Keeping Up With KL ✦ January 2023

Happy February 1st everyone! 👋 I hope you have all had a great start to the year, certainly better than I have. 😅 It's wild how you can be SO motivated for a refresh and the start of a new year and then LIFE AND THINGS just kinda slap you across the face. But, here's to truly looking up and out with optimism! I always try to be as optimstic as I can.

First, welcome in to all the new patrons that joined during the month of January! This is my monthly newsletter that I write at the start of every single month where I share a ton of information and insight into things and provide updates for what is to come ahead. I always want to be as open and transparent as possible, and many folks here find value in these newsletters and being "involved" in the behind-the-scenes of the channel and stream. It also provides some different content here to sprinkle in between everything else and I really enjoy writing these and sharing. Thank you for being here! 🖤

• # of Videos: 29 total = - 5 public videos ⬇, 0 shorts =, 1 live stream =, and 23 for Patreon ⬆
• Impressions: 2,085,640 ⬇
• Total Views: 95,909 ⬇
• Views on January's Videos: 40,483 (42%) ⬇ 
• CTR (Click-Through Rate): 3.1% ⬆
• Watch Time: 23,212.80 hours ⬇
• Average % Viewed*: 30.3% ⬇
• Unique Viewers: 46,340 ⬇
• Net New Subscribers: 717 ⬇

The symbols beside each data point indicate if the figures are up or down relative to the previous month. If there is an equal sign, there is no change.

* This data point tells me how much of a video that a viewer watched. Because my videos are longer, I like my percentage to be around 30%.

January was a very strange combination of chill and overwhelming. The month started off really great, but I recognized that I had over-committed to content, streams, lives, and then thought I could cram it all in the span of two weeks. 🫠 Thank you for your patience while I realized that I massively needed to get my shit together and actually create and stick to a manageable schedule. Two big edits per week works for me. I realized that I was trying to do three and I can't do three releases consistently until I have editing help, which is still out of reach right now.

Despite only having 5 videos go out on the channel, I am very pleased with how the month went overall! The Terminator brought in a ton of new subscribers and I am very close to hitting 14,000, which is exciting. I have a ton of people excited for Terminator 2, and so am I! 

Thank you to everyone who came to my live stream this past Saturday to celebrate one whole year of doing this reaction thing! Around 30-35 folks were present for the watchalong of A New Hope which was more than I was expecting. That was so much fun to revisit and I have scheduled the same type of stream for The Empire Strikes Back... keep reading to find out more. 

Once again, the stats show the power of having a library of videos on the channel. Only 42% of my views this month were on my new videos that came out.

• Favourite Movie: The Terminator
• Favourite Reaction: Tie between The Terminator and Iron Man 3
• Best Comments Received On: The Terminator
• Highest Liked Video: The Last of Us Episode 2 (99.6%)
• Lowest Liked Video: The Last of Us Episode 1 (97.9%)

I really enjoyed this comment above and it is featured in my Jaws reaction that will be releasing on Friday.

Alright, I've been hinting at a plan for myself and with this plan, I really want to achieve the following:

• No overwhelm (overwhelm resulted in things being pushed back, which I hate doing)
• Better balance between my work life and my down time. Looking at all of this like my corporate career that I spent a decade in.
• Avoid committing to so much that it exceeds my capacity and I don't realize it until it's too late 🙃
• Have a firm release schedule for the channel that I can communicate out regularly to everyone 🥳

I think I've got it figured out, so this is what I'm going with:

• YouTube releases every Monday and Friday at 13:00 MST / 20:00 UTC (same time as I've been doing for ages)
• Right now while TLOU is happening, Monday releases will alternate between MCU and The Last of Us. This means that I'll be "behind" on TLOU reactions compared to everyone else on YouTube, but honestly the reaction space is saturated with TLOU right now so I really don't mind. Full-length watchalongs will be uploaded the week of release though!

