00:00:00 John Daub: This is the 100,000 subscriber YouTube award. It arrived in the mail the day before yesterday, and I thought I would wait until the weekend to do this together as a community. Now, this isn't the actual channel that this award came for. I blacked out my address. Don't even try it. This is a different channel. This is our live streaming channel, so welcome.

00:00:27 John Daub: I mean business. Do you hear this music? This is a big deal, everybody. You need some really party music from a different era for something like this. All right, do you hear this? It's great. Hey, somebody cue the TV back there. It's supposed to be the Only in Japan channel. Yeah. So this is the channel with the 100,000 subscribers. Not this actual channel, but that channel. And if you haven't already, please go and watch this video.

00:01:00 John Daub: This episode, which is me and my friend Peter von Gomm, who does the title call Only in Japan. He rode with me from Tokyo all the way to Shin-Aomori eating seven ekiben (station bento boxes). It was insane, but it's also an amazing adventure that brings you to Japan and you can feel what it's like to ride the bullet train on that episode. So support the channel, the other channel, and watch that. How you doing, everybody? This is an amazing moment.

00:01:31 John Daub: It's a lot of emotions going through here. If I'm asked to, I may give a speech. The only audience I have right now is... Are these characters here watching? I'm going to have to bring them closer. Okapi is here. He's always here. And he's guarding the other two awards as he typically does. Over there, we have Hachiko and Totoro. Totoro seems a little tired. He's hanging out with Winnie the Pooh, who is already asleep. On the desk. Those are... They do not belong to me. They belong to Ryo, who is a baby, okay? I understand. But Okapi's mine.

00:02:10 John Daub: Alright, let's just get on with this, alright? We gotta just get on. Oh! Crap, I forgot. I need some kind of weapon in order to open this up. I forgot. Alright, back to... Should I go back to the music? No music? Music? WXHero is here! Hey, WXHero, thanks for that. Pan down, pan down. Do not look at the diaper garbage can, okay? That's not worth it. Now, focus on this here. Ahh, this is gonna be great. Is it the other side? Can I just... It looks like customs opened it, maybe. I don't have a knife, so I'm using a screwdriver. This is how I roll. Just rip it. Ah! That was right. Okay.

00:03:27 John Daub: Oh, all right. Oh, is that Danny? Hey, Danny! Thank you. Congratulations from Canada. Raymond Centeno. Congrats, John. Were the rubber ducks too busy to join the party? Do you really want to wake them up? Come on. Let them sleep. It's like 1 in the morning here. Neko-chan62. Hooray. I hear the cheering on the other side. That's awesome. 3, 2, 1. What? All right. That's the end of the music, by the way. It's just a one-minute clip. Thank you to the United States Marine Corps Band. I appreciate that. Jennifer French. Hey, Jennifer French. I just met Tokyo Sam today for lunch, believe it or not. Sasha Cha. How are you doing? Congratulations, John. Well-deserved. Greetings from Ireland. Thank you, guys.

00:04:25 John Daub: After this protective seal, which is very soft to put to the side, we have a card from the manufacturers. This is consistent with the other two awards, saying this was made by Rick. Thank you, Rick. This award was inspected and packaged with great care by Rick. If your award was damaged during shipping, if you have any questions, please contact YouTube Creators Society Awards. That's wonderful. And one of my favorite CEOs is Susan there at YouTube. I appreciate this signed letter. Whoa. Your 100th or your 1000th. Chances are you do. Oh, do you remember your first subscriber? Chances are you do. And we know that you'll definitely remember your 100,000 subscriber.

00:05:25 John Daub: Your fans have found you while searching YouTube, learned about you through a friend, and maybe you showed up as a recommended video. Heck yeah. No matter how they came to your channel, fans stayed and their numbers increased because your new unique voice and excitement of being part of the growing community that you established. We are thrilled to see the development of your community and are proud to honor your impressive milestone of reaching 100,000 subscribers with the Silver Creator Award. Congratulations. We know that you have many more stories to share with your community and we know that your fans can't wait for you to engage and amaze even more with your commitment and creativity. So keep creating, keep building, and we can't wait to see what you'll do next. And we're here to support you along the way. They really are.

00:06:11 John Daub: And who knows, when you reach your 1 million subscriber, we may just write to you and ask, do you remember your 100,000 subscriber? I remember my 1 million subscriber. Actually, that's a different channel, but I remember that person. I do. Because I reached out to that person and said thank you. I was waiting actually at... Where was I? Kanai and I were waiting at Sushi Zanmai in Tsukiji, and we passed 1 million. That was pretty cool on the old channel. All right, back to the new channel, which is way, way better. Thank you, Susan, for the letter. I appreciate it. The encouragement to our community is much appreciated.

