There's an imposter in the group because everyone
here uses Nuvem. Let's see if you guys can figure
out who the imposter is. You should see my setup
in a few minutes and you might want to switch
back. There's a yellow dot blinking there at
the bottom, you know, and I have been thinking
about that dot for days and I'm like, what is
that? What is that? I spend a lot of my time
on YouTube land trying to make greenfield content,
meaning can this thing just sort of last? The
test of time. I just want to thank the sponsor
of this video, BenQ. I was going to say, don't
start doing mobile gaming. I'm not exploring.
God knows what type of technologies and plugins
and stuff like that. I just keep a steady work.
But been getting into Nix, eventually like Nix
would allow somebody to literally replicate your
computer on their computer. So that's been kind
of interesting to me that I almost like want
to write this one ultimate config where people
could literally pull in my computer and essentially
have the exact same experience that I do. And
that brings me to the segue to the next sponsor
of this video, which is 1Password. Just kidding.
I wish they were. But we're going to try to find
an EOVM guy for the next time. Unfortunately,
we couldn't. So we had to do the Emacs Linux
guy. If you're listening to this as a podcast,
remember that it was originally recorded as a
video. If you're not following along, you can
go to my YouTube channel. My username is Linkarzu.
And if you want to support me to keep this podcast
going, you can donate in Ko -fi. I'm going to
leave a link in the description. All right. So
let's get started with this chapter then. All
right. So there's a lot of guests today. I have
three guests. This is the first time. We're going
to see if this works out or not. And what's the
topic that we're covering today? The reality
of being tech. influencer or youtuber or however
i love the air quotes yeah yeah however people
know us so i just want to keep this conversation
casual and um real right uh because people think
that you know we're living the high life that
we're kind of special different or something
i don't know you know so i just want to hear
everyone thoughts opinions and advice we have
for people that are trying to get started with
this right so i'm gonna go around the table so
you guys can introduce yourselves talk a little
bit about you so if there's someone that doesn't
know you well if there's someone watching this
video they know you already probably they know
you so In case there's someone that does not
know you, would you mind introducing yourselves?
Let's start with Medesky. Yeah. Hi, everyone.
I'm Josh Medesky. I live in Texas here in the
US. I'm a full stack developer by day, mostly
TypeScript in the startup world. I am, yeah,
here's my channel. So I'm a YouTuber as well
by night. And I do a lot of stuff on Tmux. So
we're going to talk about that later. But I have
a Tmux session manager that's fairly popular.
And then I do lots of content on Vim and macOS
and all sorts of sort of tech -focused content,
not so different than Linkarzu. And so that's
me. Okay, wonderful. And let's move on to...
Nikolov. How's it going, everyone? I'm Lazar
Nikolov, based in Toronto, Canada. I'm a software
engineer. I work as a DX engineer at Sentry.
And yeah, occasionally I post YouTube videos
on NeoVim, JavaScript web development, software
architecture. I should do more of that because
people seem to like it. But yeah, that's me.
Thanks for having me. And you used to have a
beard. I used to have a beard. Now I just have
the mustache. And a long hair as well. Yeah.
What happened? Major refactoring. Oh, yeah. Sold
out. Okay. And what about Blaze? Well, hold on.
Oh, no. There's an imposter in the group because
everyone here uses Niuven. Let's see if you guys
can figure out who the imposter is. so hey hey
blaze yeah i'm the resident emacs guy aren't
i yeah and and the guy that uses linux too damn
i'm that guy hey yeah that you're the only one
here yeah i'm uh i'm joshua blaze i have a little
youtube channel and i think of the littlest on
this on the stream so go follow me get me closer
to these guys over there um yeah i'm i'm the
emacs guy i uh i talk about Kind of open source
stuff, mostly on my YouTube channel. Very passionate
about that. And as you can see, I've had some
experimentation with the NeoVim side of things,
but I've seen the light. Well, it's three against
one, man. I can't wait for this one. I used SpaceMax
for multiple years, so I know my way around Emacs
as well. The Joshua's will be together. Why did
you move to the right path, Medesky? What happened?
Why did you move to the light? I think I actually
moved from SpaceMax back to VS Code for a while
and then made the pivot to NeoVim full -time
after just really getting friendlier with the
terminal and really enjoying that environment
the most. Yeah. With Emacs, you don't need a
terminal. That's right. But you should see my
setup in a few minutes and you might want to
switch back. Oh, okay. Let's get started with
that. How is people going to get to know you
better? We can talk a lot here, but I think that
if we show or you guys show your setups, people
will know you way more than stuff that we can
discuss here. What if we start with Medesky?
I'm just going to switch to your screen. And
if you want to show how you use your setup real
quick in, I don't know, one, two, three minutes,
however long you want to take. Is that okay?
Yeah, I'll be brief. Okay, so let's start with
Medesky. So at a high level, I'm a macOS guy.
I really like Raycast. Raycast is helpful for
lots of little productivity things. I recently
switched back to Aerospace, which is a window
manager, so I can... pretty easily switch between
things and have layouts as I see fit. It's been
working well so far. And then, yeah, full time,
I'm either in Arc, which is a fairly popular
Chrome -based browser from the browser company.
And then I use Westerm probably the rest of my
time. So I'm a fish shell guy. I like the speediness
of the fish shell. And then I'm a Tmux guy, so
all my projects are driven by this thing called
Sesh. Sesh is a project manager I created, and
I can get to projects immediately within just
a couple keystrokes. So here's my .files if we
wanted to go to my aerospace config. We can see
that there. Maybe we want to go to my NeoVim
config. Maybe we want to go to my website. So
this picker uses Oxide. combined with some cool,
clever features on top of it itself. And that
lets me navigate things very quickly. And then
you'll notice I have a file picker that always
shows up first. And then I have a very, very
minimalist approach to NeoVim. You'll see there's
like very little elements on the screen, no line
numbers, no empty white space, no bar at the
bottom. and this is just a custom neovim config
that i've built and so i like to do my unit testing
within neovim i like to debug within neovim um
and you'll see i get a lot of the features everyone
else expects like code folding and tailwind highlights
and yeah so i really i really really enjoy this
workflow and then i also do use i'm not going
to open it but i do use obsidian as my second
brain from note -taking. And I'm currently working
on a dynamic plugin that sort of adapts to whatever
file I have open. So maybe sometime soon I'll
show that off, but I have Vim bindings set up
in the Obsidian app. And so between Obsidian
and Arc and Westerm and Discord, that's probably
where I'll spend most of my time. Yeah. I have
a question for you, Josh. Sure. Why do you steal
or why do you use Obsidian? I love Obsidian.
I used it for quite a long time, but I moved
completely to NeoVim. Is there a reason why you
are in Obsidian? Yeah, the main thing is that
plugin I mentioned. Maybe I'll show it off one
day soon. But when I open up a project for, let's
say, my house in the sidebar, I have this dynamic
thing where it shows off. What are the current
projects I'm working on? And what are my resources
tied to my house? And what are all of these things?
And so I get this contextualized view that moves
with me as I use my notes. I'm excited to iterate
on this plugin. It's a plugin I wrote. And so
for me, it's just, I get really good context
as to what's going on in my life as I navigate
Obsidian. And so I find that I haven't been able
to recreate that in the terminal yet. Although
I have some ideas on how to do that. Emacs. Joshua
is going to say Emacs. He's going to say org
mode. Org mode. Yeah, and you talk about your
setup in your channel, right? Yeah, I spend a
lot of time talking about this stuff. You know,
how to be more efficient for the most part. Some
of my high values are like minimalism, keeping
things really simple, keeping all the distractions
out. And then being quick and intuitive with
your setup so that your bindings are at your
fingertips and you can get to everything that
you need as quickly as possible with as little
mental effort as possible. So I'm finding this
really unique strategy for being very quick,
but also it being very easy. So that sort of
combining ease and speed has become very satisfying
and it's only getting better as I build. more
workflows around that, those values. Okay. Thanks
for sharing all that. Let's move on to Nikolov.
Can I switch to your screen, Hazar? Yeah, I'm
ready. Okay. You see this? Yep, I can see it.
