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🧵 Thread (159 tweets)
001: let's make 100 videos Curious about the idiosyncrasies of the video format – how do videos "work"? How does YouTube "work"? What can you do with a video format that you cannot do as well in any other format? https://t.co/DuustLNPVg
002: my accent and voice spoiler: I'm Singaporean, and I love that you can tell it from my accent some thoughts about accents as class/status markers some thoughts about pitch and pacing when we speak we are always singing https://t.co/0cmS11zNqU
003: how I think about building a twitter following which is a microcosm of my broader strategy for making friends and connecting with people in general find kind+interesting people, be nourishing and supportive in the replies, be clear abt your niche https://t.co/gqX72eH3YB
004: book review for surely you're joking mr feynman starting to get sleepy and slightly rambly, accidentally recorded this with my mic a whole foot away from me 😂 might redo it someday. or not https://t.co/FnktlPCYto
005: aesthetic resonance is when the cinematic universe of your life is coherent, with callbacks and inside jokes across domains talismans are objects that represent meaningful stories to you (eg wedding rings). you can make your own talismans https://t.co/S0XkvGZfjs
006: a high level of polish is not a desirable end-state in-of-itself; the point is to make good content first it becomes interesting when you start thinking/seeing it as a resource management problem – life is too short to waste time polishing turds https://t.co/n0XU3f3xGY
007: My first video essay!! Some part of me thought I would *never* do this, that I don't have the skills, don't know how video editors work. Take that, limiting self-beliefs! I'm a YouTuber now!! insane how good it feels to ship this https://t.co/Xnkof7M4DG
analytics snapshot https://t.co/gF0V0jCOye
008: gonna do a couple of book reviews while I continue to work on my 2nd video essay. Here's a book that changed my life – Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power https://t.co/QgUAsFht6B
009: The War of Art. If you do anything creative at all, I highly recommend this. Short and easy read, yet somehow lots of powerful points from someone who truly knows and lives the creative's struggle. Bound to find a burning truth that you're overlooking https://t.co/Ee1VsjJ2Ix
010: getting a little more precise about articulating my youtube strategy for the year. I was getting stuck because of premature optimization. going to do large volumes of 5-10 min ad-libbed videos, then build more polished work on top https://t.co/3oWmKoTzDt
011: "I want to be rich and famous" isn't really an ambitious thing, not intrinsically. You can get there by forcing yourself to playing other people's games well, and you can find yourself miserable at the end. Real ambition changes the game altogether https://t.co/7bJgIqDtoF
making youtube thumbnails is shaping up to be one of my favorite parts of making youtube videos https://t.co/Qq0LmGuVex
012: nerdposting is, amongst many other things, also a way of developing shared humanity with other nerds. networks of nerds can develop into networks of friends. and it's just so cool to always be learning new things and seeing things in new ways https://t.co/nzL5OCO1Pk
013: I want to explore the question of, WHY are Singaporeans so kiasu (scared to lose), and kiasee (scared to die)? Why are we so SCARED? 🤔 I think it’s rooted in unaddressed trauma, way back from WW2. Can we approach it from a place of compassion? ❤️ https://t.co/fOUF1fxW6G
took me 13 videos to start thinking about a better lighting setup 😅 https://t.co/EqEBOWguQl
014: FRIENDS! - the paradox of loneliness + hyper-connectedness - why "will you be my friend" is a bad question - pedestalizing is dehumanising - social media is optimised for content consumption, not connection - standardized tests atomize people https://t.co/L0LrSJVd8N
crossed 500 subs! 🥳 https://t.co/5BSYU2Pjjp
check out the quality of comments I get!! 🔥🔥🔥 https://t.co/L0LrSJVd8N https://t.co/Lfo8kj01Uh
@visakanv i am... more impressed than usual o_O https://t.co/VcDzk2xO9Z
@sharanvkaur https://t.co/4DDGJGoxTB
015: MOTIVATION! or... how I *don't* think about it - riffs on project management - against puritanical self-flagellation - seeking aesthetic resonance - how late I learned to be guilty about my reading 😂 - navigating by excitement https://t.co/fAdglEHHi1