00:07:13 John Daub: Now, without further ado, let's get right to it. Whoa. It's made of... Oh, I think I just damaged it. I don't knock on it. It seems to me a very weak alloy. Not to say that this is inferior in any ways. That sounds like a Canadian thing. Next stop, 1 million. You got that right. Next stop is actually 112,000, but for milestones, that is the one. Uncle Ranjit is in the house. Thank you. I like what I did with this. First, you can see me. That's what my eyes look like. It's just basically a smartphone. Actually, that makes a pretty good thumbnail right there. But it says it's presented to Only in Japan, John Daub, for passing 100,000 subscribers YouTube. It's a pretty award, right? It's getting every year gets thinner like the MacBook Pro. I could carry this with me.

00:08:35 John Daub: So this award is for this channel right here. And I think most of you who are subscribed to Only in Japan Go are probably subscribed to this channel too. And I got to say thank you so much for that. Because when I left the old channel out of frustration and sadness and great pain, really, I was in pain. I wasn't sleeping. I didn't know what the future held. Now I do. Success is what the future holds. And if I can do it, you can do it too.

00:09:12 John Daub: All right. Let's compare this 100,000 with the Only in Japan Go 100,000. Are they exactly the same? Let's hold them up and see. Yes, they are. They're pretty much the same. Except this one has a ding in it because I don't know. They get kind of beat up real quickly. So it's best to put them on the wall and let them stay there. Now we're going to compare the new award to the 1 million award and see if there's any difference. We're going to let Okapi do it. He'll talk to you from now on. And just before you know that there's not a problem, he doesn't say much. So there might not be any talking. At all. Okapi should have his own channel. And you can see the size of the gold award is maybe double that. Okay, Okapi. I'm going to put you in the stable over here.

00:10:24 John Daub: Now, if we turn it to the right. To the side. You can see here. This has already been dinged up. When I had to travel with the award to the YouTube Fan Fest, it got kind of damaged. Because Kanai and I went to Europe right away. And I don't know how it got damaged in my bag. But it got damaged because I had to transport to the YouTube thing. But it was worth it. And actually, it's starting to lose the P here. It also lost some of the writing. But it's all good. I know what it says here. The thickness of the awards also is very important to point out. It's literally half the size in everything. And I guess if you look at it from the top, the gold and the silver. Yeah, they're different in sizes as well. But it has the same meaning to me. This is an amazing start. Less than a year.

00:11:24 John Daub: Now, the past meets the present. Which means the future. Right? Very nice. It's good. I feel like this is the Olympics. Gold, silver, bronze. What is that in the background right here? Oh, look. This is one of the mascots for Mount Takasaki in Oita Prefecture. This is for the monkey park. That's the mascot. Leo likes the mascot from monkey park. So, this is a great bronze, silver, gold. And all of it is only in Japan. And we're going to add more to that hardware over time. Absolutely. The next milestone will probably be... Because which one is going to hit a million first? Only in Japan Go or the Only in Japan John Daub channel? Because I'm not sure. I'm not sure it's going to be battled on to the end. Only in Japan Go had a head start. But live content is an acquired flavor. And the main channel episodes are very, very emotional connecting with people. So, it's going to be a battle. But I think both of them might get there at the same time. I don't know. But we're going to try really hard to get there.

00:13:04 John Daub: And one quarter, one third of those views came from one video, the Wagyu video. And one second. Six of them came from the earthquake video. But there's only 11 videos on the Only in Japan main channel, which is crazy, right? So, the videos, they average 300,000 views per video. That's a pretty good average for a channel. I think I'm on the right course. Always a pleasure to have Toby, the human version of the crow, with us. So, that's a very good award. I'm going to give you a speech now. You think I would already gave the speech? Of course I have not done that. I'm nervous about this. I don't actually have any speeches planned here. But I'll give my best in my living room.

00:14:13 John Daub: So, this is the channel that it's for, just so you know. It's not this channel, but it's the Only in Japan channel with now 100,000 subscribers. 111, I believe. Yeah. So, I want to grab this award here. And Okapi must be here to witness because that's what he does. He's a witness to a lot of things, all right? When I'm angry, he witnesses it. When I'm crying to myself to sleep, which is never. He does not witness that. But this award goes to our community.

00:14:52 John Daub: In life, in everyone's life, but in particular my life, things haven't gone the way that I wanted it to, really. I never expected to be here in this moment in time doing something different than I was two years ago. A new start, but the results are the same. Success. I attribute this great success to my community, my parents, to my friends. To all of you. And to the music that they allow me to use inside of the editing of these stories, which brings emotional connection. Thank you, World Free Music. But through it all, I find that I haven't changed much. I remain the same child inside a grown man's body as I did the day I started producing YouTube videos.

