Wrap-Up for 2025

Happy New Year from the Folding Ideas Team!

We have some new things happening at Folding Ideas in 2026 which you can find later in this post. But before we start talking about the future…

Wrap-Up for 2025

Hello Patrons, I’m Crystal, Dan’s Executive Assistant &c. For 2026, Dan handed over Patreon updates to yours truly. It’s me you’ll be hearing from throughout the year, with Dan still popping in for the big drops (see: Jarhead and drafts) and additional bonus content. If there’s behind-the-scenes things that interest you, or see something here or on the channel you’d like to hear more about, drop comments along the way. I’ll be sifting through them for possible inspiration.

I thought we’d start with sharing some 2025 channel stats, a little Folding Ideas Wrapped if you will:

• 2025 was our first full year of being full-time team

• We worked with 12 other contributors, 9 of whom were voice-over artists

• We traveled to 6 locations for events and on-location shoots

• Our farthest locations were Kochi, Japan for Dan and Seattle, WA for Crystal

• Our closest trips were Dinosaur Provincial Park in the same province for Dan and Boston, MA for Crystal

• Nathan stayed home to keep writing last year, but home is in Australia, so if Dan had to travel to Nathan for a writing session it would've been his farthest travel by far (~4000km farther)

• Dan made 3 public appearances, presenting panels at both PAX East in May and PAX West in August/September, then made his first full-time appearance working the afternoon shift during the week-long Desert Bus for Hope event in November

• Folding Ideas passed 40 million watch hours and

• Folding Ideas hit 1 million subscribers! 

Based on views the top 10 videos locked in at the end of 2025 were:

1. Mantracks

2. Line Goes Up

3. This is Financial Advice

4. The Future is a Dead Mall

5. Call of Duty: Ghosts: Paranoia, Power, and Tungsten Rods

6. I Don’t Know James Rolfe

7. Idris Elba Gold

8. The Nostalgia Critic The Wall

9. Why it’s rude to suck at warcraft

10. Contrapreneurs: The Mikkelson Twins

New for 2026

Over here at Folding Ideas we cover the bases for typical New Year’s traditional fresh starts. Crystal comes up with a motto; for 2026 it’s “Make Do.” Nathan is trying out a Word this year and has chosen “Moxie.” Dan said “I don’t make those.” (Not even when his assistant tells him it’s for Patreon content purposes.) However, as a team we’ve gotten ambitious for 2026.

As famous Michigander, best-selling author, leadership guru John C. Maxwell says: Teamwork makes the dream work. We got together in the liminal space between the end of one year and the fuzzy early days of the next to discuss Dan’s vision for the channel in the coming year. The results of that meeting have laid out a foundation for 2026 that we’re pretty excited about as a crew. A few of those things you’ve already seen, some I’ve been cleared to share, and some you’ll have to wait for. Here’s a quick rundown of things to look forward to with us:

• As mentioned above, Dan has beknighted me Keeper of the Patreon Updates. This means consistent monthly posts.

• We’ve laid out a slate for 2026 that includes two videos in the early part of the year. The first of which – Jarhead – you’ve already seen.

• The second video involved Dan signing an NDA for [Redacted] so you’ll have to wait for more than that teaser.

• Folding Ideas will be growing this year, which we hope means a slow but steady ramp-up of content releases. Keep an eye out for a big announcement in February.

See you next month!