Awesome. All right. So similar to Madesky, I
full -time knew of him. I started off... using
lazy vim but then i moved on to kickstart which
still uses lazy under the hood and right now
i'm exploring laravel so i am i still haven't
configured debugging uh but i got i got everything
i got syntax highlighting i got the unit tests
right here and they're failing just like always
uh but yeah other than that um Tmux or Tmux as
I like to say in Poland. Yeah, keeping it minimal.
I don't care too much about distractions. I get
the bars at the bottom, but I'm just like used
to, just basically used to this. This is perfectly
fine for me. And what else? I use Brave as the
browser. I tried Zen. For like a couple of days.
And I immediately went back to Brave. I don't
know. I guess it's just not there yet. What else?
Raycast. I don't use Tiling Window Manager. So
I just use Raycast's shortcuts to move my windows
around. Although, full disclosure, I just use
one screen. Okay. There's not a lot of windows
moving around. It's more like tabbing between
windows. So yeah, giving it light, giving it
simple. I have a question and I forgot to ask
it in our last video. There's a yellow dot blinking
there at the bottom, you know, and I have been
thinking about that dot for days and I'm like...
what is that what does what is that yeah i have
no idea what that is no idea now it's now it's
here so like whenever i switch to a tab it's
it's always there is that like let me see i i
feel like if that if i just press ctrl b and
then b again that's the back in tmux and that
little dot shows you where you're gonna go if
you just do ctrl b and b It's never on the second
window, as you can see, or the second... You
see? I'm switching between them. Okay. But it's
for windows, right? When you move around in windows.
Yeah. So if I click on the second now, the yellow
dot is probably going to be on the third one.
There we go. If I click on the first one, the
yellow dot is going to be on the second one,
because that's the previous. select that window
so you can basically shuffle between them with
control B and B. Oh, wonderful. I think that's
the, yeah. I think that's the case. Okay. Anything
else you want to share? I don't know. That's
just pretty much it. I've been trying to use
other editors as well, just to, you know, see
what's out there. For work, I use Curter. Because
I get to build my demo applications much faster
that way. And I'm trying out PHPStorm and the
JetBrain stuff right now. They reached out to
me to sponsor me. So I was like, yeah, let's
check out the JetBrain's editors. But I'm still
not there. I want to keep my navigation as I
do stuff in NeoVim. So it's going to take some
while, but I'll get there. okay thanks for sharing
what about blaze now oh me emacs guy this is
your screen yep all right so yeah i live in emacs
now it's um it's been a journey to come back
to it but i uh i actually wrote a book in it
in 20 2022 2023 and um just writing in it kind
of showed me what else i could do with it um
so many native exports to various formats that
you need i i saw you had um what was the name
tema uh dina it's dina yes yes on uh on your
recent uh stream and very similar setup to him
actually how i've kind of done writing and stuff
but i mean let's talk about like uh programming
i guess because that's kind of the uh I guess
that's what everybody else here is kind of a
little bit more. Well, not me. I'm more of the
Markdown side. Yep. Yeah, you're a bit more of
a writer. But like I used to use like a setup
kind of like this when I was in NeoVim and Tmux
and everything. And I kind of within Emacs, you
can really like just use workspaces instead of
Tmux. So like you can just switch to another
workspace and go to another project, for example,
like my blog or whatever like that. terminal
everything i use inside of emacs so like vterm
is my my terminal still has all the niceties
that zsh has but uh it's in emacs because i do
everything in emacs and then i live essentially
in this and then in uh in zen browser is probably
where i spend about 95 of my uh my time so yeah
i don't know what uh what else should i cover
about it but it's emacs is kind of like this
wrapper on top of my base linux system um it
extends all the tooling and it just it's it's
super comfy when you get to it so do you do anything
outside emacs do you go out ah i i try to bring
everything into it so if i if i find myself going
outside of it i'm like how do i write something
that will allow me to stay inside of it so like
even for my like changing of my um my this nm
toggle radio for example like i do all my wi
-fi setups inside of emacs like um all of my
journaling everything like even stuff with in
my system i've started to bring into emacs um
so i don't ever have to leave it okay okay well
i have thought about emacs a lot but i know that
it requires a lot of time i don't want to leave
any of them yeah i'm not gonna leave any of them
but i think emacs is good for writing stuff Because
there's a lot of tools already created. So we'll
see. Yeah, there's evil mode. So you get Vim
inside of Emacs. You get a little bit of Inception.
It's pretty comfy, man. You should try it. Yeah,
I will. Definitely. Okay, so let's get started
with the topics that I have here listed right
now. I'm used to typing J a lot. leaving it pressed
but notice that i cannot now you see the message
there on the little thingy on the right you probably
cannot read it but oh man yeah i installed hard
time doesn't want you to do it that's right yeah
teaching you better practices yeah yeah so let's
start with the things that you have learned by
doing it all this youtube thing right um do you
guys do it all yourselves or do you have an editor
or do you guys do everything i don't know let's
start with uh metesky what do you want to share
there i like your questioning here things you've
learned as a tech influencer so when i started
i really i had these ideas and i recognized that
the things i was doing could prove useful to
other people and i used to teach at boot camps
I have a lot of mentors and mentees. So there's
a lot of education in my career. And so I thought,
hey, let's learn how to duplicate myself. And
YouTube seems to be a platform where instead
of speaking to 50 people for two hours, I can
post a video and I can get 50 ,000 people to
learn about that topic. So originally, I was
just learning about, well, how can I get... The
things that I say the most to people and the
things that I want out in the world in this area
of workflows and productivity and at least the
current topics I'm focused on. How do I get that
out there? So that's what originally got me invested
in making YouTube videos. It started really simple,
just screen recordings with a floating head.
And then I just hit upload. And I just slowly
started picking up more skills. I've actually
used the same Audio -Technica mic. for my entire
career in YouTube so far. And I since bought
a box that I can plug the mic in. But I started
with just USB mic, upgraded equipment over time.
I started learning. I picked a few different
video editors. I think I started in Final Cut
and ultimately switched to DaVinci Resolve, which
I like a bit more. So I had to sort of experiment
to find what video editor made the most sense
to my brain. Um, and I've been, it's interesting
to talk about this. I'd love to hear more of
your guys' thoughts on this, but I'm, I didn't
originally intend to make a YouTube channel so
that I could get rich and famous or that I could
get millions of views. Um, I've been really centered
on community building. So, you know, I like to
joke. I just found all the nerdy people that
like the same things as me and I bring them in
and we have lots of conversations around this
stuff. I do tend to bring a lot of value with
my open source projects. And so I do a lot of
live streaming, which is probably where most
of my content is. If you went and looked me up,
you'd find over 150 hours of live streaming from
me already. So I just enjoy building things to
make people more effective in what they need
to do and have these conversations and make friends
along the way. So that's been my current strategy.
I might make more videos. I might... veer out
into different topics and see how that lands
but that's been my journey so far okay and do
you do editing yourself with that ski do you
do yeah did you set up i've always liked movies
so i have sort of a knack for or an interest
in cinematography to some extent so i so far
i'm enjoying the video editing process i haven't
had a need to outsource anything okay Okay, thanks
for sharing that. What about you, Nicolás? Pretty
much the same as Medeski. I started off wanting
to share what I learned, but I started writing
blog posts. In terms of video, I started live
streaming, building stuff. So my goal was to,
yeah, just, you know, learn in public. Not build
in public, but like learning. Build in public
is more like... you know, indie hackers. I'm
not an indie hacker. I just, you know, I wouldn't
want to tinker with stuff and just, you know,
put it out there. So yeah, I also started with
live streaming and on YouTube, I feel like I
started uploading YouTube specific videos about
like two or three years ago. So not too long
ago. So like a lot more into live streaming than
videos. But yeah, making videos. grew on me.
So much so that I wanted to learn more about
AV equipment and stuff and expensive cameras.
So I wish I made more videos. I'm looking at
you, camera. So I wish I made more videos. But
yeah, it's just nerd curiosity type of thing.
I do everything myself, one man band. Again,
DaVinci Resolve, same. And yeah, I want to kind
of want to do like different shots, different
scenarios, different techniques. For example,
I have a video on why I switched from Kitty to
Wes. And I have an interesting shot. I mean,
the whole video is an interesting shot where
my camera feed is part of my desktop background.
So I'm pulling the terminal on top of my desktop.
And with translucency and blur, you get to see
that little frosted effect. So I like playing
around with stuff like that. Okay, interesting.