00:16:07 John Daub: So now I can just really talk. But it's good to have the music. Thank you, community. Thank you, everybody, for supporting the new channel. Like, it really has been a hard ride. I'm not going to reiterate all the stuff I said in the update about four days ago on the new channel. I explained the direction of the channel and where it's going. This came the day after I uploaded that video, which is pretty amazing. So this is all coming together right now. This channel, Only in Japan Go, I started it when I was hitchhiking Japan. The reason was for two reasons why I started this channel. Number one, when I was hitchhiking, I didn't want to be alone out there. So I wanted to be able to stay connected. And live streaming meant that I would never be alone. I'll always be connected to you. I feel your presence on the other side of this smartphone. I really, really do.

00:17:47 John Daub: And you mean something to me, too. I'm not just saying that to a smartphone. I'm saying it to you that's on the other side. Because every time I see a chat go by, I feel that you're there. And you are always with me in Japan as long as I'm live here. And when I'm not, either. Because you're in my thoughts. You really are. This channel was also a way for me to tell stories that I couldn't tell on the edited channel. Because it takes such a long amount of time to make one episode of these videos. I put a lot of love, even in the thumbnails. It takes a great deal of time to make the thumbnails. And everything is still made by yours truly. This live streaming channel filled the blank on themes and topics that I would not cover on. I'm so grateful that I could only in Japan go.

00:18:48 John Daub: And I expect over the years, probably in June, I'm going to get back to the... Or as soon as the state of emergency is over. It's pretty tough to film anything in Japan. I'm going to get back to trying to get to location shoots and places outside of Tokyo. Which has been really challenging. But that's the purpose of this channel. To fill in the blanks on this main channel. And to connect with you in a way that I couldn't any other time. And live. Live streaming has brought me so close to you all. Without this second channel, I don't know where I would be. This main channel now, that the award is for, is where my heart lies. Okay? My heart lies in telling these kinds of stories here. That are listed on this channel. The top three videos. This is 11 episodes on the Only in Japan new channel. 1.1 million views. 520,000 views. 350,000 views. 170,000 views. Like, this is a testament of our community. This is more than the subscriber base. Right? Almost all of these videos have gotten or exceeded the subscriber base. And I'm so proud of this work that I've been doing. And it's where my heart lies, you know? To be able to tell a good story.

00:20:01 John Daub: I was pretty confident. And again, I'm not going to rehash the update from a couple of days ago. But, like, I really love telling a story. And I was pretty confident that I could do it anywhere. It didn't matter what the channel was. Kanai said that she was thinking of doing something like a channel. She might be doing it with Leo, too. I'm not sure. But she can see herself doing something with Leo. I can tell a story. And it doesn't matter how many subscribers. As you see with the number of views that the videos get. It doesn't matter if it's on a million subscriber channels. Or if it's on a channel with one subscriber.

00:21:11 John Daub: And I want to tell the new creators out there that are wondering if they can do it, too. Yes, you can. You, too, can start a channel. You can start a channel in 2021. And you can get to 100,000 subscribers. You can get to a million subscribers. Doesn't matter. You can get 100,000 subscribers and a million subscribers even today. I have so much confidence that anybody can do it. That I had to restart. And I was confident that I'd be able to do it, too. The reason why is because after you do it for a while. You kind of figure out the formula. You kind of understand. It's about click through rate. Getting people to click the video. You have to have a good thumbnail and a good title. And that means you have to produce content that people want to watch. Not just content that interests you. But content that you think is going to interest your core audience and the people around it. And that's how you keep bringing people into your channel. That's not easy to do. It takes a lot of experience. It takes a lot of practice.

00:23:05 John Daub: And each and every one of you watching, except for those that aren't subscribed to the new channel, are inside of this. Do you see this? You're in here. So I'm going to hug this. I won't sleep with it. Because we don't actually know each other that well. But I will put this on my wall. YouTube's not for everybody. But I do encourage you to think about it. And if you do work hard at it, you can get to where you want... What your goals are on YouTube. Some people's goals are not to get to 100,000 subscribers. Hannah, my assistant, she doesn't care about milestones like this, she said. She just likes it as a creative outlet. And I respect that too. For me, I want the awards. I want to feel like I'm building a community. And I want to feel like... That the videos are making an impact. Not just to the subscribers, but to the world, right? And I think we're doing it.

00:24:12 John Daub: But I believe I've kind of figured out how YouTube works a little bit from experience, from the start. That's been a service and led me in the way that I produce the videos. Making a YouTube video is very much like a chef cooking a meal. And there's different kinds of chefs. There's fast food chefs. And then there are chefs that put together meals that are very expensive. Then there are chefs who... Like the pizza chef down in Nagoya. He can make a lot of pizza. He sells them for $5. He won the best pizza award in the world in Napoli. But he sells his pizza for like $5. And he makes a lot of them. And they're so good. And he puts love into every single pizza he makes. That guy is amazing. I can't make pizzas as fast as him. But I make a very good episode slowly. And I put so much love into it.