when I'm done doing an ad-lib video, I watch it on 2x speed and do timestamped annotations so I can find relevant bits from old videos if I need to in the future https://t.co/JqUdowmU4C
016: NAVIGATING CONTEXT CLASH! - each culture is a context - narratives are negotiable - sourceland vs diaspora conflicts - people who get angry about questions - playground analogy re: minor scrapes vs outright abuse - allow the world to surprise you https://t.co/P3SQYJ6N4M
017: MASCULINITY! - men are scared of men, just as women are - people are quick to say "daddy issues" but where *was* daddy? - how I navigate "men are trash" - elite commandos behave in a much more nourishing and supportive way than wannabe tough guys do https://t.co/qnkFxUi3vF
018: PUBLIC LIFE! - how intellectuals create public - what hayley williams taught me - what is one true friend worth? - narcissist PR works bc we can’t shut up about it - publics are tyrannised by assholes who retaliate excessively - learn to coordinate https://t.co/unKTQ8zGBR
Mid-February analytics https://t.co/5rGXFeCTS9
019: STORYTELLING! - we're born in the middle of stories - if you don't craft your stories, you inhabit the ones you inherit - we are not isolated snowglobes but waves in the ocean of existence - languages are massive multiplayer games spanning millennia https://t.co/vZhddN4TKP
@nosilverv that is the explicit goal, yes https://t.co/9tdljnUNm7
while plotting out my youtube strategy, I find myself thinking that I intend to embody a position that's sort of a mashup of both contrapoints and jordan peterson. this will either turn out quite interesting, or I will be pelted with rocks by everybody from all sides. fun
020: PROJECT MANAGEMENT! - some people dick around, others build cathedrals & rocketships - do 100 things: anything done repeatedly becomes interesting - it's "rational" to assume you won't be able to do what you haven't been able to do. it's also wrong https://t.co/JTPzN9pavn
021: THINKING! - some thinkers are dysfunctional addicts, but most people can probably afford to think more - school doesn't really teach you how to think - abstract thinking vs instrumental thinking - thinking is harder when there are feelings involved https://t.co/s75M1ajDgi
I have learned from unfortunate experience that one should do mic tests before recording 30 minutes of video https://t.co/2H9pzM5FXX
022: COMMUNITY! featuring @bobbyscar - resisting being dominated by The Algorithm - why my investment banker friends are miserable - my magical trip to san francisco - reconsidering my aversion to "extraction", which bottlenecks my contributions https://t.co/M9fuFxh7iP
023: CROSSED $2,000 IN EBOOK SALES! - challenge for me isn't to have material, but to frame the material in a way that's useful to the reader - my own criticisms of v1.0 + how I think about v1.1 - thoughts on piracy - challenges of different mediums https://t.co/xesILFmZT8
024: DEPRESSION! (lol) - similarity to fevers (unpleasant condition to facilitate change) - "life is an ordeal advertised as an adventure" - instead of telling people to cheer up, maybe be earnestly curious abt their experience - the strength in sadness https://t.co/OIPgqGgOKq
just did the math and I've uploaded a little under 14 hours of video so far seems like a lot and also not that much, all at once – classic 25% milestone vibes https://t.co/cKO2y65aOo
025: OPTIMISM! - a book is a fundamentally optimistic endeavor - I believe that I haven't met some of my best friends yet; it's just math - play-acted optimism - do you allow the world to surprise you? - why social groups become less surprising over time https://t.co/zlXh5XWD3B
700 subs! 🥳 https://t.co/MI1H3W6kw0
026: BOREDOM! - boredom = tiredness + clutter + perfectionism + opacity - boredom in relationships - the legitimate profundity of "sparks joy" - boredom can be framed as narrative disengagement/helplessness - "going nowhere fast" - avoidance is a trap https://t.co/tNtVxdfEvu
027: RECREATING MYSELF - the pain of being inarticulate - the conflict within the self as a conflict btwn diff ppl - holding a grudge against life as self-preservation - the impossibility of self-conquest via coercion - cultivating a nourishing presence https://t.co/QuF1KUEv3L
028: THE BEGINNING OF INFINITY, featuring @DavidDeutschOxf! - parochial problems - the purpose of conversation - creativity and static vs dynamic societies - the danger of creativity - tolerance for deviants - rational vs anti-rational memes - much more https://t.co/TNKfOISk9y