So you do everything yourself as well, just like
Tesky. And what about you, Blaze? I have a 100
% team behind me. are they in your head or yeah
i'm 100 different people at once no no i'm same
thing under just 100 myself um shortcut or davinci
resolve depending on what i'm what computer i'm
using um and i'm just like josh i got started
kind of like looking out to find people that
were interested in the same things as me because
i don't meet them day to day generally um I met
some guy one time at a cafe that was using Linux
and I think he didn't even know he's using Linux.
So it was, it was a very short conversation,
but at least online I meet people that are kind
of into this stuff. So, um, yeah, other than
that, it's just learning as I go and, um, kind
of starting with what I had for gear and, um,
and upgrading from there. And I'm not like using
any cinema cameras or anything like that. Like
this is on a webcam. So, It's not like you need
a crazy setup to get going with this YouTube
thing. Okay. Yep. Same here. I have learned a
lot of stuff. I didn't know anything about video
editing. I'm learning as I create videos. I didn't
know anything about YouTube cameras, nothing.
This is my phone, my iPhone, the one that I use
as the camera. But I have learned Discord. i
didn't even know how to use discord so i had
to create a server and uh all the permissions
all that stuff podcast man i didn't know anything
about podcast as well i did know about audio
and that has helped me a lot because i play the
guitar record a few songs when i was younger
but um video i had no idea about it so i know
about compression and i know how to play with
audio a little bit but um Other than that, it's
basically new for me. Also social media, right?
Do you guys post in social media? Are you in
all the different platforms? I'm on the platforms,
I don't post. I just post simple things like
what piques my interest and when I make new content.
And I'm learning strategy, so I am hoping to
grow my numbers. So there's some level of social
media that contributes to that. Hmm. I use one
of these tools. Um, what is it called? Metrical,
which posts everywhere. Like you post it once
and it has all your accounts connected and it
posts it everywhere. No one gets my posts anyway.
So I'm just posting for no reason, I guess, but
I still do it. Right. So yeah. The algorithm
man. Yeah. Was that called the posse method?
Post once, syndicate everywhere or something
like that? I have no idea. But the tool is called
Metricool. Okay. Yep. So I think it's an interesting
thing to bring up because social media is one
of those beasts that wants to be fed. So you
have to post multiple times a day typically for
any of them to really gain traction. And I personally
really enjoy my life and I don't... want to devote
as much time as many people need to give in order
for social media platforms to typically perform
well. Although I'm starting to experiment with
how much time can I spend and do something, you
know, interesting, like I'm getting into YouTube
shorts and TikToks. And so maybe it only takes
an hour to make one and maybe that'll become
30 minutes if I know what I'm doing and get better
at it. But Most of them want multiple posts a
day. And so I'm so far landing on, and you learned
this about YouTube, Link, because you've been
posting a lot. And so you'll probably see your
growth because YouTube likes that you post a
lot. And so I'm pretty intermittent, like Nico
was talking about. I don't post super regularly,
but I've decided at this point that my career
and my salary job and my hobbies. you know, live
at a certain level of commitment. And then YouTube
is at a certain other level. So it's not the
highest priority of my life, but it can be. And
some people do spend a lot of their free time
working very hard at building social media platforms.
And they do well if they just keep showing up,
you know, regularly. I post like maybe once on
Twitter, I post the most once a day, maybe. sometimes
twice a day or once every two days, but it's
just too tiring. I don't know. I just, I'm more
consistent in YouTube. And like Medesky said,
the other ones want the same, right? So the other
platforms want me to post a lot of times a day,
and I just don't have the time and energy and
creativity to be posting stuff consistently.
I think it might even be like a, I'm sorry, Blaise,
go ahead. No, no, you first. All right. Yeah,
I was going to say, I think it might be like
a platform for a person. Like I've seen people
with a lot of followers on Twitter and they have
a YouTube channel, but their YouTube is not performing
as their Twitter. And likewise, like vice versa,
there's YouTubers with like hundreds of thousands
of subscribers, but on Twitter, they have like
i don't know a couple thousand so it might be
you as a person as a creator what platform resonates
the most with you but i agree with with this
can you you should just like pick one platform
that you know uh you see the best results in
and just like invest into that yeah yeah people
like spend their whole lives essentially training
an algorithm that they want to follow and, you
know, building accounts and such like that. But
yeah, I agree with you. I think that some people
have more personality that's more tailored towards
the camera or more tailored towards short form
tweets or something like that. Right. So it really
depends on the person. I was just going to say,
I wrote a plugin in Emacs that whenever a thought
comes into my mind, I just tweet it. From Emacs.
From Emacs. That's fun. Okay. Good to know. And
what else do we have here? Maybe I can lead you
to the next topic. So we were talking about struggles,
right? Struggles and keeping up to date with
things. I think for me, I spend a lot of my time
on YouTube land trying to make greenfield content,
meaning can this thing just sort of last the
test of time? It's not going to go out of date
in six weeks because... That topic is just not
a big deal anymore. And so with that, YouTube
doesn't really care all that much to share that.
It doesn't stand out in any unique way. It doesn't
give them more ad revenue, you know, essentially.
But I'm proud of that content because, you know,
it's a 10 -year -old video and it's still relevant.
It's still super helpful and provides value to
people that are looking for it. There's a world
of YouTube that they want to sensationalize everything.
They want you to be weird or different or maybe
even argumentative or something, right? If you
can spur up emotions and you can evoke something
out of people, it tends to create a lot of views.
And we'll notice that in our own space, when
we think about the people who have a million
views that are doing NeoVim, They're kind of
zany and they like to do pretty crazy stuff and
be a little extra weird and that kind of thing.
Or they just have, like we said, a giant personality.
And good for them. I don't have anything against
that. I just recognize that my viewership has
been slowly growing. And maybe one day I'll experiment
with trending news. some hot topic that the algorithm
wants but because i don't really personally care
all that much in trying to get that kind of content
pushed out as quickly as possible um i just acknowledge
that i'll grow people will find my content that
want it and my subscribers i have loyal people
i have people that want to watch all my videos
and enjoy going to my live streams and I'm friends
with most of them at this point. I've had personal
conversations with many of them. So, you know,
like we talked about earlier, it's just about
your priorities. And if you want to be the next
big thing, you can make the kind of content that
the algorithm would want. Or you're a PewDiePie
and you have a bazillion followers and then you
start using Linux or something like that. Sure.
That got me thinking of switching to Linux. Well,
no. not switching but using linux as well i use
it on servers only but i want to give it a try
on the desktop computer and see what it's all
about but um yep going back to the struggles
what would you say yours are nikolov um i don't
want to turn the youtube channel into a job and
like suck the whole fun out of it that's why
i i you know i don't look to post that regularly
or I don't try to, you know, just cover anything
like tech news and stuff like that, just so I
can put out something, but it doesn't interest
me. And like in life, there are moments, right?
I used to be a lot more interested, for example,
last year, but this year I'm kind of like slowing
down, you know, a little bit. There's like some,
you know, ups and downs. sometimes you are really
into a lot of things and you want to cover them
on youtube sometimes you just you know want to
get the job done and you know just enjoy your
life off camera so that's where i'm at at the
moment that's where i'm at the moment and i'm
perfectly fine even if my views are tanking if
the subscribers are you know uh the people don't
uh stop let me just stop subscribing etc it's
perfectly fine i don't If I try to chase that,
I'm not going to be fun anymore. So I already
have one job. I don't want two jobs. So I'm going
to keep this fun and keep my job a job. Okay,
interesting. What about you, Blaise? No, I think
both perspectives are exactly where I'm as well.
Like I'm not trying to make my YouTube channel
a job or anything like that. And I don't want
to like... make content that doesn't actually
resonate with who I am as a person. So when I'm,
when I'm putting videos out there, like it's
something that I'm interested about in that moment.
And it's something that it's, um, I just hope
other people potentially are interested in it.