00:25:19 John Daub: I watched that video that's on the new channel now about 150 times. Going over it and over it and over it. I still miss stuff. It's not perfect. But I go over it. I check the audio levels. I check what kind of music I should put in there. I check the transitions. I try to match the music so it goes and it ends on the right place. I want to try to make you feel emotionally invested and connected to each and every moment of the video. And it's not easy to do. And I don't always succeed. But I think you appreciate the effort. And I think you want to see what comes next. And that's why you subscribe. But it's not just about getting subscribers. It's about keeping subscribers. So you need to keep content coming. And you need to be a part of the community. You need to be a part of the community yourself. And I know we're going to get to a million subscribers. It's just a matter of time. Not if, but when. And you have to believe. And if you're a new creator, you have to believe that too. It's not if. It's when.

00:26:19 John Daub: Today I met Tokyo Sam who has been a YouTuber for as long as I've known him. He's not to everybody's tastes. But he is a good guy. He's an honest guy. He said many bad words today that defiled my ears. But he is who he is. And I respect that very much. You have to do that. And, you know, he said he made an episode about me. And I'm looking forward to that. And I think he's going to be fair and honest in his own way. And I think that that's good. But he's working very, very hard on his channel. And, like, he has, I think, what, 40 or 50,000 subscribers. And I'd love to see him get to 100,000. Every YouTube creator has to figure out how do you do that? What is making your content work and not work? And how do you change it to suit your audience and grow it?

00:27:52 John Daub: And we had a really incredible time today. I actually... I knew I was going to have fun. But I actually... I'm looking forward to catching up with him again. He's been a YouTuber since 2006 and since it started with my friend Kevin Cooney from Tokyo Cooney. And a lot of people who started YouTube a long time ago. These are people that were reasons... And EricSurf6 as well. These are people that have been on YouTube for longer than most of the YouTubers you probably watch today. They were here in 2006. So I give them credit for keeping up YouTube for this long. It is not easy. It is not easy to be a YouTuber for 14 years. EricSurf6 has been a YouTuber for 14 years. Just so you know, Tokyo Sam's content is not to everybody's taste. He takes people down a peg sometimes. But he also can build them up. But quite often in his criticism, there's... He's just honest about how he feels. So that can be a good thing. And I do like seeing him ride the motorcycle through the city. That's kind of nice. But he's been doing this for a very long time. And when he ranked the YouTubers, thankfully, I made it to the A-plus ranking, I believe.

00:28:45 John Daub: I treat people all the same. It doesn't matter if you're a star or if, you know, you have very low self-esteem and you don't like yourself at all. I'll treat you the same way. I try very hard to do that. And, you know, it doesn't matter how many subscribers a person has. I look at everybody the same way. And, you know, that's the reason why I have a lot of friends here. And I'm very, very happy. But it's... Gosh. I found that the more that the channel succeeded, I don't know, people started to see me differently. This reminds me of Rocky IV, where Sylvester Stallone's in Russia. And he said, you know, when I came in here, yous all hated me. But after the fight, I've seen the ways yous thought about me. And I changed on the ways I thought about yous. And it's a very Philadelphia thing to add an S at the end of yous. So, like, over the course of the time being a YouTuber, the way people saw me changed. And I haven't changed at all. So it's kind of cool just to be able to talk normally to people.

00:30:32 John Daub: YouTube is interesting. They give you all the tools that you need. And if you look at the analytics and you check your click through rate and your watch time, if people are clicking on your thumbnail and your title and you're providing a very interesting topic, and if they're watching until the end of your video, YouTube's algorithm is going to continue to suggest that video. It doesn't matter what you look like. It doesn't matter if your content's bad. If the majority of people like your content and watch it to the end, you're going to do well in YouTube. It doesn't matter if you start today or tomorrow. The algorithm is continuously testing it. They'll suggest it to 250 people. If those people have like a 10% click through rate and watch your video at the end, they suggest it to 2,500 people. If they have a good rate, they suggest it to 25,000, then 2.5 million. So that's how it works.

00:31:26 John Daub: So even though I had like 1,000 subscribers to start this channel, the first video I made got 100,000 subscribers. I got 1,000 subscribers pretty quickly because it did that. It gave it to a test pool of 100, then 1,000, then 10,000, then 100,000, and then it sees where the limit is, and then it starts to taper down. So once you can figure that out, then it's pretty easy to try to grow a YouTube channel a little bit. Or you can do it with more confidence, but all your answers are in the data. It's hard to say if I deserve it or not. Like, I know a lot of people who are working hard that haven't gotten anything at all. But it feels good. Even though I have other awards like this, this one feels very special because you all know where this came from, right? You all know where this award came from. A box of tissues and a diaper box. This award comes from you, and that's you in the camera right now. All right? If it wasn't for a community on this Only in Japan Go channel, I probably would not have been to 100,000 subscribers in under a year like this. But still was hard because the new videos were not suggested to everybody. It's a new channel. You have to earn it. And that's always going to be hard work. Doesn't matter if you're a new YouTuber or not. You really have to work hard. You have to work hard at your craft.

