# Q&A with Grey `#2 (One Million Subscribers)
Hi.
So I think this is the part where I'm supposed to have a dramatic opening, perhaps the 2001
theme song playing in the background as the number 1,000,000 fades into view, but obviously
that's not happening.
Don't get me wrong, I'm lucky that so many people want to watch my videos. It's just
that one million is a number too large to be comprehended with a monkey-derived brain.
To try and have it feel more real I've takes some YouTube data and made a spreadsheet!
(I make lots of spreadsheets)
You can select your country and enter the population of the city where you live, and
it will spit out the statistically approximate number of other people in that city who are
subscribed to this channel.
Doing that for London shows there are about 9,000 people in the city who are subscribers.
Now 9,000 is obviously smaller that one-*million* but it's a number with constraints and is
small enough to possibly be understood while still large enough to be very intimidating.
So, if you're interested, you can click here to play around with the spreadsheet. Now,
as promised: on to the Q&A.
## What do you like most about being a YouTuber? --Conzo_K
The best thing about this strange new world is the people I've met -- which is quite the
statement for a social recluse to make. All these guys are amazing to talk with and I
feel very lucky that I get the occasional chance to do so.
## What's the biggest change of opinion you've had? --Steam23
That's a little too personal to share with say, one-*million* people, but I do want to
talk about the importance of being able to change your mind in general.
The trick is to keep your identity separate from your opinions -- they are objects in
a box you carry with you and should be easily replaceable if it turns out they're no good.
If you think that the opinions in the box are *who you are* then you'll cling to them
despite any evidence to the contrary.
Bottom line: If you want to always be right, you need to always be prepared to change your
mind.
## Were you trying to create a unique aesthetic by using stick-figures? --Waggles_ 20
No it's just that I can't draw.
## After moving to London how long did it take until you stopped saying 'Math' and started
saying 'Maths'? --brockheinz
I haven't -- I'm sticking with 'math'.
Americans living in the UK often end up with an unfortunate accent I call 'psuedo-british'.
I try very hard to avoid this, but when you've spend the majority of your talking time with
British people over a decade it's impossible to completely fight the creeping pseudo-british
accent no matter how abhorrent you think it makes you sound.
## Did your students know about your YouTube channel? --qiyitam
I would never talk about it, but I know some of them knew. However it's impossible to express
how little they cared. My classes were like not hour-long CGP Grey videos.
## Would you like to see the interrobang more widely adopted? --aaronboardley
Who wouldn't‽
## Why don't you have an upload schedule? --ManavT
Right: the big question. Usually phrased in the YouTube comment section as 'y u no make
moar vids'?
So on average over the past couple of years I've posted a 'Grey Explains' video about
every five weeks, which means if I could switch to a weekly schedule my income would *quin*tupple.
Trust me, I would if I could.
I've talked before about how long it takes to make these videos, but one of the other
problem I haven't mentioned is the failure rate of projects.
For every video you see there's at least two or three that didn't make it.
Most of the time that's just a lost afternoon of working on an idea before realizing it's
a dud, but sometimes it's weeks before a fatal flaw reveals itself -- sometimes I'll discover
too late a central fact of the video isn't correct or, sometimes the whole script is
just unfixably *boring*.
Either way the decision to kill a video that isn't working is depressing and frustrating
because of the sunk cost of all those hours.
The videos you see are (mostly) pretty good precisely because I try my best to kill the
ones that weren't -- that's why there isn't a schedule, and there never can be.
## What's the biggest video you killed? --tyroncs
The most time I lost was on an important video to convince the world why *Settlers of Catan*
is the greatest board game ever made.
I had a couple thousand words as a starting point, harassed people for footage of a now-famous
game that took place at YouTube EDU, got a bunch of random videos from my ever-helpful
twitter followers had a and an outline for a 'How to Play Settlers of Catan' tutorial
video for my second channel.
But the script kept growing and growing and began to look more like a documentary film
on board game design than a YouTube video -- which might, depending on who you are sound
really interesting, but it had the boring problem I mentioned before.
My last ditch effort to save a project like this is to get rid of everything, work on
something else for a few days, then write a brand new script by hand -- which I did.
But that script still wasn't good and weeks after starting the project I shelved it. But
I'm talking about it now because it's an idea that I still just can't let go and might come
back to some day.
## Why don't you hire people to help you? --WhoAteEarth
That's a big topic that deserves more time, but for now let me just say the kind of work
produced by individuals is very different than kind work of produced by groups. One
isn't intrinsically better than the other, but I think the kinds of videos I've made
have all benefited from being a one-man project from start to finish.
## Your opinion on koalas. --blanket_warrior
They sleep 20 hours a day -- never going to be a koala-based civilization with that kind
of work ethic.