And I learn a lot from the comments from things
that I post too. about like how people do different
things and how I'm an idiot most of the time
and stuff like that too. So it's actually very
helpful for me to post a video and use it as
a learning tool for my own growth in all the
things that I do. I think that that is really
something that's surprised me about YouTube is
that it's become this thing that has helped me
to grow as a person and learn. um more than anything
else that i've done in recent memory um and and
i i agree with josh about like chasing content
and stuff like that i think that um focusing
on like first principles and things that are
going to be around in 20 years is much more valuable
than, oh, the hottest new plugin came out. Oh,
like what's, what's the latest tweet? Like you
turn into a schizophrenic trying to chase all
of that sort of thing. Whereas if you're focused
on what has always been and will always be, that's
much more valuable, I think, to people in the
longterm. Yep. And that's. A question that I
added there, or a topic that I added, since Medesky
brought it up, greenfield content, is that the
way that it's known, greenfield, that it's going
to basically... It's a term for something that,
yeah, that can kind of last the test of time.
Evergreen content, I think, is a better term.
Greenfield might not be right. It's always green.
It's always good. Yeah. What are your thoughts
on the channels that just cover news, right?
They cover the latest all the time. You're always
going to have content, right? And I see those
are really popular. Have you guys thought about
that or you want to keep doing this type of thing?
I think it's a good point because I naturally
gravitate toward you should see my GitHub. inbox
right it's of all the latest releases of all
the software so i'm pretty active in my email
inbox and all of that i'm an active person i
very much care about emerging technologies and
i'm a trendsetter in some ways what do we call
early adopter so like i bought a i bought a vision
pro the day it came out and then returned it
in a couple of weeks i don't think it was quite
ready but it was like let me go to the apple
store and let me see what this is like on day
one so i am someone who enjoys the latest and
greatest. And my YouTube feed is some of the
latest and greatest things. I've just learned
not to kind of engage in the rat race of, okay,
I just got the news. You know, Raycast launched
a new feature. Can I ship a video in the next
24 hours? Well, guess what? That video probably
is going to do well. I just have felt less interested
in making that be what guides my content for
now. Maybe there can be a thrill to it or something
interesting. I do have a unique voice and a lot
of experience. And Link, I want to ask you a
similar question. You didn't really answer the
last question. I spent about 10 years doing Vim,
right? I'm a pretty seasoned guy now. And so
my content is driven toward what is all of my
wisdom from all my years of experience, right?
That's how I see my content come across. And
you, on the other hand, are newer to this technology.
So a lot of your videos are like, I've just discovered
this or I'm learning something for the first
time. And I want to share my journey on how this
stuff works and my knowledge in it. And I like
following your channel because I get to see a
different perspective. So how has that been for
you? Let me throw a question your way. How has
that been for you to say, I don't really know
all this stuff yet. I'm going to just throw it
out there and I'm going to see what the YouTube
algorithm has to say and what people have to
say about my content as you are sort of emerging
in this technology. Yeah, just like Joshua, the
other Josh said, just like Blaze said, right?
So it has helped me to learn a lot of stuff.
Let me give you an example, right? The Flash
plugin, which allows you to jump between different
places, right? I learned a trick about that plugin.
Let me see. Let me see if I can show this real
quick. Hold on. But people always go to comments
and teach you stuff, which is great, you know?
Yeah. Because in a video that I did, I don't
know, a weeks ago with Maria Solano, she showed
me this thing. So let's say that I want to. add
this word here search in inline code right i
usually used to go there and add the word and
then jump back i wasted a lot of time right so
she told me you can do this gsa to add us around
and i can use the remote thing here right so
if i type r this flash is going to show up so
if i type se a right i have this word now right
so if i do here fiw is going to select that word
right fiw and now i get this enter output surrounding
identifier right so i'm gonna type the tilde
here and notice that it added it remotely and
it jumped back automatically so i was like man
this is great i'm gonna create a video out of
this and um i posted it right then in the comments
a lot of people i mean a lot were like man You
should do control O, right? To jump back instead
of doing this. This is anti -pattern. I don't
know. And I was like, okay, let me go and see
what control O, because I did use control O,
but not within the same file, just the jumper
bound files, right? So I did my research and
now that's what I'm doing. I'm using control
O, control I a lot. I'm using the jump list and
I created a video about it. you know like two
days ago so I'm just learning I'm no expert at
all and I always say it you know people know
it and uh they're gonna correct me a lot of times
and I'm like okay interesting but they have to
say I research if I like it I make a video about
it so I don't know I use it to learn stuff people
always like to give advice on YouTube I don't
know if That's what happens with you guys. You
get free consulting. It's true. And I think it's
almost better to do like how I do something versus
this is how you do something. Instead of like
posting as an authority, it's like, this is how
I actually do something. And that's what you
invite those comments. And they're like, hey,
idiot. josh like what are you doing like you
could be doing something so much better or you
could be you're wasting so much time here you
go right and it's actually it's very helpful
right like i i don't really take comments that
are some people would say are critical comments
i almost take them just as uh feedback and like
oh my my mic's not picking up correctly okay
for my next video i'll make sure that it's picking
up correctly right um it's it's i think that
that's kind of the thing that's really shown
me too about the comments is that they're generally
they're not like malicious comments is generally
people that are trying to help um and it makes
me better in in things that i'm doing you kind
of answered the last question that link added
in the list yep we'll get back to it again no
you can you can go ahead no i was talking about
that we answered the last question that you added
in the lists You don't remember which one was
it? The news one? What are your thoughts on creating
evergreen content or news? No, the last one at
the bottom of the file. Go to the bottom of the
file. Oh, the one at the very bottom. We actually
answered that indirectly. Nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's why I don't have a script on any of my
videos. No? Yeah. No script. Do you guys do script?
What about you, Medesky? Not often. No, maybe
for an intro if I'm trying to do a more professional
kind of video, but I tend to make bullet points.
I usually write a blog post first and then after
that I make a video and then like I never looked
at the blog post. I just like kind of go off
of what I had written about and I always miss
stuff, but it generally like gives me the pattern
of what I'm making a video about. I seem to be
like a writer first and then a video person second.
I've done the opposite recently, though. I will
record a video and then I'll transcribe it and
then I'll convert it into a readable blog post
by adding headings and maybe removing whatever
feels like it's audio only. So one of my recent
posts, you watch the video and as you scroll
through the blog post, you'll be like, this is
exactly the same thing. It's just a transfer
of it. So that's funny. I have some thoughts
there. I did try that, you know, blog post first,
video later, then video first, blog post later.
And I just have to choose one of the two, right?
I cannot do both because it takes a lot of time.
So what I'm focusing on right now is if I have
an idea, I create the video in 30 minutes. If
it's a 15 minute video, 30 minutes, I'm done
recording. I don't do much fancy editing, just.
cut the stuff that I don't need and upload. And
I should create more blog posts. I did create
a few, which are very involved, but it takes
a lot of time. And my hands hurt. If you write
a lot, your hands hurt. So I'm like, I'm just
doing videos at the moment. Yeah. That's all
right. All right. And let's see what else. What
else? Greenfield, Evergreen. How do you feel
about that term? Tech influencer or YouTuber?
I don't know. They call us different ways. It's
pretty cringe. Yeah. Which one? I said it's pretty
cringe. Yeah. TechTubers. I don't know. What
are your thoughts? What do you think there, Medesky?
Yeah, I don't feel so strongly about it. I used
to be an entertainer. We were talking about music
earlier before the call. I've been in the space
where you're a public figure and people know
you as a public figure. So it hasn't really bothered
me. I don't think too strongly about it. I don't
really care. I'm happy to tell people I have
a YouTube channel. And if they want to ask me
more questions, I'm happy to talk to them about
it. But nothing. No strong emotions are evoked
by asking that question. I enjoy sharing my knowledge,
and that's about the extent of my caring about
the terms. Again, not looking to be rich and
famous from this, but I am enjoying being someone
of influence because I would like to think that
my opinion on certain things matter only because
I've spent an enormous amount of time. thinking
and working on these topics so to some extent
i enjoy being influential in some ways but not
really looking to like gain some credit or something
from from people because of it what about you
nikolov i don't think i'm influential honestly
like it's just yeah you have the most subscribers
here you have what 10 000 right now so You are
closing in on 13 ,000? I don't know. You're the
most influential. 12 .8, yeah. But I don't know.
I don't like to think that I'm influential. I
like to think that I share stuff and some people
find that cool. But I don't do that thing like,
this is how you do it. That's influential, right?
Maybe I do. I don't know. But I don't like to
think I don't think that you know, I am Influential
in that way youtuber. Why not a person with a
YouTube channel? That's that's perfectly fine.
