The Miserable life of Content Creation

First of all, I do want to say that I was grateful for the opportunity that I received.  Most times, I really cared about the videos I did, but then again, nobody cares about that, so let’s get down to business.

Total Pro Sports found me from the Crying Jordan video parody that went viral a few years back.  They were already an established channel and I just wanted to contribute.  When I joined the channel, I believe they were around 100 thousand subscribers (They currently sit at 840k right now).  As time went on, I enjoyed seeing the success of the videos.  I think one of the biggest video I had was 1.7 million views.  I had always wanted that type of success for my content, and for once, it was attainable. 

As the channel grew, I started to feel more comfortable and got an idea of who I was on camera.  With the addition of Mike Cantalupo, it was a team effort.  I honestly think Mike was the heart of the channel and everything good that happened there started with him. Between Justin, Mike, and myself, we all took turns telling each other we enjoyed each other’s content.  It was encouraging, and with us pumping out almost four videos a day, holding contests, and doing giveaways, the channel was growing quickly.

We had a writer.  There was one voice between the three of us, so that’s why everything sounded the same (Well Mike didn’t, I think he just went off the top of his head) I’m also not blaming the writer, because that’s a pretty daunting task.  Writing content for three different hosts for about 25-30 scripts a week is beyond crazy.  I thought he worked with what he could and did a great job of it, but as you guys can tell, we did a lot of content.  Too much content.  Posting three videos a day was a lot and its why the channel sucks now.  They’ve burned through every topic you could possibly imagine. 

“The watch time is short and we need to fix it.”  So, I started to think of creative ways to get the viewers attention, but ultimately, the decision to, “Make the videos longer” was passed down.   I started to get exhausted with the process.  I was tired of seeing the same list ideas, with no creativity and my commentary on the Seahawks interception (It was in every script, every week). It was just the same idea, after same idea, after same idea.  We couldn’t get away from the lists, and we kind of started those essay type scripts which helped, a little bit.  Then it became laborious, because they figured out if you make videos over 10 minutes, you get to put two ads on the video, so then we were just doing these long ass scripts for no reason.  There was an instance where I made the end title screen about 30 seconds long, just so the video could be over 10 minutes.

Like those all thirty two NFL teams best player the ever had, and 400 variations of that.  That’s what it’s for.  Just to get another ad to make more money, because they only have one idea.  They don’t know how to be creative or take risks, because they’re afraid the well is gonna dry up.  They are so afraid of everything ending that they use all those parody pages to do TMZ type journalism or whatever you wanna call this stuff.  They cover the dumbest stories, because its all clickbait garbage.

Now I can’t speak for Mike, but he wanted to take TPS to new levels and I was always impressed by the videos he created.  He had ideas and he executed them well.  I had ideas too, but they were always overlooked or ignored.  My creativity was stifled and I was told to just keep everything uniform. 

So around last May, I got my chance to host The Main Eventer.  I said bet, I get creative control, get to have fun, you know, the shit that I want.  I even suggested; I stay on TPS for a while because the channel wouldn’t be profitable.  “Nah man, you’ll be good”.  A few months later, guess who went back to TPS to do videos?  Me, that’s the answer.  In a years time, I grew The Main Eventer to around the 12,000 subscribers it has today. It’s monetized and just sitting idle, with all the content I created on there, just chilling.

April of this year, I got taken off The Main Eventer to go back to TPS full time. Smart right?  It all had to do with Mike leaving and him not having a suitable replacement.  I think Jason was Mike’s replacement, but it would take him time to get acclimated to the channel.  I’ve always been a team player, so I knew I had to go back to TPS to keep that channel afloat.  I was miserable.  I wasn’t allowed to change the script anymore, I was doing eight scripts a week for them to edit, and editing four of my own videos.  The money was decent (I was told I was the highest paid host on the channel, but I’m sure that was a lie).  I’m also sure that it was peanuts compared to the money the videos made.  All I wanted was for somebody at that channel to give a shit, or to let me help take it to the next level.  I’ve suggested giveaways, live shows, debate shows, sketches; anything to make the channel better, make it evolve or something, and it never happened.  It wasn’t fun anymore; it became a job.  A job that sucked.

I just got tired of the process.  Like they tried to get me to do that terrible AAF will be better than the NFL script a few months ago, after I had made a video saying “It’s just a developmental league” the previous week.  There’s no continuity on the channel.  We would say, one play is the greatest play in NFL history, then put it on a top 10 list and list it at number nine in a different video.  I was given that weird ass Kellen Winslow script that was all about his behavior and it was trash.

The final straw happened in July of 2019. I was given a script on Jared Lorenzen and his recent passing.  I get blamed a lot for the unfortunate incident that happened to Jared, and after I read it on camera, I decided I wasn’t the one who should talk about his death.  I messaged TPS after I read it, and he told me, he didn’t even pay attention to giving me that specific script (Another obvious lie).  Then, they had the audacity, to actually put in the title (How a TPS host had something to do with it). It was an “Anything for clicks” ass title.

I’ve created a lot of content for a few years now, and I will shoulder the blame too.  I’ve been making terrible videos for the last three years.  A lot of times, when I turned in videos, I knew the work was subpar and I didn’t really put in much effort in and it wasn’t something I had to fully put my name behind, so it didn’t matter to me.  It was something that I felt I had so much promise doing, and now, I get that opportunity to work for myself.  Help others who want to have fun and build something special.  There are no more barriers or people who can stifle my creativity. 

For all of the people that watched me on TPS, thank you!  Hopefully you get to see this video, and know that I appreciated you coming to watch my videos every day!  This is my goodbye, since I didn’t receive a formal one. I appreciate my run on the channel and everybody who made it special.