00:33:32 John Daub: I'm not somebody who's going to get comfortable with this award. I'm working towards something bigger. I'm not even working for the gold anymore. You know what I'm working for? I'm working for diamond. I'm skipping the gold. All right. Go for it. You know what? If you say, oh, I want to go to the moon. Why stop there? Go to Mars. Go to the sun. Keep going. Right. There is no limit. The only limit is in your mind. Diamonds are forever. That's one of my favorite 1970s movies, too. It's James Bond movie. Kind of creepy. Those two characters, the bad guys with the perfume. But had some unique dimensions to that movie. On Her Majesty's Secret Service was made in 1969. That was my favorite James Bond movie, by the way. On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Telly Savalas. James Bond falls in love and gets married. Tragic ending. It showed him as a human. Instead of a super spy. I like that one.

00:35:31 John Daub: In Japan, there's Japanese YouTubers with like 10 million subscribers now. In fact, the guy who passed that award to me has... Was the number one YouTuber in Japan for a while. Which is pretty cool. In terms of foreign YouTubers, I don't think subscriber count matters. Of course I don't. But, you know, there's a lot of really good creators out there. I don't think that there's any one top person anymore. There's a lot of YouTube creators at the top that don't produce content regularly anymore. I can say this. I am the most impressed. I think we are a good collaboration. Let me just quickly talk about what we did with him. I take my life into account with my friend Paolo, okay? I remember talking with him at Aoyama-itchome Station and I saw so much potential in his channel and like what he was doing. And when he said let's meet up, I said absolutely. And he had a good idea. And I didn't collaborate with him because I don't think he needed me for that. It didn't seem like I needed to be in that episode. So, but I talked to him and I told him a couple of things about YouTube and the supernova and like some of these little unique features inside of YouTube that I learned from going to YouTube creator summits and stuff like that.

00:37:20 John Daub: And he has not stopped working his butt off since that day. And he was working his butt off before that day too. But his rise is from hard work and ingenuity and coming up with themes that people really want to watch and just hustling, you know, like being, and I mean, not like it's a hustler type of thing, but I guess like just getting there and doing it and put your head down and do the work. I respect his work ethic very, very much. And he deserves to be in that top spot. You know, I think he's got, he's got over 2 million subscribers now, which is just incredible. And, and I can't see him not stopping. I see him getting a 10 million subscribers really soon. And I'll be so proud of him if he does that because we both will know where, we all know where we all start. Every single YouTube creator starts with one subscriber, their mom. And then sky's the limit with that. Chris Broad? Chris is extremely talented. I have nothing bad to say about him. Just all really positive stuff. He works hard. He's upped his game. I think that he deserves that and probably a heck of a lot more for the hard work he puts into his channel.

00:39:00 John Daub: Yeah, I think, I think Paolo is, if I had to compare the two, I think Paolo is pretty good at finding topics that bring in a wider range of people that are curious about life in Japan. And that would explain to me how quickly he's grown. He just picks topics that resonate with a broader audience. But like if, and like when I started in 2013, we started about the same time, Chris and I. And I think we saw a lot of people and we saw each other's works and respected what we did. We were, we had the same amount of subscribers. I mean, there was a moment where it was like this, okay, with subscriber count. Like it was, it was literally like a back and forth, back and forth, back and forth until North Korea launched a missile over Japan. And then, and he happened to be there and he got a really amazing episode out of it, which is like, couldn't be, the timing was so perfect on that. And it was a unique episode. And then he spiked up and well deserved to, big, big congratulations on all of his success, passing 2 million subscribers, you know, 17 years younger than me. So we're like in different generations. I could be his father, but in, in maturity, I'm more like a seven year old. And I don't know, maybe he's, you know, more like a 22 year old. So it's different.

00:40:29 John Daub: There's some good, I don't watch a lot of YouTube, to be honest with you. I watch maybe the sports stuff and the news, and that's about it. One of the reasons why is because I don't want my ideas to come from somebody else. I kind of want to find my own, but I did watch Paolo's bento episode because it was related somewhat to my, my Tokyo train episode. And it was really well done. And I can see his ability to tell a story. It just keeps getting better and better. I was absolutely not a teacher of his. He did this all on his own. And I was applauding him, um, with sometimes tough love, but always big heart. And, um, like, I, I don't, I don't see a stop to him. He's going to keep getting bigger and bigger and better and better. You have to respect the work ethic. You can see it in the creators you support. You support creators because they have really strong work ethics. Sometimes they have an off month. They have, I had a pretty tough month this month, but you can tell from the way people work. Chris does short films and not as many uploads. Yeah, I kind of do that too. I make shorter, um, like 15 minute episodes, but I've been doing it just once a month and I'm going to be doing it twice a month.

