Well hello, ladies and gentlemen,
and everyone watching,
I am your host, TheReportOfTheWeek.
You know, I was kind of thinking about what video I wanted to do this afternoon
It's uh,
certainly a little bit of a breezy day.
I wouldn't go as far as to say windy
just a little bit of a breeze because I know there was that
crazy Nor'easter in the Northeast and this is just a little bit of a breeze, a little chill in the air
but it's good enough to film something anyway, but I was sitting here, and I was thinking about what to film.
And I know one popular topic that comes up a lot. It's kind of the,
You know, "who, what, when, where, why, how?"
why...why once again?
Why even more?
When it comes to this channel, you know people,
they're sometimes curious as to why I do this
or the backstory thereof, or, you know
well, why does he do this? Why does he do that? What is this? What is that, et cetera, et cetera.
And every so often, I try to address those questions in a video or two, you know, like the why I drink Starbucks -
sorry there, but why I drink Starbucks water. Why I wear suits everyday video,
and so on and so forth. And I try to clear up these, you know, these little
questions that sometimes I get a lot in the comments or the messages of the emails, so on and so forth.
And when it comes down to this channel you can find a lot on it.
You know, nowadays it really has a variety of stuff.
Where if you want to see me do, uh
more serious, heart-to-heart talk on something
you could find videos where I do that. If you want to have a little bit of
laughter and a joke you could find videos for that.
If you want to listen to my radio show where you could hear some tunes and talk, you can get that.
You want to hear a podcast of just talk, you can hear that too.
But I think what this channel is at least most well-known for is its food reviews, right?
You want to hear me critique, criticize or praise one of the biggest releases in fast food nowadays
uh, you could usually find a video about that on this channel.
And it's something that I've been doing
really for close to seven years now, and a lot of people raise the question:
You know, ReviewBrah, why do you do the food reviews?
I mean, what led you to doing this?
What kind of got you to start doing these food reviews
and why do you continue to do the food reviews?
You know, what's the backstory behind it?
Why do you review food? You know, why don't you review motorcycles on this channel?
Why don't you just go and
do a review series where you go to all the
public pools in the area and kind of take a pitcher of water out of them
and just review that instead? Why do you review food?
Let alone fast food. You know, what's the logic and rationale behind it?
What sparked that?
That's a question I've gotten quite a bit, and I thought about addressing here and there
but I've decided, I'm gonna kind of make a little video on that today.
Now I wish I could have an extravagant tale to tell you, you know, I wish I could tell you something like
well I was a uh, I was a two-time
professional chef for 45 years, and
you know, ever since the local gig at the steakhouse didn't work out
I kind of got hard up, and I needed to do something else, so I started reviewing fast food on, you know
I'm afraid I don't have a story as wonderful as that to say
Um, but here's my tale when it comes down to that.
So I started the channel out seven years ago
Um, as of February 2011 - started it seven years ago. And for the first year of the channel
really from February 2011 to December 2011
I reviewed energy drinks exclusively
and that I could go on, on and on and on about, but in short I decided to do energy drinks, because I was genuinely curious
about what they tasted like
how they were, what their effectiveness was, et cetera, and it was a genuine curiosity of mine which I wished to fulfill
Um, and it ended up becoming kind of a pastime and a hobby and something to do for fun on this YouTube channel.
So, where did the transition really come from energy drinks to food?
Because of course, you can kind of tie them together, right? You can say well, food and drink
But not everyone drinks energy drinks, you know, it's- it's not like everyone,
you know, replaced water with Monster energy drink or anything, you know.
There's a certain crowd that drinks energy drinks, and that's it.
The reason why I kind of branched out into doing these food reviews
uh, started in very late December of 2011.
It was because I had kind of an idea
I wanted to expand the channel, not really for the views at that point because you got to remember
in 2011 the channel was very small. Very, very small, maybe it had a hundred subscribers and maybe it won
Two dozen regular viewers and that was it.
But I kind of wanted to expand the channel for my own curiosity
Because you know I, at the time I had been reviewing energy drinks for almost uh, you know a hundred videos
So I was getting very familiar with it
I kind of knew what these drinks tasted like. I knew what those drinks tasted like. I knew that, you know,
the 5-hour energy drink type beverages were like this
and the Monster type drinks are like that, and Red Bull was like this and so on and so forth.
that's just getting very very familiar in terms of energy drinks.
And I kind of wanted to change things up out of my own curiosity because I was really answering my own questions
when it came down to what energy drinks tasted like, so I said to myself, you know
How 'bout I start a series reviewing food?
How about I just try to broaden those horizons?
Maybe it won't work out, right? Maybe I'll try it now, say "this isn't for me,
I'm not a fan of it" and I'll just go back to energy drinks full time.
But I said maybe I'll just give it a shot and broaden my horizons and try out reviewing food
and so I did. In December of 2011 I started a
review series titled Running On Empty, in which I were to
Really peruse through the entire
McDonald's menu, at the time,
review each item and kind of try to find out which McDonald's item was the best.
And that's what I did, through a lot of late 2011, early 2012
I started doing these food reviews of McDonald's.
And sure enough I enjoyed it quite a bit. Just like the energy drink reviews, where I had this idea
I wasn't really sure how well it was gonna go over initially, but I had that idea
I had that curiosity, and I decided to employ that curiosity, you know
Try it out. See if it floats, if it sinks, what my own thoughts and views on it are,
how I feel doing it. And I tried that out with food.