029: ISOLATION! - how we use social echolocation to figure out who we are - a marriage can be a lonely place - social ugh fields / group politics - unconscious internal censorship is isolating - how writing set me free, both in the moment and beyond it https://t.co/zz2ESO28lc
030: dune book review https://t.co/QTEl7UyOsA
@m_ashcroft possibly most of it! https://t.co/Ehq2CJy8zC https://t.co/J0GWGcDiNW
one of my recurring talking points to anybody who's willing to listen: any small group of people loosely-but-truly aligned on something can create powerful vectors by producing public-facing work that's directed at each other talking about the creation of scenes, basically
@m_ashcroft possibly most of it! https://t.co/Ehq2CJy8zC https://t.co/J0GWGcDiNW
one of my recurring talking points to anybody who's willing to listen: any small group of people loosely-but-truly aligned on something can create powerful vectors by producing public-facing work that's directed at each other talking about the creation of scenes, basically
031: born a crime book review https://t.co/ULU7eAARRh
032: the dispossessed book review https://t.co/qnb32WN4c0
033: CRISIS! now's the time to be a little crazy – whatever it is that you've been resisting, holding back – whatever it is you've been wanting to say, do, try – as long as you're not hurting anybody else – do it! do it! do it! or not. it's up to you https://t.co/EwpSgCYG1b
034: BEING PROLIFIC be so prolific that you run out of material and forget who you are be aware of imperfections in the process and the output and be okay with them as you keep going review, revisit, scrutinize, play https://t.co/s6lN3SQcQc
035: REROUTING I think it's very important in times of isolation to be very specific and deliberate with yourself about what you're looking forward to. video games, books, little projects, calls with friends. ask yourself what's up &what you're gonna do https://t.co/KcxIPNkUcO
the other cat https://t.co/zwRpdK2XJC
036: THE CREATIVE LIFE, featuring @mayli - creativity as an act of service rather then a selfish act (but don't make it burden either!) - making for different audiences, exploring different mediums - buncha lil process details - enjoying the surprises https://t.co/n82Unp1Okw
037: QUESTIONS, featuring @katebaumli - open questions = open secret for making friends with nerds (curiosity-directed people) - theory vs practice - abstract ideas' impact on emotional states - managing your mental state - meditation and stress spirals https://t.co/HBNQv8J12s
038: STATUS REGULATION - disparities in how people treat other people trying to do things in public - what does it mean to "deserve" attention, an audience, etc? what will "the public" tolerate? - people who feel constrained by a culture will enforce it https://t.co/RrOu8FSiDY
1,000 subs https://t.co/5ghtto6YfT https://t.co/46Z1IRqAPU
039: masters of doom review great book that dives into the details of what it's like to make something, be rewarded for it, and deal with the consequences of that success – the struggles, the conflicts and so on. highly recommend if you were a 90s gamer https://t.co/UOJ598u3kX
040: the last of us 2 review https://t.co/9tE4LXyjVa
can’t sleep, too many video ideas https://t.co/uVLElGv3mz
041: fooling around on the guitar and trying to explain everything I know, which isn’t a lot https://t.co/RHTgpZSIo6
a friend asked me why I put in so much effort into making all these youtube videos when there are so few views per video see the view counts on the left? then see the counts on the right? soon they will start to cross 1,000/vid. then 10,000/vid. then it'll seem "obvious" https://t.co/fGw9KWe48n
042: MAKING STUFF, ft @shl we talk about meeting + having conversations with thousands of people, the architecture of project management, the nature of learning things (painting, writing, music), the psychology of sales/marketing, compounding growth... https://t.co/PGqh52kqNU
@vikdug @shl Yeah! https://t.co/sAHwYQrXZ9
043: growing up with a family business https://t.co/eARnFC0i3p
044: threading (twitter threads and beyond) https://t.co/LnWSOAKQYZ
045: mass effect series overview https://t.co/zGulAzeNy3
january analytics vs july analytics https://t.co/S3ZuSxHMx7
046: being a musician https://t.co/lKQewvztbc
047: god of war review https://t.co/Qy7VjmO3tN
048: a life of reading https://t.co/zCK0fDDMCc
My comments section is a lovely place https://t.co/J91NLq77bQ
049: marketing https://t.co/cvaOwZjzmB
050: 🇸🇬 https://t.co/WL0gJv06zs
051: halfway done! https://t.co/D8IAoBhGS1
052: more guitar practice https://t.co/Y8l8DD42mZ
053: book review: high output management https://t.co/cgdeZWt6mw