But I don't think I can influence You know a
group of people and say You should do this and
they're all gonna do that Inspire would be the
right word Inspire. Yes. Yeah, but influence
influence is like you know yeah grab them by
the hands and influence them like make them i
don't think i i have that power the term's kind
of been co -opted in the social media space i
think a little bit So it's kind of like cringe
to think I'm an influencer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
No, that's, I don't know. Like, sure. I have
a YouTube channel. I'm very much about like not
putting labels on myself. Like people are going
to label me regardless of what I do. So it's,
it is, I have a YouTube channel. Am I a YouTuber?
I don't know. I guess. Am I an influencer? I
don't think I influence anybody. I mean, I have
influenced a couple of people to switch to Emacs.
There's that. There's that. So I suppose. But
at the end of the day, the term for me is a little
bit cringe. Yeah. Yeah. Same here. I just say
I have a YouTube channel, basically. I don't
know what my family thinks, you know. They have
no idea what I'm talking about. You know, my
mom, dad, brothers, they're like, what is this
guy doing? Like, what is he talking about? They
have no idea. Nobody has an idea. So I just say
I have a YouTube channel. I don't consider myself
a YouTuber. I don't like the term too much. I
don't care. You know, people are going to call
you whatever they want. So, you know, either
way. Yep. And what about bad experiences? Have
you had bad experiences? I don't know. YouTube,
Reddit. How do you handle that? Let's go with
Medesky. I was a part of a project that I ended
up abandoning or leaving the project because
I didn't really agree with the direction they
were going with the project. And that bit me
a bit later where some nasty people on, I think
it was Twitter, were pretty rotten. So that was
unexpected. But again, I was like... Am I going
to carry this with me? No, because I actually
left for the same reasons why they're mad and
being nasty online. So I really only had one
experience like that where it was like kind of
nasty people coming out of the woodworking and,
you know, trying to personally attack me. So
that's good. It was unexpected. But in general,
you do get weird, shady comments that tend to
not be personal at all. It's like they just.
got on the wrong side of the bed or whatever
don't really know what it is but um again i think
because a lot of my content's evergreen right
we're using that term uh i don't get a lot of
like really hard opinions or you're wrong and
you shouldn't be saying this or you made a mistake
and this is incorrect or you know they're not
very many people correcting me in my comments
A lot of the things I try to do are to bring
value. So I mostly get gratitude in my comments.
Occasionally I get the feedback you guys were
talking about. Like, hey, you should maybe try
to do this instead. But because a lot of my content
is centralized around the things that I've built,
it's hard to have a reason to be nasty. But I
think that's the main reason that I look away
from this sensationalized content. It's because
you just end up breeding pretty nasty, toxic
people just out of the way that the algorithms
work. It's like you're going to draw in a crowd
and half the crowd might be disagreeing with
you completely and not like you. And the other
half might love you and adore you and think that
you're the most influential person to them, right?
So I'm not looking for that. So thankfully it
hasn't come very often. Okay. What about you,
Nikola? That's a good point, Josh. I have pretty
much the same experience, and especially the
last thing that you mentioned, just like bringing
other types of audience to your channel that
is not usually part of your regulars. That was
the case with my BenQ review video, and this
is this monitor right here. So I reviewed it
like, okay, here's the monitor. I don't even
like... I didn't even mention all of the most
important bits. I just talked about the monitor
the way that I liked it, you know, for the features
that matter to me. That was so subtle. Was that?
That was so subtle, the product placement. Yeah,
I mean, I just said, yeah. I reviewed the video
and I mean, I posted the video and people were
like, I know they're not talking to me because
I'm not BenQ. I didn't invent this monitor, right?
And they're like, I don't know how many, I even
forgot the cost of the monitor, like $700 for
60 hertz monitor and stuff like that. So they're
just like, you know, throwing tomatoes at the
monitor. But I'm like, the monitor is fine. I
don't need like 120 hertz. to look at NeoVim.
So it's perfect. It is perfect for work, good
aspect ratio, et cetera. But yeah, my point is
that with that video, I kind of drew in different
type of crowds, not necessarily like programmers,
but just like people looking to buy monitors.
And like 90 % of them were gaming. they wanted
to buy like a monitor for gaming and they just
started throwing tomatoes straight out the door
when they heard that it's not a 120 hertz so
i'm like okay i don't know what to say to you
you know like i don't i don't know what to reply
this is a business monitor but i didn't invent
it i didn't that was not my decision to put 60
hertz only and stuff like that so like I'm just
going to leave that video aside and maybe not
do a hardware review ever again. Now, I want
my BenQ monitor. How do I get it? They reach
out? Do I have to create a video? Yeah, that's
how it works. They reach out. They reach out.
So they find popular channels. Okay, so I have
to prepare myself. For the hate that is going
to come. Because you know what? My wife needs
a monitor, right? So I could give her this monitor.
Strategically, yeah. There you go. And I just
want to thank the sponsor of this video. Don't
start doing mobile gaming. Notice me. Yeah. What
about you, Blaze? How has your experience been
with... Yeah. No, no, pretty, like, generally
pretty good. Like, if I ever get a bad comment,
I almost always hit the person with, like, kindness
instead of, you know, like, it's that meme where
you, like, try to, like, somebody messages you,
like, the most horrible thing and you, like,
respond with, like, I love you. It's kind of,
like, that's always been my philosophy about
this sort of thing. So it's kind of... I don't
know. I almost enjoy it when I get that. I don't
really get any hate comments or anything like
that. And to be honest with you, like, I think
that the, the emails and stuff that I get from
people that are like, thank you so much for like
this piece that you wrote or something that just
blows out of the water, any sort of negative.
feedback i've ever gotten right so and i mean
i i put my i put my hat in the ring as an emacs
guy so i have the neo vimmers that are trying
to come in and convert me back and everything
but it's it's all in good fun right it's not
like right it's not uh it's not like we're hating
on each other actual war or anything i mean some
people would say that but not not me at least
yeah yeah so let me show you guys something i
don't get a lot of hate in youtube you know there's
a few comments here and there you know happens
all the time right but in reddit man reddit is
kind of wild sometimes does that affect me but
it gets crazy sometimes i posted this video which
i consider is a pretty good video you know i
just shared my setup and all that stuff i created
a blog post but then man the reddit people came
after me um like this comment 86 downvotes like
I had, like, links to my social platforms and
some 1Password affiliate link at the top. And
I had images in the video. Man, people just lost
it. Got really upset. 86 downvotes in this one.
78 downvotes. Just type here, you found it already,
you know? Reddit's a different beast. Yeah. Are
you guys in Reddit? I actually started posting
as myself on Reddit. I posted an Emacs article
that I wrote into the Emacs subreddit and actually
got good, like pretty good uptake. Like the amount
of visitors and stuff to my site was pretty incredible.
But at the same time, I'm sure I'm one step away
from exactly what you just experienced. Yeah,
it's crazy. Okay, moving on then. Work -life
balance. What do you want to say there, Josh?
Well, Medesky. Yeah, so I think this is really
important to me. This is why it's easy for me
to not post a YouTube video because I don't want
to break my back. And in most cases, you know,
my career is very fruitful. You know, I make
a good living and I have a good work from home
job. So that means the schedule is not. overly
demanding. And I also mentioned I like hobbies.
So I'm a musician and I like 3D printing and
I like video games and I like all sorts of things.
And so for me, at least this time in my life,
I just want to enjoy it. And so I do my best
to enjoy it and stay engaged with work. And then
when I have the time and energy and an idea that
sparks my interest, You know, I put in some time,
I make a video or I do a live stream and I try
to be consistent with some of the live streaming.
So for me right now, it's Thursday nights. So
Thursday night, between an hour to two hours,
I'm going to work on something public and we'll
see how that goes. And the rest of it, I just
don't put a lot of demand. As a YouTuber, I'm
not like, I have to get a video out this often.
I do know that my subscriber count is... probably
could be higher. There's that comparison there
that I recognize. But I'm not worried about it.