And sure enough, you know, I just set it up in front of the camera, I would get whatever, a burger, a quarter pounder
Chicken selects, chicken nuggets, whatever it was from McDonald's, set it up in front of the camera
Open it up. Eat it. Give a little assessment
And uh, you know, go on to the next.
And that's how I started reviewing the food. And after I cleared through the McDonald's menu,
It was in a much similar way to the energy drinks
Where, I kind of realized, I guess you can say,
I started this out as a bit of a test, a bit of a curiosity
As something that I, you know, I was doing because I was personally curious about, I kind of wanted to expand things
with the channel and start moving it in a certain way.
But after I had kind of reached that goal
of getting through the McDonald's menu, kind of sat there and I was thinking, "well, what next?"
And I took a little bit of a break from the Running On Empty series, went back to energy drinks for a while.
But finally in late 2012, the idea came about again to resurrect the Running On Empty series
and this time instead of just focusing on the McDonald's menu only
just start reviewing random foods. I said, "Why do I have to limit myself to reviewing McDonald's?"
Review anything you want. Review frozen pizza. Review Wendy's.
Review anything.
And uh, from there over the years
I just started making that really the signature series of the channel for many, many years
And through that, really that's how it became what it is today.
Uh, for a while up until around mid-2015 I'd say
the Running On Empty series was focused mainly on like frozen foods and baked goods and little snacks in the
supermarket, then it changed to more mainstream fast food and major releases, and that's where it stayed today.
And nowadays, you know, I try to make it a point to review the, the main
Um, you know, the main big releases from a lot of these fast food places like the McDonald's Szechuan Sauce,
the Burger King Cheesy Tots, so on and so forth. As a matter of fact, coming up this Thursday
I'm gonna be trying out a new item from Taco Bell - should all go well,
So you could stay tuned for that if you want to see a food review.
But really that's how this series emerged, and that's how it came to be.
And that kind of got me thinking that I've been sitting here and recounting that story
If you wanna do a YouTube channel, right, you wanna do a YouTube channel, you wanna
start creating content - because I was also browsing around on Reddit,
There's a subreddit for people who are aspiring to make YouTube videos.
and that kind of got me thinking about what I did with this channel,
what other people were kind of doing with theirs, who might have apprehensions with or whatever
I say this a lot
And it's a point that I really just want to drive home and just keep driving home
If you have an idea for a YouTube channel, or a video series or something you want to do on YouTube
and you really feel impassioned about it, you feel like this is something that I want to do
something that I want to kind of dip that toe in, give a shot, give a chance. I say go for it.
That's exactly what I did when it came down to making this channel. Starting it out with those energy drinks
uh, and then moving to the food reviews.
I had these ideas, it was something that I felt a genuine curiosity and interest in
and kind of felt that drive and passion for,
and something that I decided, you know what?
I'm gonna try it out. I know I might have my apprehensions and my worries and my fears about it
but I'm gonna try it out.
I'm gonna give it a shot, and here's the beautiful thing with YouTube:
You can make a video, you can try to do something out, you could do a review, you could do a tutorial
you can just do a random video, a random talk, a comedy video, a gaming video, whatever.
And a beautiful thing about it is you know what, if you tried it and you realize, you know, I tried it
And I'm just not feeling it. You have the ability to just delete the videos
get yourself a clean slate,
and just start over, should you wish, if that's the thing that you decided, you know what, I don't want to do it.
But if you did it
and you found that niche. You kind of dipped that toe in the water, and you realized hey, I'm having fun doing this
You know, give yourself a little pat on the back. That's what I have to say.
That's what I started, when I- when I really made this channel years ago with the energy drink reviews
It wasn't something that I was totally sure about at first
You know, I had that idea, that curiosity, but the moment I employed it
I knew I enjoyed doing this and this is something that I'm gonna keep doing for the long run because I was enjoying it
having a lot of fun with it, and I still am to this very day many years in the future now.
Um, but that's just my own two cents and my own, you know, my own remarks on that matter
But my final point. If you have an idea on YouTube, and you might be thinking, all the what ifs, you know
well what if I do this, what if I do that?
Et cetera, et cetera.
Just remember this: if you don't have any videos out there in the first place
and you never employ that idea to begin with, you'll never know what the future holds for it
I say if you have that inspiration, that motivation, give it a shot, give it a chance. You never know what may come of it.
On a final note,
If you check the description below, you find yourself a listener of the VORW Radio Show. soundcloud.com/vorw_radio_int
I'm trying to do some work in terms of analytics and listener thoughts and opinions
I've composed an anonymous survey
That could be answered in
in such a short period of time, between one and five minutes at most
Um, but give it a look.
It's just a way to kind of get your thoughts on the show, how you listen, how often you listen and all that stuff but
Please give it a shot if you're interested in
It would be a major help to me because I spend a lot of time each week working on this VORW show and
kind of doing these surveys puts things into perspective and kind of gives me a little benchmark in terms of seeing where this show stands and
and what really people like about it, what they don't like,
what's being listened to and what can be improved upon.
Anyway, I'll see you again this Thursday, coming up with a new radio show and also a new food review so stay tuned for that - soundcloud.com/vorw_radio_int
And until then, thank you for watching. Take care, I'm your host, TheReportOfTheWeek.