Reflecting on Two Years of Second Wind | Unpacked

Congratulations all around! My first and only patreon from someone I don’t know personally and worth every penny. Love that I don’t always agree with you all either and your willingness to engage, be boring if this was just an echo chamber :D

Nick - as someone who has also had to step in to support family after parental suicide attempts, I feel you buddy. Trying to navigate that kind of chaos while also keeping an independent business afloat is something no-one knows they can do until they're not given an option. I don't know if Patreon has dms, but if it does, they're open. Massive kudos to the whole team for this milestone.

Y’all have weathered so much and grown so much to not only make this happen at all but to also reach year two. So proud and impressed, and hope that there are many more years to come!

As an Escapist Patreon supporter and then a Second Wind Patreon supporter the moment both were open I am glad you have survived a second year. I'm disappointed Frost and Will have been memory-holed from this reminiscence. Frost's Cold Take bolstered your channel's first year viewing figures by over 4 million and Will's work on Adventure is Nigh, both in-front of and behind the scenes with subtitling the remasters, were contributions that I have not forgotten and still appreciate. Sure their parting was acrimonious, and no-one is blameless if you're all honest with yourselves, but it has been a year and you all ought to have buried the hatchet by now. Second Wind was their joint creation in the first year as much as it was by the work and support of everyone else. Peace. ☮

While I wish politics never slipped in, I understand they are going to. Regardless, I've listened to a lot of podcasts over the years, I've ignored a lot of people asking for money. I've been a member ever since the YouTube algorithm thing a few months ago and I don't plan on going anywhere.

I was a member of the Escapist discord community. I was online the day the firing happened. I remember the sudden panic in all the chats, everyone wondering what the hell was going to happen next. I got invited over to another server directly by some of the people who quit. It was just a "let's rally the troops" type basic discord, no channels, just a place for us all to hold together. And the last thing I did before leaving the Escapist server to stick with the people who had made it possible, was spam post the Helluva Boss 2 Minutes Notice song on the team's behalf, on every single Escapist channel before leaving ahead of any attempt to ban me. What I have seen since has astounded me. That little emergency discord became Ground Zero for an explosive growth of success and creativity, with friends and ideas coming up from every corner. New shows popped up left and right, Fully Ramblomatic was put, and Second Wind began with "bum, balls, wankity wank, labia flatulent GUSH". And if that didn't set the stage for the laughs to come I don't know what did. I'm happy and proud to be one of the first patrons of Second Wind, and I plan to stick around for a long time to come. You guys rock, both on and off screen. Here's to years of fun to come!

Echoing my comment on YouTube... Congratulations, you all should be very proud of everything you've achieved. It has been amazing watching Second Wind grow over the past two years. Here's to many more!

Thanks for the retrospective, and all that you do! It’s just wonderful.

Congrats on 2 years!

Jeeezus, only $3000 of severance??? That's peanuts for all the time you put into the Escapist...

Coincidentally I was in a rather difficult time in my own life when I found out (well after the fact) that Second Wind had started up. I'll be quite frank, I didn't know of the historical drama and only knew the the Escapist video team and Gamurs had parted ways. I recognised pretty quick that Second Wind was going to keep my attention and be the particular kind of laughs I wanted. At the time, I wasn't responsibly able to become a Patreon supporter, but that changed a few months later when the difficult times passed. Second Wind was one of (if not the) first Patreons I started supporting. Congratulations on making a Patreon subscriber out of me when I wasn't before in any capacity, and on making this work for 2 years straight!

Thanks Nick. I’m glad your mom is ok

Shoutout to the community you have built as well. SW Twitch chat(❤️HME❤️) is friendly and fun in a way that I don't see enough in gaming.

Great essay! Congratulations and thanks for the past two years. Looking forward to year 3!

Congratulations all, here's to many more Second Wind anniversaries!

Congrats, Nick & Team! Those weeks after you quit the Escapist were mad exciting from a fan PoV, but must have been so stressful. So happy that you've all found success since. (As an aside, I can't be the only person who hear the last five notes of the Unpacked intro theme and sings "Stand up for your rights!", can I?)

I had never noticed that there was quite a bit of Alt Right folks at the Escapist, which now makes even more sense why it was toxic and unbearable.

Who's cutting onions? Personally, the last two years have also been the most difficult to navigate since getting sober, there were countless days where getting out of bed seemed impossible, and very few if anything could distract me from the darkness that creeps in and embeds itself like a parasite... But I found myself every day coming to the Patreon, hitting up the incredible community on Discord (the first and only I've ever joined) and getting out of my head thanks to the incredible team of people who share their love, dedication and passions unabashedly... Somehow I found a way to pick myself up and inspired by this group of weirdos who have secured their place in the world I too decided to forge my own path and create my own place in the hospitality industry, and I give most of the credit for lighting the fire under my ass so that I can proudly say that early next year I'll be launching my own private chef business... I couldn't have gotten here without this team, this community, and the arrogance of saying "well if they can rise above and overcome, so can I" Cheers to you all, blessings on you and your houses, be well, and thank you for sticking it out 🍻🍻🍻 And if any of you find your way to Southern California, I got a free meal with your names on it

Glad I could be part of the Patreon. Here's to the next year.