I like to take it easy. And life is good. So
why not allow life to continue to be good and
not derail it by putting all these demands on
myself? Okay. Thanks for sharing. What about
you, Nikolov? Yeah, look at my last video. like
over three three four months ago that that tells
you everything yep three months ago three months
ago and look at that chapter one two and three
and that's it again so that basically explains
everything yeah i don't i don't i don't stress
too much about about youtube as i mentioned like
there's i'm doing youtube when i feel inspired
about something and if i'm excited about something
That's the ultimate litmus test. If I find it
cool, at least one more person is going to find
it cool. Right? I feel like right now I'm in
my comfort zone. I'm not exploring. God knows
what type of technologies and plugins and stuff
like that. I just, you know, keep a steady work.
Keep a steady work and, you know. there's not
too much inspiration. There's just like pure
output from me at the moment. So that's why my
YouTube is more silent. Yeah. But I'll get back
to it. I don't know. I like to experiment. Yeah.
Get back to it eventually. It's not a job. Like
you said, it's a hobby, right? Exactly. What
about you, Blaze? I don't have a work -life balance.
It's all the same. No, I'm just kidding. It's
honestly the same as me. Like, it's just like,
I think. when something sparks my interest or
something that I'm exploring, I'm like, I like
this, like I'm going to make a video about it
and maybe somebody else will enjoy it. That's
generally when I make a video. I'll go back actually
a couple of questions because I made a video
of reacting to PewDiePie's Linux video. And there's
ever so often like little. points in the community
for like Linux and open source stuff where I
feel like I have input that I can even make.
And that's generally when I'll do that sort of
thing, because people like that sort of reaction
video type of garbage. But no, but whenever there's
something like that, I do jump on it. But when
it's other than that, it's like if it's if it's
not something that's like super interesting to
me at the time. it's it stays in the background
maybe i'll do a blog post about it and then make
a video about it like six months later or something
like that but um yeah it's it's not it's not
a job for me like the the ad revenue is not making
me a billionaire that's for sure so yeah definitely
same thing here when i started started in january
i started the day of my birthday exactly um posting
the first video that's the only reason i remember
right and uh i posted a few videos i don't know
like 10 they didn't turn out and it was like
what was i expecting right when you start you're
like man i'm gonna be famous i'm gonna make it
it wasn't the case right and i was like f this
i'm just not gonna be posting often and i just
stopped for a little while then i was like i'm
not gonna give up you know i'm just And I keep
doing it because I want to do it. Like my wife
says all the time, just do it because you like
it. Right. Just to make it a job. And at the
beginning, I was wasting a lot of energy. I had
no work life balance at all because it's really
time consuming. When you're starting, there's
a lot of stuff that you have to figure out. Right.
Nowadays, it's easier. I think about a video.
And I'm like, what should I create next? Or if
I find something that I want to share, one hour,
the video is up. I don't do a lot of work on
it. Because I already have my setup. I already
know what I have to do, how to do it. And it's
easier now. I can have more work -life balance.
Well, to start with, I don't have a job at the
moment. So there's no work balance there. That
gives me a lot of time to create more videos
and come up with ideas and the interviews. I'm
starting in a company soon. I'm going back to
being a network engineer because that's how I
started. You know, Cisco, Juniper, all that kind
of stuff. I will not have time then because I
will not be able to do those interviews that
I've been doing lately. I have done them only
because I don't have a job. But when I do, I
don't know. Probably on Sundays, stuff like that.
But yeah, I try to be better at that. The work
-life balance, it's difficult because YouTube
is not something simple and that takes just a
small amount of time. At least to me, it consumes
a lot of my energy. You know, it drains me. So
I just have to find a better balance. And I wanted
to ask you guys, do you binge watch? youtube
or you just stay out of youtube at all mediski
yeah i mean i watch plenty of youtube uh i i
pay for youtube so i don't have to watch ads
so i've justified that purchase by the amount
of youtube i watch yeah so i enjoy youtube a
lot and have always enjoyed it um for the sake
of entertainment or education so yeah okay and
you Nikolov? Honestly, not lately. I don't know.
I'm kind of disappointed by the content. Not
the content, the algorithm. What the algorithm
serves me right now. So I'm just like, you know,
not super into it. I open it every day. There
is a hope, right? I open it every day, hoping
that I'm going to see something. And I'll, you
know, that will throw me in a rabbit hole. Please,
if you have a video for me that will throw me
in a rabbit hole, send it to me. But yeah, that's
how I feel at the moment. Okay. Okay. Can you
please? What kind of rabbit hole you want to
go down? Nix. Nix. Let's go. Okay. Yeah. Vimjoyer's
got some good stuff for Nix. I do watch definitely
my fair share of YouTube, but I also, I get my
feed served by RSS. So like if there's a channel
that I'm interested in, I go in, I do the effort
to take the channel into my RSS feed. And if
it crosses my feed, then I go and watch it. Generally,
I don't go to the homepage and search the algorithm.
It's more so like even interviews that you've
done, like I follow those people because I'm
like, oh, these people are interesting. And that's
kind of how I find people. for me it's like i
i don't use the algorithm i don't like algorithms
as it is so for it to feed me the content that
i want to see it's i don't know it's it's iffy
i know people like but i know that i've been
found via the algorithm for some people people
comment all the time on videos and they're like
oh the the algorithm's feeding me this small
creator and i'm like interesting it's not feeding
me that so i don't know where it's feeding you
okay okay and um Thoughts on sharing your .files
publicly? That's the next one. Medesky, do you
have anything you want to share there? Yeah,
I think it's easy to be pretty sloppy in your
.files and just kind of throw stuff together
and see if it sticks, right? There's often...
For me, what I've learned is the things that
suck up the most time in the open source world...
are often people that just don't know the technologies
and so they're copy pasting and hoping to get
some solution that i have for them it's like
well you don't know programming so you're trying
to do lewis scripting and it's pretty basic stuff
but you just don't have you know you just don't
you're not experienced in it so now i'm spending
time attempting to help them with that kind of
thing so um i think the only thing that makes
me the most nervous is making sure private keys
are not accessed. So I have to be pretty mindful
of my gitignore on my repo. And at the same time,
most of the people that I influence, we'll talk
about that again, they just copy and paste what
I've done. They just say, great, you've figured
it out. I'm going to do that. And they just go
into my TMUX config and they copy it and they
just paste it. Or they go into my NeoVim config
and they find a certain plugin that I've configured
my way and they go, great, I'll just rip it.
So for that reason alone, I know that my .files
has produced a lot of value and it's got like
hundreds of stars now. I think it's in like the
600 range or something. So clearly lots of people
enjoy that. And at the same time, I do appreciate
when others do it. And I do scan through people's
.files that they make public, and I steal things.
Scavenge. Makes sense. Yeah, I scavenge. And
so, yeah, I personally have tried to make an
effort to make it approachable. So I do a lot
of comments. And if you ever go to my .files,
you'll see I have a lot of headings. I've done
this big ASCII art kind of thing where I make
it really clear this is the thing. and the URL
to it and maybe code comments in places where
I'm trying to guide people into understanding
something. So I, and it's very neat over the
years now that I'm more public. So I have a pretty
tidy setup over time as I've been exposing it
to more people. Okay. And so that's, yeah, that's
me. Okay. You, Nicola? Like if you just make
one video about configuring anything, you kind
of have to. you know, get your dot files out
there. So it's not a question. Right? People
are going to ask for it. Yeah, I don't have any
worries about, you know, leaking keys and everything
because I don't have any of those things. I just
have like plain config. And recently, like at
the very beginning, I shared that I am just exploring
PHP and Laravel right now. And there's the Was
it called the LSP for PHP in Telefence or something
like that? Yeah. Yeah. There's like a pro version
for like 20 bucks, something like that. I bought
it and you need to add the key in a TXT file.
That was the first time that I had to add something
sensitive to my dot files. And I just didn't
add that to, you know, I use tow. to organize
my .files. So I just add it into store ignore
or something like that. But yeah, I'm not actually
worried about leaking some stuff because there
are none. Okay. And you, Blaise? I'm going to
do a pull request on your .files. I'm going to
be that guy. Yeah. These are your private configs,
but I'm going to pull request you. Yeah. I know
generally I use with Emacs, they have auth info.
So anything you want to do for keys, you throw
it in an auth info file in your home directory
and you just keep that out of your dot files.
I'm also a stow guy, but been getting into Nix.
Eventually, like Nix would allow somebody to
literally replicate your computer on their computer.
