“I guess the easiest explanation, without boring people, is I didn’t love what I did anymore.”
It’s been just over two years since we’ve had an upload from Chai Cameron. For those of you who remember, it was a fun challenge video, where he tried to name every country in the world, something we don’t feel we could successfully accomplish. It was the typical fun video we’d come to expect from Chai, but what us and many of his viewers were unaware of was that it would be his last for a very long time.
Two years on, we’ve finally had a new upload from Chai, where he explains his decision to stop uploading to YouTube and what he’s been up to since that last video in December 2017.
“I guess the easiest explanation, without boring people, is I didn’t love what I did anymore,” he explains toward the beginning of the video. “Turns out that the world isn’t so simple, and it turns out that the older you get, what you want in the world changes.” While acknowledging that, to some, YouTube might appear to be a fun and easy job, he also shares that his dreams of what he wanted to do with his life changed as he got older, and making videos on YouTube no longer fit into that future.
While Chai had started his channel loving making videos, he found that toward the end of 2017 he wasn’t enjoying what he was creating anymore. Not wanting to make content that he felt was dishonest, he decided to stop uploading to his channel altogether and move to a platform that was better suited for the content he was interested in: Twitch.
Through Twitch, Chai shares that he’s re-discovered “that same feeling that I felt what I was 17, making videos.” While he enjoys playing the videos games he streams on the site, what he loves more is the community he’s managed to build as a result of his move. While he does apologize in the video for not informing his viewers of his decision to quit YouTube, he does acknowledge the support they’ve offered him over the years and invites them to follow his journey over on Twitch.
As for his future on YouTube? While Chai doesn’t make any promises in regards to returning to the platform, he does say he’s considering starting up his channel again, with content he finds better represents who he is now as a person, “I like making s**t, and I think I overthink it. I think I had this idea of creative integrity and I think that’s all bulls**t. I’m 26 now, dude. I just like making stuff and playing video games.”
We, for one, can’t wait to see what Chai creates.
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