054: game review: mass effect andromeda https://t.co/n4pg7CMLQK
055: growing up online https://t.co/832LPK6CWh
056. 💪🏾 https://t.co/wvgksjwDBv
057. was planning to make this in a couple of weeks' time, but the timeline nudged me into making it today. all my IRL friends have heard some version of this video 😂 https://t.co/rCj1xEPTWI
058: game review: uncharted series https://t.co/fnz3t651RY
059: thinking about sovereignty and mandatory conscription in the context of a city-state https://t.co/sU1qhi34Fv
060: life as adventure https://t.co/7Jq7Fd6X2W
061: i'm 1/3rd done re-reading and note-taking what i've written in @1000wordvomits. will do another update at 500k and 750k (and 1m) https://t.co/DCiZyNSEaN
062: being mindful about cultivating the audience you want https://t.co/cYB5lIDumC
milestone: friends video just crossed 1,000 views https://t.co/GzSaPOPuFC
063: appropriately full of digressions and asides https://t.co/M6urYcvTNS
064: coercion is a tool that contaminates relationships, including and especially the one you have with yourself https://t.co/Kkj4LlQPI0
july analytics vs august analytics https://t.co/MHoOaM32NF
065: talk about what you love https://t.co/JuVS53q3nB
066: this one doesn't even have any point to it, it's like a filler episode but it's moderately fun IMO https://t.co/7yv5Ieoyi4
067: when to stop (2/3rds of the way to 100 vids!) https://t.co/gfriIdOSGP
068: playing with narratives – personal narratives, broader narratives, making sense of how you make sense https://t.co/bsITJfhWl8
069 (nice): the pact I made with myself as a kid– find a way out of the dull circumstances that I was in, learn to be creative... and to be the open, supportive, nourishing big-brother figure that I never had, for those struggling out there like i did https://t.co/2gNsck5fYu
just occurred to me that I could teach myself how to do cuts by messing around with my outtakes https://t.co/ZRdg0Tp6d7
070: more guitar stuff, this time stitching together a bunch of shorter vids I made for twitter. trying to think of what to do next with these. think I wanna do a bunch of melodies from video games https://t.co/zHjo9wl4Hf
071: finally uploaded a conversation I had with @tuckermax a few weeks ago – it was particularly cool to talk openly and casually about things like trauma, subconscious pain avoidance, self-delusion and so on https://t.co/YgB2Pgj2pj
072: baby steps https://t.co/cD0fUSVOPr
073: book review: confessions of an advertising man https://t.co/XOOyFF0Ekq
Camera Upgrade!! https://t.co/LAabDPzpei
074: taste https://t.co/V2esTwYQFm
075: emotions https://t.co/RJXyLrX8l7
testing the mic + camera at the same time wait for the clap https://t.co/hNN3JM2Jzq
076: on singapore's long-standing reputation for being "sterile" https://t.co/02dYxkQsVY
trying to listen to a backing track and play guitar and record video and record audio all at once is v disorienting, I feel like my playing suffers because it's all so unfamiliar cool thing about this tho is I get to mix the audio from both the camera + the mic lots to learn 🤓 https://t.co/GwjktPA6CL
77: extended version of the above – more of a "recording setup practice" than guitar practice https://t.co/0ZFHEBY6jH
Cool thing about youtube is that past a certain point your subscriber count keeps going up even if you haven’t uploaded anything in a while - crossed 1.5k recently despite no uploads in ~3 weeks (More soon!) https://t.co/Jy2ei909HY
078: been procrastinating on making videos because i've been sitting around procrastinating on working on my ebooks https://t.co/NATR8Eqrfn
079: Project Management Two: Electric Boogaloo https://t.co/zldKfSn91t
"You wanna say something?" https://t.co/zzSceZIMuD
80: Most people give up on their resolutions. What this means is – if you do what resolve to do, you demonstrate yourself to be an exceptional individual. And exceptional individuals get exceptional support. it's a virtuous cycle https://t.co/w2Y1EG1kwd
Haven’t posted a new video in about 3 weeks (busy with ebook and military stuff) but still got 130+ new subs, 3,000 views, 17,000 watch-minutes (~283 hours) https://t.co/abjZIyP7Y6
was going through my email and found this GIF from YouTube congratulating me on 1,000 subs (am now at 1.79k) #1kcreator https://t.co/JEXxebXbgI
081: time to get back in the game https://t.co/eA3wTYzHfZ
082: advice for people in their 20s, part 1 particularly want to solicit questions in the comments here https://t.co/XYarzcaw94
ooh, two milestones in a day! 🥳 🎉 2000 subs https://t.co/TWzFefDSWT