00:42:52 John Daub: I'm not a filmmaker. All right. There's a lot of stuff you don't know maybe, but I'm, I'm, I'm just, when people ask me what I am, YouTube creator, baby. I'm proud of it. I create for my, I create for YouTube. Whenever I make content, I think specifically YouTube. I don't think about any other platform except for YouTube. I love it. I love the fact that they make these awards. I've, I've never seen Instagram give awards to anybody. A lot of people will come. Some people will complain about YouTube, but look at this. The CEO writes a letter and sends it to you. Well, it might be, it's not really her signature, but they really do care. And, and, and when I, when you get up to a certain level, they support you. And I love the fact that, you know, people from YouTube will contact me, will ask me how I'm doing. Um, when I had a tough month, somebody, YouTube asked me if everything was okay. I love that about the YouTube staff. You don't get that until you get to a certain level. But, um, I think when you get to, I don't know, like, I think it was like 10,000 subscribers. You can use YouTube spaces around the world. Just register to them. You have access to so many more tools than any other platform. So, I'm a proud YouTube creator. I love this platform. It lets, lets me connect with so many people.

00:44:28 John Daub: Yeah, I complain about the app and mobile live streaming and how it stinks sometimes, often. Why we should have more HD size videos and stuff like that. Okay. But, like, you know, I love it. Nothing beats the energy, spontaneity, and connection of your live streams. I'm sorry if I missed anything while I was ranting. Much apologies. I've been thinking now about the direction of the channel. I gave an update. If you're joining me right now, please do check out the new video. This is, I'm starting to wrap it up, uh, peso. The, uh, gourmet train food episode. Uh, especially if you've been watching the live streams because these live streams will connect the dots to this episode right here. It's all about here. And Peter von Gomm is hilarious in this episode. He's so funny. He doesn't call me a DB or a, in fact, I cut that part out. He said that in the live stream. But, it's pretty funny. And we had, we had some really fun back and forth. So, uh, leave me a comment in there if you, if you do check it out. I'd like to hear from you. We only have 18,000 views in one day. I used to get 100,000 views in a day. But, um, there is the 4K symbol right next to it. You see that? That's pretty significant.

00:46:38 John Daub: Chris's videos are meant for laugh, not for education. I think there's some education in there. I don't, I don't 100% agree with that. Um, I haven't seen a lot of his stuff, but I think that there's some education in there. I think you can take, you can learn something from Chris's videos too. And I think that that's great. Um, I, I want to make sure something sticks. That's what you remember. I try to, to put ekiben on the screen and, and make sure you leave with some Japanese words or something useful. But I'm pretty sure Chris, Chris does that too. But yeah, you can get a good laugh out of it. And that's, that's really important. I want to see people having fun in Japan. Right? So I can't, I think the world is a, is a way, way better place with Chris Broad in it and with, um, Paolo, somebody else, somebody wrote Pablo. It's, it's Paolo, Paolo in, in the world. And I'm happy that those two guys have some massive success. Um, and, uh, you know, one day, once I was at that level and, and I was like, my friend, like from, from Greg, who just finished a massive documentary that he's been putting his heart and soul in. And I've been, um, listening to him.

00:47:47 John Daub: I would like to see EricSurf6 now get to a million. I want to see EricSurf6 get to 1 million subscribers. He, he, he's been working his butt off. He deserves, if anybody deserves, it's him. All right. So I'd like to see my friend succeed. That's a picture of the wall. That's the wall I'm putting the award on. Click the thumbs up button. If you like, if you like these milestone award unboxings, so then I will do another one when I get to a million subscribers next week. Um, finally, um, like this has gone way too long. Thanks everybody so much for making this. Um, this 2021 has been hard because in Japan, we can't do the same kind of stuff that we want to do. Uh, but I haven't let a lot of live streams this, this month in May, because not just because of the state of emergency, but because, um, uh, we have somebody in the family who's been really suffering, um, pretty badly. And, um, that person is starting to get better. And, um, it's, it's a lot, it's a lot more hopeful now than it was, uh, a month ago. And I'm starting to change too and feel more hopeful than I was a month ago. So thanks for hanging in there. This last month has been pretty tough, uh, on us. Um, but we're doing, we're doing well. And for those of you who have been keeping in touch, uh, through Patreon and the Discord server, thank you so much for reaching out. And, um, everything's going to get better.

00:49:25 John Daub: And I'm hoping, um, as soon as June hits here in 36 hours, uh, 48 hours, um, um, I can get back, I can get back on my horse and just get out there and put my head down and do the same kind of, uh, content creation. Family comes first, everybody. I want you to know that. Your family comes first. My family comes first. This content, YouTube is a marathon. It's not a sprint. I know this. This comes from a long time of creating content. I've been making videos about Japan since 2003. Family comes first. If you have a strong family and everything's going well, and you're healthy, you will make a lot more videos than trying to fight through something that is hurting you emotionally. So, um, sometimes take a break and stop. And if you're a creator too, you can get to a million, but don't do it at the risk of hurting your family by overworking and ignoring them. And don't do it at the risk of hurting yourself. Because sometimes you can get so focused on achieving a goal, you stop. Like Ferris Bueller said, sometimes you have to stop and look around and enjoy. He didn't say it exactly like that, but it's in the first, like, 10 minutes of the video. Sometimes you have to stop and look around, right?

