kaiielle

Trail Thoughts ✦ August 2022

Added 2022-09-01 21:08:33 +0000 UTC

Hello Adventure Club! Happy September 1st. 🥳 I absolutely love this time of year because the weather is starting to get cooler, kids and college students are going back to school, and it just feels like a fresh start!

First, welcome in to all the new patrons who joined us here in August or today! This is my Trail Thoughts newsletter that I write at the start of every month. Within this newsletter, I share my data and analytics from my Twitch streams and YouTube channel with you all, talk about the previous month and what happened, and discuss what I have planned for the month ahead. These are posts that many folks look forward to reading and it provides some different content here on Patreon to sprinkle in between everything else. I really enjoy writing these, sharing my progress, and being transparent with you all about how things are going for me on my two main platforms!

I know most of you are here because of my YouTube channel and might not even know that I stream on Twitch. Twitch is the platform I've been creating on the longest and is still a platform that I dedicate a lot of time to and earn income through, so I like to talk about it first and then dive into the reaction stuff from YouTube and Patreon! 😊

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August Twitch Stats

# of Streams: 10 📈
Avg Viewers, incl. Hosts & Raids: 36 📉
Avg Viewers, excl. Hosts & Raids: 30 📉
Unique Viewers: 1,383 📈
Unique Chatters: 202 📈
Chat Messages: 5,627 (avg 563 per stream) 📈
New Followers: 40 (avg of 4 per stream) 📈📉 - more followers total, but fewer per stream
Subscriptions: 79 (avg 7.9 per stream) 📈📉 - more subscribers total, but fewer per stream

The symbols beside each data point indicate if the figures are up or down relative to the previous month.

August Twitch Thoughts

It was really lovely to finally get back into the swing of things with my Twitch streams after only streaming three times in July. I continued my playthroughs of Dragon Age: Origins and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II. I also hosted two fun streams with friends as part of Summer HomieFest 2022! I hosted an American Trucking Simulator stream and a Euro Trucking Simulator 2 stream. Both of those were so much fun!

In addition to those streams that I hosted, I was also a guest in three other streams. On August 19th, I was part of a Canada vs. USA Game Show Night on my friend Slay3K's channel. My team sadly did not score a single point and we lost 4-0. 😭 On August 26th, I played some Pummel Party with my best friends on my friend HR_Guy's channel. Finally, last night I played in a custom Fall Guys lobby with some of my close friends and other really wonderful people on my friend SoEverdream's channel (I was only present for the first couple hours of the game).

September on Twitch

Every year in September, Twitch launches SUBtember and discounts the price of Twitch subs for the whole month. So if you have been considering subscribing to my Twitch stream, this month is the best time to do so!

The discount applies to brand new subscriptions, subscriptions upgraded to multi-month, and for folks who have only previously been gifted subs or had subbed to me with their free Prime sub. The discounts are:

20% off 1-month subs
25% off 3-month subs
30% off 6-month subs

Another exciting thing about this month is that September 18th is my streaming anniversary! My first stream was way back on September 18, 2019. It both feels like a lifetime ago, but also doesn't because I vividly remember my streams from back then. I have done an anniversary stream every year to celebrate, but last year I decided to combine my streaming anniversary and my birthday stream into one stream which happened on my birthday at the end of October and that was a lot of fun! I am strongly considering doing the same again this year. Sept 18 falls on a Sunday, so I'll be streaming regardless but I am probably just going to stick with Dragon Age: Origins that night. Stay tuned for a formal announcement and plan for my birthday/anniversary stream in October.

This month, I will continue to play through Dragon Age: Origins and Star Wars: KOTOR II. I doubt these games will wrap up by month-end. They'll most likely end sometime in October.

Charity Stream

On September 24th, I will be a guest in a charity event where we are raising funds for Fuck Cancer! My friends Inanda and KingArgaroth will be hosting a game called Would They Lie To You? I will be a guest on this stream, playing with a bunch of wonderful friends. There are two teams and how the game works is that a player on a team will read out a statement, that could be a truth or a lie. The players on the opposing team have the opportunity to question the player, who has to be as convincing as possible (especially if it's a lie). A correct guess equals one point for that team and an incorrect guess equals one point for the team whose player made the statement.

I'm so excited that we are raising money for Fuck Cancer again. We have done this in the past and it's always been so much fun. Inanda and King have hosted this game before, but I was not a participant last time, so I'm really excited to take part in it.

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August YouTube Stats

# of Videos: 16 ⏩ 2 public videos, 1 live stream, and 13 for Patreon 📈
Impressions: 604,243 📉
Views: 27,256 📉
CTR (Click-Through Rate): 3.5% 📉
Watch Time: 4,814 hours 📉
Average % Viewed: 19% - how much of the video did viewers watch on average 📈 (this is kind of an irrelevant metric since a lot of folks click on a reaction video to watch just a scene or two)
Unique Viewers: 15,082 📉
Net New Subscribers: 93 📉

The symbols beside each data point indicate if the figures are up or down relative to the previous month.

August YouTube Thoughts

This month was the month of "getting back into the swing of things" and I just want to say another big thank you for your patience. This month, I published two public videos (Rain Man and Batman) and did my FIRST YOUTUBE LIVE STREAM, which was an incredible success and I had so much fun chatting and connecting with YouTube viewers!

