essay: content creator lifespan pt.2
matpat just retired. 10 days after tom scott. it's kinda serendipitous for the writing of this blog though. to be fully honest, i've never been a matpat fan, but i've recognized his impact on the internet and the creator space. in the 25 minute video titled 'goodbye internet' he covers a lot of topics as to the future and why, i wanted to tackle a few of his thoughts.
he's decided to step back and will be taking on more of a managerial role, similar to what i laid out with smosh or rhett and link in the previous entry. successful content creation on as large of a scale that he has created is more than full time and it's intensely notable with all content creators of his size (though, there are always people against the grain). this trend is consistent though and we're yet to see someone 'retire' from front facing content creation in a different way than the possibilities that tom scott laid out in his retirement video.
matpat covered the idea of why retire now, he's just had his most successful year in the history of his youtube channel, 18.4 million subscribers, over two billion views, success doesn't cover it. a similarity that we can draw from tom scott (that he references in the video as well) is that he's stepping away from something that works. he states that there are two ways a content creator can stop. 1) keep creating content until they aren't relevant anymore, simply because of the way that culture works, no one person can be permanently relevant (sans a few) or 2) stop when they want and recognize the career and project that they have built (and then hand it off or slow down). matpat chose the latter and i think it's the right play, to gracefully step away and live a full life.
matpat is 37. i don't think it's old in terms of life, but in terms of culture, he referred to himself as a grandpa, looking back on when he played the role of edgy older brother, and then dadpat. i've really been wondering about this myself. how to stay relevant with age. maybe it doesn't matter about staying relevant, but i think there's a way to understand relevancy, or maybe not... i think something that will continue throughout, and i just had a discussion that made me think about it today, is that there will always be fundamental building blocks of art and content that we can build upon that will continue adding value to future generations.
