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12:48 AM
Would Have Had Millions of Followers as of 2020 Had Oatmeal Did This

Welcome to Oatmeal Life with your host Oatmeal
In this episode, gonna tell you what I think would have got me millions of followers by now, gonna give you a quick rough draft summary outline which may be random, out of order, incomplete, inaccurate, opinionated
After I tell you all about that, I might end this video with a question, would I go back in time and do things differently
Gonna try to tell you why/how I'd already have millions of fans by now, this video probably gonna make me look bad, but then again I already look pretty bad in a lot of ways long story, pros and cons with all of that, lot of fake news about me, and many variables at play, moving parts
I was born in 1985, grew up in a trailer park ghetto, homeschooled, was involved in Bible clubs, interacted with a lot of people, dozens of friends everywhere, I was always involved in social interactions, clubs, etc, growing up in the 1990s
I won a dance contest against girls on Easter, I think I was like 8, I also would draw and write
Started making videos with family and friends in 1996 several days before my 11th birthday
Started attending public high school in 2000 where many people knew me as Cool Kid
Started using the Internet especially around like 1997 and more and more each year, was on AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Yahoo Instant Messenger (YIM), Yahoo Mail, Geo Cities, Disney a little, and my first blog on the web was in the early 2000s on websites like Diary Land
Started blogging on Xanga in 2004 and first started uploading videos to Xanga, then MySpace, Facebook, Google, YouTube
I say all that to say I've been on the Internet past 26+ years, I think I was fairly successful early on in some ways
I said all that as a quick backstory intro to outline my transition to the Internet which started happening especially around 1997 back when I was only twelve years old
Probably should have said not gonna bore you with all the details of my life on the Internet except to say people like Aaron at WOLBI/ABC said they enjoyed watching the Arnold Attic which I was posting to Xanga
With my backstory out of the way, here's a few thoughts on why I'd have a million followers by now as follows
Probably would have had more followers had I focused on an Oatmeal brand for all of my social media networks, video platforms, channels, websites, email addresses, groups, pages, profile accounts, forums, apps, etc
Probably would have had more followers had I stayed more consistent with what/when/how I put out my content online
Had I focused more so on quality over quantity regarding content and everything
Had I stayed in character, like some kind of Oatmeal act which many YouTubers were pretty good at sticking to a script and fast jump-cuts
Like instead iJustine, imagine iOatmeal
Chocolate Oatmeal instead of Chocolate Rain
Ra Ra Roo Roo instead of Numa Numa
Leave Fonnie Filden Alone instead of Britney Spears
All I had to do was stick to a script, remained very skin surface, one dimensional like a character, just keep it simple, consistent, reliable, so the audience knows what to expect
Refrain from uploading so many videos, like way over 10,000+ videos as of 2017 to websites like YouTube who deleted way over 10K+ videos which I didn't have copies to many of those videos which many were like unfinished, unlabeled, incomplete, lacking descriptions, tags, many problems
Had I not made 40+ YouTube channels, around 500 Facebook entities (groups, pages, accounts), and everything else on all the websites spreading myself thin all over the Internet like a chicken with no head
Had I not tried so hard, maybe even too hard, with all my different projects, channels, pages, videos, blogs, websites, articles, photos, memes, changing my Facebook display names, usernames, URLs, HTML code, design, all of these things and more over the decades
People like Rob Noland would say things like who's the real Oatmeal as I was changing my Facebook name so many times while going back and forth between what might be my main profile accounts, username/URLs like JoeyArnoldVN, JoeyArnold, JoeyArnold7, JoeyArnold4, JoeyArnoldTV, JoeyArnoldVEVO, OriginalOatmeal, Ojawall, Bumbaloe, etc; display names like Jill Mill, Doctor Oatmeal, Joey Arnold, etc
I'm not gonna bore you for hours talking about why I did what I did in my life both online and offline, it's a long story in many ways regarding all the different projects, channels, work, content, and everything that I was trying to do
Tho, did talk a little bit about some of this in my Rebranding Oatmeal series
In this video, just wanted to say I think I could have grown an audience to have over a million subscribers on YouTube
But that leads me to a big question, if you could go back in time and do things over knowing all that, would you?
I consider time travel cheating and there may have been problems had I did things differently
By the way, I could be wrong about all this thinking I would have had millions of followers by now
Perhaps I wouldn't have been able to handle more followers, perhaps the stress, and you might say there were times my popularity in school did a number to my ego at times as hundreds of people knew me in the early 2000s which I thought was a lot
You could say some of it was my fault, things that happened in my life, not trying to say I'm just a victim, not trying to say I'm not to blame, tho there's lots of fake news about me intermixed with possible truth if you dig in deep for dirt about me
In some ways you may want to earn your way to having more followers and everything and I've felt at times I didn't always wanna take short-cuts to growing my brand; also felt like I wanted to finish some things before becoming too famous or what not; wanted to build up a loyal following fanbase of like supporters, contributors, partners, Oatmeal Heirs, Titans, Heroes, etc, before going too viral
Perhaps would have had more followers had I been able to only post finished content to my main official channels but instead ended up doing a variety of things at different times for different reasons, it was chaotic at times, it was many different things as you might say I posted too much sometimes or whatever the case might have been
But regardless, the past made me who I am today for better and for worse, say what you want about all of that both good and bad, it would take hours to unpack all of that both right and wrong, not saying I'm great but am saying I have stories worth sharing with the world, feel free to grow your fanbase in my Discord Server