I am very pleased with the data and numbers from August, though I am eager to ramp things back up again and continue trying to grow my channel and this community. 💛 My brain feels a lot better than it did in July and the first half of August, which has me all excited and feeling good. We'll see how long this sticks around, but hopefully for a while! Especially since we are quickly approaching fall and then winter, my two favourite seasons!

Thank you for being a part of all of this!

September on YouTube

I'll be working really hard this month, not just to put content out on YouTube and Patreon, but to also have content done and scheduled for the period of Oct 2-16. I mentioned earlier in August that I have a friend coming to visit from the UK for those two weeks and I'll be spending pretty much the entire time with them. This means I will be away from my PC a lot. So prep work for that time away will be going on behind-the-scenes this month.

In September, we have YouTube edited reactions for Man of Steel (2013) and Galaxy Quest (1999) releasing. And both full-length watchalongs and YouTube edits will go out for Alien (1979), Notting Hill (1999), and Before Sunrise (1995). The movie that wins this poll (voting closes tomorrow) will go out in October and other polls this month will also be October movies. Some will be themed (Halloween / horror / thriller), so if you want to be able to vote, make sure you're in the right tiers for that.

I am still working on the edits for my Review + Ranking videos of The Clone Wars Season 3 and Stranger Things 4. They will both go out this month, as well.

Overall, it's going to be a good and busy month! So much happening! I will be taking extra care and caution to make sure that I don't *burn outtttt*.

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Patreon Updates

Today I made my announcement to folks on YouTube that they can now have a bit of a "free trial" run here on Patreon with free access to some of my reactions to see how it works! I had shared this info here, but you can click here to read the official post on YouTube (a like on the post would be appreciated). I'm very excited to make this announcement and this is the best workaround/offer that I can do for folks until Patreon comes out with their own free trial setup (which I'm hoping will be in 2023).

For those of you in the Exclusive Reaction tiers, we'll be wrapping up Season 4 of The Clone Wars this week and diving into Season 5 next week. There are only fourteen arc's left, which means that I will be finishing it this month. 🤯 Watching it, at least. The last 2-3 arcs may be shared here in early October.

I had intended to share my reactions to Andor as soon as the show started, but I'm re-evaluating what I'm doing and I think that I will just stick to The Clone Wars and House of the Dragon this month. I will watch and record the Andor episodes, but they won't be released until The Clone Wars is over and we've closed that chapter. In October, we'll have HotD and Andor going side-by-side and then when HotD is over, I'll start watching The Bad Batch. And then maybe we incorporate another non-Star Wars show. 👀

And before anyone asks about The Rings of Power, I will be watching this but it will be on my own time and not for reaction content. I think it's really important that I leave some stuff for me to consume on my own time without the pressure of reacting to it for videos. It's a similar feeling to having dedicated video games that I don't stream while I'm live on Twitch. I'm excited to check out this show, and if you're in my Discord server, we can talk about it in there!

And Your Regular Patreon Reminders...

Declined Payments: I'll be sending out DM's to anyone with a declined payment on September 5th. I believe you lose access to my posts within the next few days, so make sure to check that your payment has gone through!
Annual Memberships: At any time during your membership here, you can switch from monthly to annually and receive a 10% discount on the cost of the tier by doing so! Just go to your Membership settings for me to do this.
Exclusive Reactions: My Snack Break discounted tier that has 100 slots always has availability and there are spaces available this month too! If you've been considering checking out some of my exclusive stuff, the library is getting quite stacked with videos now, especially as we make our way to the final seasons of The Clone Wars. Come join us! Switch tiers in your Membership settings. And if you would like to see what the exclusive stuff is all about, click here to check some out.
Discord Server: The best place to say hello to me every single day and interact with other people in the community in real-time. Sync your Discord account in your Patreon settings and you'll be auto-joined to the server.

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Other Things & Life Stuff

If you're in my Discord server or follow me on Twitter/Instagram, you'll know that I've been working on my physical health (and mental, of course) by going for walks every day. They vary in length and distance depending on the day, but last week I managed to get in 30km which felt really good, so this week I am striving to hit 35km (5km per day). This month, my focus is to work my way up to 50km in a week and then try and stay there consistently. The cooler weather will really help get me out the door, so I'm so excited! I try and take these walks midday in between doing YouTube/Patreon work to give myself that much needed break for my eyes and body from sitting at my desk staring at computer screens. In addition to this, I've been working to get my sleep adjusted to "better" hours, and trying to eat better (and not as much). Taking those small baby steps to get my body and brain back to a feel-good state. I'm still trying to get the motivation back to get into strength training again. Maybe October. For now, I just love my walks.

Apart from that, not much to report on in the life stuff category. I am planning out the itinerary for the two weeks my friend is visiting in October. I'll definitely be in tourist guide/chauffeur mode, but my friend asked me to also schedule us things to see/do that I haven't done before either. So now I get to sit and think of what has always been on my list to go see and do, but I just haven't yet!

Finally, I will leave you with a few photos as I always do!

Ella being very adorable:

High-school KL! Grade 9 (top-left), Grade 10 (top-right), Grade 11 (bottom left) and Grade 12 (bottom right). I dug out my yearbooks and took these photos to share in Discord, as some friends in another server were sharing their yearbook photos.

A beautiful sunset (no filter) from the other night while I was out walking Ella. These colours didn't last very long, so I'm glad we walked when we did!