With that said, the whole month of February is planned out. So here's what is happening:

• Feb 3: Jaws
• Feb 6: Captain America: The Winter Soldier
• Feb 10: Terminator 2: Judgment Day (this will be a sponsored video)
• Feb 13: The Last of Us Episode 3
• Feb 17: Before Sunset
• Feb 20: Guardians of the Galaxy
• Feb 24: Review & Ranking of Season 6 (and part of Season 7) of The Clone Wars
• Feb 25: YouTube LIVE Stream - Watchalong to The Empire Strikes Back
• Feb 27: The Last of Us Episode 4

I've got my weeks planned/scheduled with set times for all my tasks and I am going to be using my Discord server way more for accountability. I want to stream my editing in there more often. I want to get ahead on recordings (which I'll be able to do while The Last of Us is happening right now). Like I said, I need to treat this like my corporate career. Back in the day, I'd have set days/times in the week for all kinds of things (meetings and co-working sessions mostly). I know my brain needs this.

I'm actually very excited and I hope you all are too. I hope this also clears up any kind of confusion or wondering about what is coming and that sort of thing.

Polls will be returning shortly to help decide movies for March and onward. I still owe you all Independence Day from that giant poll from a while back. That will be in March.

To continue from what I just said above, my set days for recording exclusive reactions (for those of you in those tiers) will be Mondays and Fridays. At this time, I won't have specific release days for those watchalongs, but I like being able to sprinkle them in throughout the week for you all. Once Season 2 of The Bad Batch is over and we're back to two shows, then it should be easier for me to have a set Patreon Exclusive release schedule as well and I can put that in calendar form like the YouTube schedule.

February Member Event

This isn't yet scheduled, but I will be figuring out the date/time for this and communicating that to you all as soon as I know, hopefully within the week. This month's event will be a MOVIE WATCH PARTY. I'll be picking a different time from last month's hangout to cater to some folks in other timezones. More details to come!

Reminders:

• February Member of the Month Draw: Happening THIS FRIDAY. Please make sure your payments are all up-to-date. Member of the Month qualifying info is listed out in my pinned post. 
• Annual Memberships: If you feel like you're gonna be here for a while and you want to save some money, you can switch from monthly to annual at any time and save 10% on your membership. You can do this in your Membership settings. 
• Discord Server: This is the best place to say hello to me every single day and interact with other people in the community in real-time instead of just through Patreon comments. Sync your Discord account in your Patreon settings and you'll be auto-joined into my server. Please reach out to me if you need assistance with getting into the server.

I feel like I have nothing to say here, but hey why not check in with my goals for the year?

• 🟩 = On Track
• 🔶 = Behind
• ⚫ = Not Yet Started

YouTube:

• 🟩 Watch 60 films
• 🟩 Collab with another YouTube reactor to watch a movie or two (Planning is underway! 👀)
• 🟩 Do 3 live movie watchalong streams
• ⚫ Do 3 other live streams
• ⚫ Have a giveaway in one of the live streams

Patreon:

• 🔶 Aim for 5 exclusive TV episodes every week
• 🟩 Have one Patreon member hangout event each month
• 🟩 Rework my About section and my Welcome messages with videos

Twitch/Gaming:

• 🟩 Play at least 10 new games on stream
• ⚫ Do a charity stream
• 🔶 Finish at least one large RPG on my own time outside of streaming
• 🔶 Finish my Animal Crossing island that I've been working on for far too long

Personal:

• 🔶 Journal every other day, even if all I have to say is a few sentences
• 🔶 Practice regular expressions of gratitude for others and love for myself
• 🟩 Give one compliment every day
• 🔶 Go for three 30 minute walks every week
• 🔶 Move my body 3 times per week (yoga, pilates, Ring Fit Adventure/Switch Sports, cross-country skiing)
• 🔶 When I want bread, make it instead of buy it
• 🔶 Finish reading the following series: ACOTAR, The Expanse, and A Song of Ice and Fire
• ⚫ Read the Ahsoka novel

As is typical, I'm decently on track with work stuff and behind on the personal stuff! I'll check in again with this in 3 months or so.

For those of you who set goals for 2023, are you on track with them? Have you completed any? Or is it a mix, like me? Let me know!

- - -

Thank you so much for reading this and for all of your support and kind words. I am feeling so excited about what's to come! There are so many fun movies ahead and so much wonderful TV that I am invested in. I feel so blessed and grateful every day that you all have joined me on this little corner of the internet. Checking into my Discord server every day makes me smile, especially all of you who share memes in there. New comments here on Patreon always gives me a little boost.

Appreciate you all so much! 🥳