00:50:51 John Daub: Marathon is very much, it seriously is the same as YouTube. I have the same approach. Um, if you pace yourself, you can finish the marathon and not be tired. Uh, after I ran the first marathon, I went so fast. I ran out of steam at 21 kilometers, halfway. That was like 23 kilometers. And the last, um, 20 kilometers was so painful because I had nothing left in the tank because going too fast. I paced myself the next time. And I didn't, I didn't hit the wall in the marathon until 35 kilometers. So I learned my lessons. I learned to pace myself. I knew when to take breaks, when to, you know, how to run the race better and how to train for it. The third time I ran a marathon, I did the whole thing and wasn't tired at all. I got to the finish line and I danced and I felt so energized and so psyched because I learned how to run the marathon. And I realized that a race is a lot longer than the one kilometer or two kilometers. It's 42 kilometers. You have to survive the whole thing. I'm in this for the long haul. I'm taking this a marathon. I want a healthy family and I want a healthy mind right here. And I will have healthy content for 20 years. Look, you're gonna have to tear me away from this job over the course of, of a long time. But I'll, I'll always be making these stories for you.

00:52:15 John Daub: So my best time is three hours and 12 minutes. The first marathon I ran was three hours and 29 minutes. So, I, I improved by 17 minutes or so, but those 17 minutes were huge. Even though I hit the wall at 21 kilometers, I was still fighting my butt off and I didn't stop because once you stop in a marathon, this is very important. During this last month, I never really stopped. But if you stop in a marathon, your muscles tighten up and you can never get back going again, again, you have to fight through pain. So even though this has been a tough month, I still uploaded, I still did live streams. I still stayed connected with my audience. I still, um, finished that Kickstarter video. I still was able, that, that was one hour and 15 minutes long, like a long, like it's like a one hour and 15 minute long, only in Japan episode. It's pretty cool for the Kickstarter backers. Uh, I was able, to, um, to, uh, edit this train video as well. So, I mean, I, I could still work and stuff, but, I, I really cut back on it just because I, my focus was somewhere else. And if, and when my mind is clear of, of, of that, I'll be able, to, to go back and, and to go full speed ahead again. But I'm so proud of this, of this award here. The first of many.

00:53:30 John Daub: Hi, John, is PVG doing what is doing his channel? I hope he gets his channel and see what he's up to. Uh, Christopher, he's doing something called Serial Talker, S E R I A L T A L K E R on YouTube. It's a podcast now. And he's just talking. I think it was really, he's a very busy man and it's very hard for him to do edited videos. So, um, Peter von Gomm just went back to narration work. The stories he tells, you can see his strong point is just talking. Although he's a damn good editor and Peter's is, um, 50,000 views away from a 1 million view video on his Peter von Gomm channel. So he can produce content. All right. He's a talented man. Um, but the Serial Talker, I'm a fan too. So I listened, I listened to his, uh, his show as well. Where can I watch the Kickstarter video? Um, sigh, it is not available right now, but I'm making a shorter version of it to upload to the main channel because I think I want to use it to, um, promote, to promote the next fireworks project. So you'll get a chance to see it. Um, so you have to have supported. Um, but that was hard work.

00:55:11 John Daub: When's the next fireworks project? Uh, I introduced it in the update a couple of days ago on the main channel, but I think, uh, we're talking right now with the, the fireworks association. Uh, to be honest with you, it was pretty exhausting because it was hard to, to, with the C-mail and the pandemic and the mail stopped and, uh, to finish that project up was a really big challenge. Uh, and the video too was, was hard for me to do with all the other stuff happening. So I believe this summer, a lot of the fireworks festivals are going to be canceled. We have a state of emergency, right? I don't know if they're going to get the vaccine out enough to have summer festivals in Japan. So if they cancel that again, they're going to really, really be hurting more so than last year. And I feel bad about that. So I want to see if, if, if there's enough people that are interested in it, we'll do it again and see if we can raise enough money. The most basic fireworks is like, um, $30,000 I think required. And we had, we had close to 60,000. So we did two fireworks shows, um, which is pretty awesome. We could split it up a little bit, but I want to do something even bigger if we can. So we'll, we'll try our best. Yeah, probably the summer. You're going to probably start hearing information about it in June, next month. And we're, we're probably going to give it more time to try to raise more money too. Um, I think we did it in five weeks or something, five or six weeks. I think, I think a month is a pretty good amount of time, but two months would be better. And we want to try to get businesses involved. So that'll help to raise the total money a little bit higher. So if we can get some businesses involved, that might be the best way to do it.