So that's been kind of interesting to me that
I. I almost like want to write this one ultimate
config where people could literally pull in my
computer and essentially have the exact same
experience that I do. So that's a work in progress.
It's going to take some time to get there, but
it'll be interesting when it's when it's all
said and done. But no, I'm not super worried
about that because it's kept in like a completely
separate file that's not within the dot files.
And yeah, get ignore anything that's. Kind of
questionable, but generally, no worries. Yeah,
same here. There's, like Medesky said, there's
guys that just clone my .files and basically
install them in their Mac. I have a video in
which I install everything through a script.
All the applications, all the macOS system settings,
everything, right? And it's in my .files. And
it's weird to see other people, their computer
with my setup. It's like my colors, my bar on
the top, everything the same. And the problem
is that they don't understand how it works because
it's not just a single file, right? So you have
stuff that is related between a lot of different
files and you have to chase them down and it's
complicated. And like Josh said, I have to explain
pretty advanced stuff. to people that have no
idea what Linux or Unix is. So it gets tricky.
Eventually, I think they give up because they
don't ask anymore. And, you know, yeah. And with
passwords... Go ahead. I was just going to say,
when I remember when I was first getting into
like Unix and Linux, I went to like the Unix
porn subreddit and I was like... what are these
people doing? And like, that's where I think
everybody gets the gateway where it's like, what
is going on here? And I have to figure out every
single piece of this. And it's like these, this
huge Lego set that has no instructions whatsoever.
And you have to put it together. And like only
people that have any sort of, you know, wherewithal
or like a lot of people give up, I think in the
process of doing that. Yep, definitely. And that
brings me, to the segue to the next sponsor of
this video, which is 1Password. Just kidding.
I wish they were. But what I do nowadays with
the... Only 1Password is the one that I have
the need to have in my .files. But I have it
in 1Password because they have this 1Password
CLI tool, which is the OBS password that I use
to switch scenes. You know, I have my OBS with
an API key. So with the Python script, I get
that from 1Password and I use it to switch the
scenes. So that's a good way to keep secrets,
I think, if you're using 1Password. There is
many other tools out there. Or there's people
that... You guys are all CLI, guys. Unix Pass?
Password Store? Oh. You guys use that? Not me.
Nope. It is so good, man. I love it. Everything's
GPG encrypted. So you can literally throw your
passwords onto a Git repo because it's all encrypted.
You need a key to get into it. And you can literally,
like, it's just a text file. Oh, interesting.
I love it. Interesting. Okay. Wonderful. I don't
put it on a public repo, but, like, put it on
a private Git server. Okay. Okay. We've been
here on the call for almost, well, over an hour
and a half. How much time do you guys have left?
A few minutes? Or do you want to skip to the
last question? I'm down for just a few more minutes.
Okay. Let's see. We already covered this. Let's
see. Let's just briefly go over this one. Would
you take a sponsorship that does not align with
your values? If the money is good, would you
guys do it? It's a spicy question. We're talking
really good. Like, I don't know. It would draw
your attention and you would be like, man, this
is like six months of salary. Would you take
it? I probably wouldn't. I think for me, just
the personal values, one of those values in my
own life is integrity. So if something's going
to go against my own personal integrity, I haven't
yet come across an incentive big enough to want
to break my own personal integrity. So that's
just a value I live by in my life. So I would
say no. Okay. Okay. You, Nikola? I'm going to
try to see how I connect that thing or even my
audience. And if there's just like a sliver of
value in it, I might not going to lie. I might.
Why the hell not? You know, if it's out there
and it's for you, why not? But but I have like
declined a lot, a lot of sponsorships that are
just, you know, made no sense. I mentioned BenQ.
That was the only thing that I've done and I
kind of regretted it. So, you know, there have
been like, after that one, there's been a lot
of, a lot of, you know, sponsorships like keyboards,
desks. We're going to send you keyboards. We're
going to send you desks. Am I going to need to,
you know, get a freaking warehouse to store all
those things? One bedroom. Yeah. Living in a
one bedroom apartment in Toronto, you do not
have too much, you know. opportunities to store
things so yeah even if I have my audience does
not like that so I don't even ask or talk or
open or like start the conversation of how that
sponsorship would look like or how much are they
willing to pay or honestly because I've just
done one I don't even have a price or a package
for you know sponsors So like, no, I would think
about it. Try to find that little connection.
If there is none, I'm not going to bother. Okay.
You, Blaise? I mean, it depends on the product.
It has to be on brand and it has to be good too.
Like I don't. I can't recommend something that's
not good. And people will also like sniff that
out too. Like if it's not a good product and
you recommend it and it's like this bomb of a
product, like that's your channel that's going
up in flames, right? So generally I'm not going
to do that. There was actually, there was a Mac
only program that somebody had reached out about
for me to promote. And I was like, I don't use
Mac. Can't promote it. Simple. So, so something
like that, generally not. Um, some, I had like
a key cap company sent me out key caps, uh, I
don't know, probably six months ago. And I did
a little video about it because they're actually
pretty darn good. So if it's something like that,
yeah. But I mean, I'm not getting six figure
sponsorship offers. So, yeah. So I mean, yeah.
Put, put, put some on my table and we'll have
a conversation. We'll go from there. Yeah, I
would think about it too. And I would try to
make it work. See if it's possible. If it's not
possible, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't recommend
something that I don't believe in. But I would
give it a try. I wouldn't say no. You know, I
would just try to see how we can make it work.
Because it's money, you know. But yeah, I have
seen some other channels. None of the ones mentioned
or that are here, by the way. Not even you, Lazar.
Right. But I have seen other channels doing product
reviews and you're like, man, so I'm watching
an ad. Right. Like midway through the video,
you're like, I'm watching an ad. And if I do
it, I know for sure that I'm going to get a lot
of hate. Right. So you have to know that it's
going to impact your channel for sure. So, yeah.
And there's some there's some people that do
like really great integrations of ads and stuff
like and I think that people. Like they see the
effort and they they accept that it's an ad.
And I think that that would be a way to do it.
But again, it just has to be a product that's
not not good. Right. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Let's jump
to the last question. Someone just thinking about
getting started. Would you recommend that starting
a tech YouTube channel? Yeah, this is my favorite
question. So the thing I tend to tell people
is just set a really low expectation. Just expect
that your first video isn't going to be very
good. I really I tend to go back to this short
speech by Ira Glass called he talks about taste.
So we want to make good videos. But if you've
never made a video, you know, your first video
won't probably be very good. And so over time.
you will get better at making videos. And, you
know, it's one of those things that the more
you make, the more videos you make, the better
they will get. You can't really jump ahead in
that process. But as long as you know what is
good, right, the videos you do enjoy and the
formats that do work as a consumer, you just
follow that and you just try your best to build
things better every time. So hopefully each video
is a little bit better than the last. And, you
know, the views come, they often come very slowly
and it turns exponential. So you get one view
and then maybe you'll get 10 views. Maybe you'll
get 100 views. And I have never hit 100 ,000
views in a single video. So that's sort of my
next cap. That's my next like threshold is like,
how could I get a video that over 100 ,000 people
want to watch? And from there, you might be able
to get multiples. But I think in general, you
don't know which video is going to do well, is
my advice to most people. Just make the videos
and some of them will do well. You might figure
out why. And other times videos might do really
well and you have no reason why this video did
better than the one before it. And so be careful
not to think that you can figure it out and just
do your best to make content and provide value,
hopefully, to others or entertainment or whatever.
factors you're trying to put into why you're
making your videos and just kind of ride ride
the ride and see what happens and pivot where
it makes sense and and just be patient is my
is my best advice okay nicola now i would say
the same 100 if you are thinking about starting
a channel do start a channel but low expectations
a ton of patience when you create a channel youtube
is going to be like In order, like, here's one
milestone for you, and that's going to be the
monetization milestone. And it will require you
to reach 1 ,000 subscribers and 4 ,000 watch
hours. And that is painful to, you know, achieve.
Painful to achieve. So there's a lot of work.
That's going to be your North Star naturally
at the very beginning. But it takes time. It
takes a lot of time. But once you get comfortable,
it can just be good, I would say. Unless you
make a fool out of yourself. But yeah, mostly
good stuff of owning a YouTube channel and posting.
