewarding. Subjects like the video on how VGA works are something I would like to make
more of. And I have been researching a lot of topics to work on videos like this. I have a ton
of research and experience into an updated video on how to capture VGA with dedicated capture cards
that required me to build a device that can alter the V Sync signal in a VGA connection in real
time. I have a fully detailed understanding from research and testing of how to rip CDs in a way
that best preserves all of the possible data they may contain and how to do it quickly. I’m also
working on a guide for enthusiasts that should take the mystery out of how to diagnose, identify,
remove, substitute, and replace bad capacitors on vintage electronics. But while I have a lot
of research done on these videos that I have been able to work on in the evenings between projects,
I haven’t had the breathing room to take the next steps with them to produce
full videos because you just have to be consistent on Youtube to stay in the algorithm’s
good graces. If it were easier for me to make more videos, I could get ahead and
spend larger blocks of time on more complex projects that take more effort to produce.
Another thing it would help with are projects that result
in physical tangible things like the ATX2PCjr, Coleco Adam PSU replacement,
and a new thing I’ve been trying to work on to connect more floppy drives to any computer.
These projects all take up front investment to design and test and significant investments to
make productions runs of. I burned savings I had on the first run of ATX2PCjrs but I
tried to price the kits as low as I could to make them affordable and then they sold very slowly,
so they weren’t very profitable when all things were considered. I would love to make more and
improved versions of those and finish my other projects but I don’t have the resources to do it.
This is one area where just having the capital to start on the projects is the biggest hurdle.
Alright, hopefully you can see why I am making this video now. And all those reasons aren’t
even covering the basic things I need money for to just live. So how can you help? I have had
a patreon page setup for a few years now and do mention it at the end of every video. But I don’t
think it has ever been paid much attention to. That is probably the best way to help directly,
there are different tiers that you can read about there and if you have ideas for other ones I’m all
ears because I don’t know what all the best ways to set that up are. I am particularly proud of the
hardcopy tier though where everyone in it will get their name printed on a physical sheet of paper on
a vintage printer. And I just added a tier where people can get a signed copy of that printout with
their name on it physically mailed to them which I think could be fun. As an alternative option I’ve
also recently enabled Youtube’s membership feature on my channel so you can get some of those same
options right here. I’ve added the same hardcopy tier to get your name printed but I don’t think I
can ask for addresses through Youtube so I’m going to leave the physical version to patreon only.
I’ll tell you a bit of a secret though that I’ve never really seen Youtubers talk about,
Youtube Premium might be one of the best ways to support us. It isn’t as much for each creator
directly, but views from premium subscribers earn multiple times more revenue than ad viewings, work
on all channels you watch for just one charge, and prevent you from seeing ads. It’s not as good
as direct support for someone like me, but it’s still kind of a win-win for everyone all around.
Now if you don’t want to set up anything monthly, and I don’t blame you with how many subscription
services there are out there, then I have a few other options. I have a Paypal one time
donation link that is good for just helping once. And I am finally doing something I’ve
been wanting to for years and creating actual merch. I’ve just launched a...I
guess the term is “collection”... of abstract designs of vintage devices
in the Memphis Design inspired style I use on my channel. I’ll be straight up with you,
I make just a bit less than half of the sale price on these for the standard and premium
shirts and about a quarter on the fitted women’s shirt because I wanted it to be the same price
as the mens. So it’s not as much for me, but you do get something tangible out of it that I hope
you enjoy. I will be exploring more options as I can for merch as well. Like I would really like
to get custom mouse pads made for sure, but I’m open to any other suggestions anyone may have.
Well, that’s it. Now you know where I’m at with all this. No matter what the next few
weeks are going to be more difficult for me so video releases may be spotty for a little bit.
And this especially doesn’t help a big video I’ve been planning for in a few months.
But I’m going to keep going with this as best I can. If you are able to help with
making videos I am extremely grateful for the support and will be making all my best
efforts I can with the resources available to me. But that’s all I’ve got for now though and
I need to get started packing. So I’ll see you soon with a mail video I’ve already recorded next.