00:57:03 John Daub: Kanai is doing good. She's asleep. Here's the thing, okay guys? And I want you to understand this. One of the reasons why I didn't involve anybody else is because I didn't get any money from this and I can't pay anybody for this. You understand? Like, everything I did it and I made nothing from it, which is really hard. Sometimes you can't do things just for money. Of course I want money. I need money to survive. This wine didn't just grow in this glass. But. Um. Sometimes you have to do things from the heart. And I think that's what that project was and it just took a little bit longer than I expected but it's hard to raise money on Kickstarter with somebody else and say, sorry, none of that is yours. Not everybody thinks like me. Not everybody feels the same way. So I don't think it's something that anybody can do. $60,000 of it. Maybe a few hundred came our way for car rental. A hotel. A car. A hotel. A couple of meals. Um. Which was budgeted as costs for us. We need a YouTube fireworks song. That'd be pretty cool. If we can get somebody to. Look. If there's a songwriter out there, I would use this as a song for the fireworks. I think that'd be pretty cool. This is Kool-Aid. It's Orchard Grape Kool-Aid. From. I think it's from Oregon. I've been drinking Oregon wines. I am a little tired. Hannah is a songwriter. Hannah would be good. But her music is very calm and relaxing. I want some more like, you know, heavy metal type of stuff, just something with something with some, you know, .. You know what I mean?

01:00:01 John Daub: I've been playing, you know, some heavier music for Leo, and I think he's going to be a headbanger. I got a feeling he's going to be a mosh pit type of guy. Baby metal. Pretty good. Leo's got a pretty good record. Good personality. Leo slept for 10 hours last night he's two and a half months. I, I was worried. I said how can a baby sleep that long he probably went peepee a few times it doesn't make sense but he slept for 10 hours pretty crazy um he puts himself to sleep too he's so boring he puts himself to sleep. Leo is a Cannibal Corpse fan in the making. Could be uh John into metal did you buy the Gazette new album i have not i'm more into the classic metal um you know metallica def leppard's not really metal but i was a big def leppard fan um yeah so it's all good like the stuff from the 80s i grew up in the 80s i haven't really listened to new music to be honest with you i don't really listen to new stuff i don't know who i don't get cultural references.

01:01:27 John Daub: All right i don't understand a lot of your cultural references even though i am a Ride the Lightning was awesome album man oh anthrax right was pretty cool yeah it's a lot of good a lot of good um songs from the 80s there just the lyrics everything was pretty original but uh yeah i don't i don't know i forget what i was talking about music today i don't connect with i like the cultural words i don't don't know what what it was i said sometimes i'll insult people and not even know it and um that's really tough i don't want to insult anybody i there's one word called um dare i say it um raw dog uh to me this this is i i can't explain my moderators get angry at me but like it doesn't have the same meaning to me like it's like i'm going to my next album i'm going to as it does for you, all right? Seriously, I think it means, to me, that means rebel, all right? Think about it. Raw dog. It's a hot dog with no condiments. You're doing it your own way, all right? You are rebel. You didn't want to put anything on that hot dog. Or it's a dog, that dog is raw, man. He doesn't mess with, he's a rebel. To me, that's what it means. So you totally, like, so when I say it, you have to know, you have to put it in context of who's saying it, all right? I can understand that, right? I wasn't in the US when a lot of these words were about, okay? Like this, that dab word, I didn't know what that was. Nobody walks around town dabbing. So people going, hey, you should dab. I said, I don't even know what that is. It took me like two years after dabbing was over, I figured it out, and then it was over. It's not cool anymore.

01:03:37 John Daub: All right I better stop here. I'm getting in trouble. No one dabs anymore. I dab because I'm two years too late. Pro tip, don't dab, period. That's awesome. I like these pro tips. Please, in the future, just remember who you're talking to. If I say something that offends you, raw dog. That's actually pretty good. I am a rebel. And I do have a cause. One million. But really, the cultural references, I never mean to insult anybody. If it comes out wrong, just remember who it's coming from. A man who's been trapped in Japan for 23 years on his own accord. All right? Dabbing is for the squares. Really? I don't know. That was still good. All right, I just wanted to say thanks to everybody. I went on a little bit longer just because I was excited. I'm, you know, here alone in the middle of the night. If you have any questions, leave them in the, in the, in the comments below, as I always say that. Thanks again for making this possible. One of many. 100,000 subscribers. It's a big deal. Thanks so much for the congratulations. Let's absorb it. It's real. And it's going on the wall. And yeah, this is pretty cool. So I'll see you in the next video, probably tomorrow. Aiming Connie, you got that right. One million. Not too far away. 900. Thousand to go. That sounds like a lot. I've been there before. I'll be there again. Good night, everybody. Good night, Okapi. He doesn't, doesn't talk much. Good night.