State of the Channel: April & March Catch-up

Happy April 35th, Fans & Followers!

Apologies for abandoning you to Dan-only updates for so long. I hope the stream of content has been sufficient replacement for the update presence in your feed!

Dan and I are still working out the kinks and the crossing-wires of both of us updating the Patreon. This post, for example, has gone through about seven iterations over the past 8 or so weeks as I kept having to make changes every time he decided to scoop me with his own post or content drop and making whole sections obsolete. Apparently delegating and trying to avoid making micro adjustments on the placement of goalposts is quite hard actually -- who knew? I think we're hitting a stride and you should see your monthly behind-the-channel updates fall into a nice little rhythm. (I also predict the flow of secondary Dan content to stay at a slow-but-semi-consistent drip as he regains some time and energy from tasks being given to the team that he can spend on creating instead.)

But I did say monthly updates! I'm here as promised to give you what you're owed. Strap in, we've covered some ground in the past two months.

State of the Channel: March Madness

Mostly we were head down working on this:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/why-was-i-to-for-155812455

And also this:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/beast-games-2-155824194

Largely March was consumed with planning, prepping, and executing on the studio shoot with the bouncy castle. We hired our first intern, rented a professional sound stage, got Dan fitted for a tuxedo, and paid to win all those many Labatt Awards.

But truly the killer of an on-target March update post was the trek to PAX East in Boston. While Dan decided not to commit to a panel this time around, we instead held a meet-up for fans to chat with each other, and get a chance to yap with the man himself in a more controlled environment than the open Boston Convention Center entrance atrium.

With the hard work of Jessica and the assistance of Nathan on both edits and re-writes, we were able to lock in the first chapters of the MrBeast video in time to show a fifteen minute-ish preview to the attendees of the meet-up. So if you got to attend the meet-up, you can bask in the glow of having been one of the first viewers of the new video. Enjoy your bragging rights. Someday you'll get to stare fondly into the middle distance and say: “I was there.” You can also do that if you weren't there. No one can prove it, but the guilt of that lie will be between you and the deity of your choosing.

Just before we told everyone they got to see the video...

I insisted we get an "After Seeing MrBeast Premiere" shot as well, and Dan even loudly said "Okay, hold on, Crystal wants a sad after photo" so I get full credit for this one and he can't deny it:

The rest of Dan's time was spent tabling in Bandland, and collecting Hornet cosplays, seen here:

https://bsky.app/profile/foldablehuman.bsky.social/post/3mi5p5y566s23

https://bsky.app/profile/foldablehuman.bsky.social/post/3mia7slndbk2b

Some other silly things in that thread to check out if you feel like scrolling about.

State of the Channel: April Abridged

I asked y'all to extend us some grace on “video each quarter” and you peaches granted it. Because of that we were able to knock out not one but two whole videos, even though we lost a week to Dan catching unconfirmed-COVID for the hubris of leaving his basement studio. Takeaway: Never let Dan leave the studio. Jessica and Nathan worked really hard to deliver on video #2 for a simultaneous release while Dan recovered, so you can thank them in the comments.

• Dan was invited on the new Hearth & Hammer podcast to talk about World of Warcraft. If that's your thing, you can find it here: https://youtu.be/nRXtGmPCVlo?si=3FLZeh5GYAhyVfgl

• If you missed it, Dan and Nathan did a stream post-drop and did a bit of a MrBeast post-mortem: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2752467762

• I'm defending my honor and skill as an executive assistant. At 5m40s of the MrBeast video, Dan shows the "somewhat insane itinerary," and at 6m08s he claims that the "warning to be prepared for a full day was a little shocking." That was a lie told for narrative effect. Yours truly, executive assistant extraordinaire, provided Dan with this itinerary days in advance when it was sent to our email. He just didn't look at it. No respect.

• I saw a couple people asking what the results of the thumbnail A/B test were. As you can see here, it was extremely informative and useful:

& Beyond

Don't worry, this doesn't count as your May update. I'll be back in a couple weeks with what we're working on, and perhaps some more team-behind-the-channel lore drops.

State of the Channel: Projection

Looking forward, we've adjusted our plans and expectations going into Q2. While you're still going to get a video this quarter (sometime in ~June), it's going to be a remastered re-release of the episode on Belle.

I promise it's for good reason. Our Q3 video has started shaping into a more ambitious project, and we'd like some slack to work on it for more than 3-4 months. It's going to require some travel, and additional collaborators.

There will be more peeks behind the scenes and teasers on these upcoming videos in future updates.

--Crystal