One year ago today I uploaded a video to YouTube about the difference between the UK, Great Britain and England.
At the time of the upload I've been living in London for about 8 years. And, while, I understood the basics of this foreign land...
I still had questions niggling at the back of my mind about all the other little pieces.
Such as the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. Who weren't exactly part of the UK, but were still somehow british.
One day while buying cream for my wife's coffee, I was confronted with this: 'Jersey Cows'.
And could no longer contain my irritation of my own ignorance. 'What are you Jersey Cows?' I wondered.
And why is the Union Jack on here if you're not part of the UK?
I went home to sort this out for once and all and, what I expected would take ten minutes...
But, as so often is the case when your starting point is the Wikipedia,
Ended up becoming a research project involving dozens of hours
To not feel like I completely wasted my time, I turned it into the video I eventually uploaded to YouTube.
I asked some locals what they thought and soon was attacked by the monster of viral videos.
Fast-forward to today and I now find myself in the odd position of being a socially reclusive guy...
Followed by a 100,000+ people, whose videos have been seen more than 10 million times.
Which is more than a bit overwhelming if I think about it too much.
But I want to say a huge 'Thank you' to each and every one of you.
Not personally of course as reading 100,000+ names at 1 second each would take about 28 hours.
But a general thank you - thank you so much for subscribing, watching and sharing my videos.
I also want to thank some YouTubers who've helped me along the way...
Including MinutePhysics, the VlogBrothers, Phil DeFranco - who, in a single week tripled my subscribers.
And in particular I want to thank Michael from VSauce, who was nice enough to meet up with me...
...in the physical world at the London Googleplex, which, getting to see the inside of made me feel 20% cooler,
...where he encouraged me to make videos on a more regular schedule.
You, dear viewer, may know 1 or more of these guys but please subscribe to them all and encourage YouTube cross-pollination.
I don't know exactly where this channel is going to go in the future, but its been an interesting ride so far.
And, if you stay with me, I sincerely hope to keep making more stuff that you'll like.
Thanks again to all 100,000 of you!