Okay, Blaise? Yeah, that thousand subscriber
thing is... that's, it's all downhill after a
thousand subscribers. Like it's a, it's a, it's
a momentum that does carry for sure. Cause hitting
a thousand subscribers is like very hard. And
then I blinked and I was at 3000 subscribers.
I was like, what? Like it's, it's an interesting
game to play to begin with. But I think if you're
doing it to be yourself and to like show the
world who you actually are, I think it could
be one of the greatest things you can possibly
do. I think that YouTube can be like this amazing
channel to meet people in the space that you're
in. It can be this kind of accelerant to work
that you're doing in. whatever space and you
can start a channel about literally anything
and there will be somebody that will watch it
because that is the nature of the internet so
i think that it's it's a phenomenal thing to
get into it is like you guys said it's a slog
to begin with but at the same time like if you're
not doing it to get rich and famous and you're
doing it to just like show the world who you
are there's no better way to do it i think in
in 2025 and and beyond i wish i had started like
10 years ago, I wish I had started like, you
know, and I think that's everybody's sentiment
too. Yeah, I would say the same thing. Expectations
just don't expect too much. And it's not because
of a skill issue. You know, the algorithm has
to catch up and it's a battle the first year.
It's horrible. I don't know if I would recommend
it because it's tough. It's painful. and you
get obsessed you know looking at the youtube
app thing okay how did this video do i still
do it a lot and just do it but don't expect too
much out of it maybe you're super good you're
the next primogen man you're gonna be like the
exception not the rule right because i would
say go for it but just don't expect too much
one last question one last thing that i want
to cover quickly guys is niching down Because
you hear that advice, right? So niche down and
just do NeoVim and don't do anything else. What
are your guys' thoughts on that? I do think online
heavily favors that approach. I think for most
people, if you can stick to a certain topic and
dive deep, YouTube algorithms... you know social
media feeds all of the things we've been talking
about today almost always favor that i think
there are always exceptions to the rule where
they're like generalists and people enjoy the
personality or they enjoy the person more than
maybe specifically what they're doing and so
some people can hop around typically they have
that um they're given that opportunity to to
move around in what they want to talk about because
they've proven themselves and built an audience
first but um yeah i think for me i'm really frustrated
at the internet for this reason because i like
so many things i have so many interests and i'd
be happy to talk about all of them in one place
but even right now a lot of my friends that are
youtubers and i've made a few more today you
know they often say if i'm going to change topics
i'm going to make a new youtube channel And that
new YouTube channel often performs very well
and it's very successful in that they've just
started fresh, new account, same person, new
account, new topic, and it is successful for
them. And so that is the most obvious approach
that I see that works. But people that just change
topics and they're not already very successful,
it doesn't seem, even videos I try that are out
of topic for my typical stuff, they don't perform
well at all. Like almost no one sees them. So
that is unfortunately, it seems like the state
of reality right now. I uploaded a song that
I recorded, like, I don't know, a lot of years
ago and got like a hundred views. It's just the
audio of the song, me playing the guitar, you
know, in a backing track. And yeah, yeah. Your
thoughts there, Azhar? Yeah, I think it's generally
like a good idea. to niche down. I just checked
my channel and went to my channel, clicked on
the popular tab just to see what is at the top.
And it's mostly NeoVim with one single exception,
Clean Architecture in Next .js being the second
most popular video. So there could be something
to it, but in general, it's definitely good niching
down. Maybe not to, I don't know. It all depends
on your brand. If you, from the very beginning,
start talking about web dev and occasionally
you throw in NeoVim, occasionally you throw in
JavaScript, occasionally you throw in Docker
because it's relevant in web development. If
you build that brand, I guess it can work for
you. Because that's the audience that you're
going to attract, right? You're going to attract
full stack engineers that work with Docker just
as much. They work with JavaScript and all of
that is relevant to you. But niching down is
generally like a good idea if you want to start
building an audience. Definitely. Okay. And you,
Blaise? I agree with the sentiment for sure about
niching down. But I also, for myself, I do everything
under my name and my channel is kind of just
a reflection of who I am. So for me, it was,
it's, it's always about like, I think if you
do it even in seasons of your life where you
are interested in a certain thing and you make,
you know, 10 videos about X or Y, then you can,
you know, be on topic and that, and you can gain
your followers because of that. But if there's
other seasons that you move into in your life,
you can also kind of, pivot into those as well
um i mean if you're a channel that is like you
know web dev 101 or something like that obviously
you're not going to make a video of you walking
in the woods talking about life or something
like that but at the same time if you're if your
channel is you then you know what are you what
are you interested in right now and if it's something
like even if it gets 100 views because it's a
music like a track that you put out there yeah
who cares it's it's you right and i mean you
don't get penalized for getting 100 views on
a music track like it's just something that didn't
hit with the audience at the time and maybe maybe
it hits tomorrow who knows right so that's my
sentiment at least um and that's kind of how
i i do my channel yeah it's probably not the
most successful thing we'll put it that way but
well same here um that's why i have it under
my name well Not my name because my name was
taken. If you search for my name in YouTube,
someone's going to show up. So I just came up
with the name, something basic. I didn't think
about it too much, whatever, right? But it's
my name, so I can put whatever I want there.
It's not going to be well taken if it's not NeoVim
or macOS related. I can go to Linux still. I
can go to Emacs. I can go to Helix. You know,
I can stay around that. you know, those subjects,
but I cannot go too far. I cannot go music and
I like music, but who knows? Like Medesky said,
if you're ever really popular, you can do whatever
you want. And hopefully, you know, it happens
to all of us someday. So we covered basically
everything. I just want to thank each one of
you for your time. It's been almost two hours.
Thanks to each one of you. Any final words before
we wrap it up? Just a roundtable? Yeah, I'll
say what I always say. You can find me at joshmadesky
.com. I have a YouTube channel. I said a lot
in the introduction, but I also have a Discord
server. So if you want to have more conversations
like this, you can click on my website, joshmadesky
.com. Yep. Okay. Discord server at the top corner.
I also have a great little free guide that gets
you if you scroll to the very bottom. If you
want to get into this, people keep going. If
you want to get into this, I have a dev workflow
intro. So you want to learn about what is the
terminal and shells and Tmux and NeoVim and how
would I put all this together to get started.
I have a free guide online, no email required.
So that's what I tend to point people to when
they want to get into this stuff. Okay, wonderful.
I'm going to leave a lot of the links in the
video description. So you just guys send me your
links like YouTube, blog posts or anything that
you want me to add. I put them at the top of
the description. And you, Lazar? What can I say?
Thanks for having me. Let's do this again. I
like to, you know, meet creators and talk shop.
We even like get into AV gear software editing
more. deep into that thing, always down. But
yeah, check my website, check my Discord. Okay.
And I'll leave them there as well. Creatures
.sh. Okay. Your Discord and your website. I don't
see it here, I think. I don't have like a website.
It's nicolaflazer .com, but it's just, it's the
YouTube API, just pulling stuff and displaying
it on the website, but there is nothing else.
There's no blog or anything. Yeah. Okay. If you
guys want to do another of these, I will be more
than happy to do it. If we find a topic, something
that you guys want to share, just let me know.
We can schedule it and it would be wonderful.
And Blaze, what about you? Yeah, this was fun.
I enjoyed this. Yeah, find me on my YouTube channel.
I got my website, joshblaze .com. Got all my
links on my YouTube channel. So if you want to
go read blog posts and stuff or write about.
technology but also metaphysics and theology
and that sort of stuff that's been interesting
to me lately so it's it's a mishmash of who i
am as a person and that's uh that's my blog i
i also have a book too on my uh my website if
you're interested in in a 200 some odd page expose
of who i am where is it here reading it's a good
uh no go to my uh youtube And just bottom. Okay.
Sorry, it's right there. Yeah, you got it. MountainTheBook
.com. There's my book. And there I am. Okay.
Go buy it on Amazon. Give me a very small cut
of what they take from me every single time I
sell a book. Cool. Okay. Great. Great. We're
going to try to find an EOVM guy for the next
time. Unfortunately, we couldn't. So we had to
do the Emacs Linux guy. I'm just kidding, man.
Just kidding. So just reach out to me, guys.
I want to see you again. I want to do a call
up again. Let's think about a topic. Thanks to
each one of you. Till the next time. Thank you.
Bye. Thanks. Bye.