July 2nd, 2012, Call Me Maybe is the top song on the radio stations and a much younger version
of myself creates a new YouTube channel by the name of MrSteveCrafter.
As I have always been incredibly creative, this name was one of the Google suggested
names created from the fake Steve Crafter name I had used to create the Gmail.
The first video on this account would then be posted on the 28th of that same month in
the form of a lego stop motion video.
Using the same camera I would then go on to continue creating different videos including
more stop motion as well as Minecraft.
This would continue with next to no views due to the complete garbage video quality
for years with only a few videos managing to even break 100 views.
The first of these were attempts to recreate the shows “Gold Rush” and “Moonshiners”
using the Xbox 360 edition of Minecraft coupled with horrible voice acting.
You’ll begin to notice a recurring theme with these where I create a series which then
never actually completes more than a few episodes with it being essentially forgotten.
This even includes a behind the scenes episode for a series which never even got a proper
episode.
The first hint at what would eventually become of the channel was finally seen on March 9th
2015 with a video titled “War Thunder Tanks with Friends”.
Though that video which featured several of my friends from highschool would not perform
much better than the previous videos the growing interest in tanks I was developing would soon
reveal itself.
In June of 2015 in an effort to move by “brand” away from a Minecraft inspired name the channel
was changed from MrSteveCrafter to MrSteveGamer.
By this point the quality of the videos had slightly improved as I not only bought a PS4
from money I earned from doing painting over the summer as well as different headsets I
used during this time.
Views still remained low on most videos including my earliest War Thunder content until early
2017 with the upload of a series of Ark videos.
These would finally break from the handful of views I had previously received getting
upwards of 10,000 views.
Although this success would not be lasting it did give a confidence boost which, along
with a slightly increased subscriber base, would push me to continue making content.
Most of this would be in the form of War Thunder videos as I played the game more and more
throughout highschool.
September 7th of 2017 would be one of the final stepping stones to get the channel off
the ground with my first War Thunder meme compilation.
This video has since been removed due to my concerns over YouTube potentially issuing
a strike to the channel following several other strikes on older meme videos I made
but this would be a massive boost to the channel.
The War Thunder Memes series as well as regular War Thunder content and streams would then
almost exclusively make up my uploads slowly amassing a viewer base for the videos with
the meme videos in particular amassing 100s of thousands of views.
During this time I would also create my Discord server allowing more interaction with my viewers
and leading to new content ideas as well as more feedback on videos.
Although initially I had chosen the German Wirbelwind for the channel's mascot using
this as my icon, it would be during this next portion of my channel that the Cone mascot
would be born.
Created by myself and my friend Mimiko she was designed using the FCM 36 light tank,
originally looking like this and being drawn alongside a Wirbelwind inspired girl.
Although at first this would not change anything aside from my banner I quickly became more
fond of the new character compared to the older Wirbelwind and eventually this would
cause me to change the channel name to ConeOfArc.
This was a combination of the nickname “Cone” I had begun to refer to the FCM 36 by after
a running joke of us calling it the “Conehead” and Joan of Arc.
This would be followed by a large amount of experimentation on my part which mostly included
different style thumbnails with art from Mimiko until on August 7th 2020 I would post a video
that changed everything.
Almost overnight the video would shoot to over 1 million views not just increasing my
channel's sub count exponentially, but would lead to the creation of the series you all
know, Cursed by Design.
From there I would move on to start covering tank history alongside my War Thunder content
until finally making the decision to switch entirely to the vastly more successful and
more enjoyable history content.
Although it can be easy to look back and assume my relative success on YouTube was fairly
easy to earn, much of my earlier content is not publicly visible.
If you’d like to watch some of the videos I mentioned within this I’ll leave links
to them in the description.
I will also once again be doing a limited run of my old wirbelwind design as merch if
you want to get yourself a piece of ConeOfArc history.
If you want to get any other merch you can also use the code 10YEAR to get a discount
on anything on my Spring store.
Thank you all for being part of what got this channel from a low quality gaming channel
to an at least passable history channel.
We’re now slowly nearing a quarter of a million subscribers on the channel which is
beyond what I could ever imagine 10 years ago when I first started this channel.
Before I end the video I do want to give a short bit of advice to anyone trying to start
their own channel.
I may not be an expert and likely most of the things I did won’t necessarily work
for you but maybe it will at least give you some ideas.
The one thing I’ve really learned from all the time I’ve been uploading is that you
should never stop trying new things.
At so many points in my uploads I could have stopped trying to change things up and maybe
it would have eventually panned out but it also might have led to nothing but stagnation.
I see it alot with smaller creators wondering why their channel doesn't grow only to see
little to no changes made to the content they post.
I don’t say this to make fun of anyone because in some cases that sort of thing has worked
for channels but that is more of a rare occurrence than many believe.
If you have an idea you think might work and you are able to do it, don't get in your own
way.
I’ve had plenty of video ideas which I felt good about and ended up being successful despite
friends of mine thinking they seemed dumb.
In reality they probably were dumb but that doesnt really matter on the internet.
Just make sure whatever you’re doing isn't completely moronic or illegal.
Thanks so much for watching and a huge thanks to my YouTube members.
If you love my content and want to support it as well as getting access to a special
discord just for members you can become a ConelyFan by clicking the join button down
below.
Here’s to another 10 years of content and I’ll see you all in the next video