## If you could transfer your brain into a robotic body, would you? --xyon21
Obviously yes.
## You can add three amendments to the US constitution. What do they do? --raloon
Oh, so many tempting changes to make. Off the top of my head I'd say:
1. Abolish private funding of all elections and instead make them run from a limited pool
of tax money.
2. Abolish the Senate and replace it with some kind of proportional body.
3. Overturn the Interstate-commerce clause -- which basically gives the federal government
too much power over the affairs of the States.
Of course, if it was actually my responsibility, I'd consult with some experts rather than
just idly mull it over for a couple of days.
Running a country of 300 million is more complicated than it looks.
## What advice you would give for a successful life? --pringlesaddict99
Build a self-evaluation loop in your life. If you don't periodically review your actions,
their effects and your decision-making process there hope for improvement other than random
chance.
I do very small weekly reviews, and bigger quarterly and yearly reviews of how my life
is going and how I might want it to be different in both the biggest and smallest ways.
That's the best, high level advice I have. For more tactical advice I recommend two books:
one that changed my life *Getting Things Done* by David Allen and another that might change
yours: *So Good They Can't Ignore You* by Cal Newport. You can click those books to
read my reviews of them.
## Have you made a video you don't like how it came out? --Gourounaki
With the exceptions of the 2012 and Holland videos, I'm unhappy with *all of them*. I
don't watch my own videos after upload if I can possibly avoid it: they're graveyards
of the could-have been.
## Favorite non-educational YouTube channels? --DB101
1st: Glove and Boots, who I'm suprised haven't yet gotten ALL THE SUBSCRIBERS. 2nd: I'm a
also huge fan of Yahtzee, the Roger Ebert of video games.
## What was your first memory of the internet? Mine is playing flash games. --vicorator
Mine is B.B.S.s. Now get off my lawn and go watch this documentary you whippersnapper.
## Who are your heros? --reed17
Mostly Dark Seer and Necrolyte.
## What do you find hardest when making a video? --willdood
Writing the script is the hardest and unfortunately it's the bottleneck for the whole process.
The most *uncomfortable* part is editing the audio. Just like everyone else there is a
voice in my head that I like and a voice on the tape that I don't.
## Have any of your answers from your previous Q&A changed? --MessiahPenguin
You're probably referring to these, and no.
## How long would you survive a zombie apocalypse? --One_Wheel_Drive
I wouldn't. If a Walking-Dead-style zombie apocalypse arrises the correct course of action
is suicide.
## What do you listen to while making videos? --syphen94
My most reliable writing music is Girl Talk's 'All Day' which I would link to on YouTube
but it's copyright-infringement-tasktic. But you can get it from his website and if you
like remixes you should give it a listen.
However, I often get some random terrible song in my head while writing and end up buying
it and putting on repeat -- for hours. For this script my iTunes reveals I listened to
a single song 127 times. That might be torture in some jurisdictions but the repetitiveness
really zones me into writing.
Animating, however, is incredibly tedious so I listen to a ton of podcasts and audiobooks
to keep my sanity.
## What's the most interesting 'could-have-been' of history? --SCE-2-AUX
Historical-could-have-beens mostly strike me as a missing-the-point thought exerciese.
The real driver of history is neither great men nor the actions of the masses but the
ceaseless march of science and technology, which is mostly indifferent to the imaginary
lines drawn by packs of monkeys.
Knowing my perspective you'll see why if I *had* to pick one it would this primitive
greek steam engine invented 2,000 years ago.
There are reasons why it wasn't developed further but if some rich Greek had gotten
obsessed with the technology perhaps we would have had an industrial revolution two millennia
earlier and we'd now be a trans-galactic-post-singularity civilization. With robot bodies.
## What is the most British thing you have encountered that you can't get your head around?
--vikihogg
The idea that the best way to cool down on a summer day while confined to a non-air-conditioned
office is to drink hot tea. Madness, absolute madness.
## Should we create a universal language? --vsa11
We already have, it's just not very universal.
## What question do you want me to ask the most? --Gregorian_Hawke
Hmmm…
## I love your videos and have even watched this somewhat tedious one until the very end.
How can I help support you? --Gregorian_Hawke
I'm glad you asked Gregorian_Hawke.
The best way is though a subscription at subbable where you can get signed posters and other
stuff, and there’s also t-shirts and addiction mugs (and flamethrowers) over at DFTBA.
Well Internet, it's been fun. And I'm sorry if you're question didn't make it into this
video -- there were loads I had to cut -- but now that we're in this realm of numbers so
big they don't make sense perhaps I'll turn Q&A's into an occasional random thing rather
than a waiting for an arbitrary base ten roll over thing.
Thank you again to everyone for your continued support and thank you for subscribing and
for watching -- these last two years have been quite a ride.