As a content creator and streamer, I've always been interested in exploring multiple subjects and interests beyond my main channel's focus on tech and gaming. However, I've often found myself feeling restricted by this singular focus, which can lead to frustration and a sense of unfulfilled potential.

I've considered myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to grow my channel and audience over time, but I've also felt a pang of regret for not exploring other creative outlets as much as I would have liked. For me, having multiple interests and pursuits is essential to maintaining a healthy work-life balance and avoiding burnout. Whether it's writing, art, or even woodworking, I believe it's crucial to have secondary channels or projects that allow me to express myself in different ways.

The concept of "secret art" resonates deeply with me. As someone who has gained a following through their gaming content and tech streams, I've often felt pressure to constantly produce high-quality content that meets the expectations of my audience. However, this can be stifling, especially when it comes to building things or working on personal projects. I've found solace in creating "secret art" – projects that I work on for myself, without any expectation of sharing them with others.

For me, these secret projects are an excellent way to recharge and refocus my creative energies. When I'm streaming or creating content for my main channel, I often find myself worrying about presentation, storytelling, and technical aspects. These concerns can be overwhelming at times, and having a "secret art" outlet allows me to temporarily set those worries aside and simply enjoy the process of building something.

I believe that many creators and streamers face similar challenges, feeling pressured to constantly produce content that meets their audience's expectations while also nurturing their own creative interests. However, I want to emphasize the importance of having multiple pursuits and outlets. Not only can this help prevent burnout, but it can also foster a deeper sense of passion and enjoyment in your work.

One of the key takeaways from my experience is the need for secondary channels or projects that allow you to express yourself in different ways. This doesn't have to be a full-time commitment; even having a casual outlet, like a private Instagram account or a blog, can provide an opportunity to explore new interests and creative pursuits.

My challenge to you is to create a new profile on some online platform – it doesn't matter if it's public or private, or if it's a full-fledged channel or just a simple blog. The goal is to simply create something for fun, without any pressure or expectation of producing high-quality content. You may find that you enjoy this creative outlet and want to continue exploring it; or, you might discover that your interests lie elsewhere.

Whatever the outcome, I hope that this article has inspired you to explore new creative pursuits and outlets. As a community, we can learn so much from each other's experiences and approaches to content creation. By sharing our passions and interests, we can foster a more supportive and inclusive environment for creators of all kinds.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enso i've been working a lot on instagram i said i would for about a year and never really got to it but i've been working on it a lot which means also following a lot of other creators here in the retro space and you know engaging with them talking with them finding out what works for them what doesn't work for them and just generally building the community because i like talking about this stuff and seeing cool pictures of this stuff well a few of the accounts that i follow started having the same dilemma and posting almost the exact same thing they were running into the same problem and it's something that i see streamers face all the time even youtubers as well and it's something i wanted to talk about here because i think there's something that can be done about it if you want to get in the headspace for it otherwise it's pretty self-destructive but before we get to that let's talk about my instagram yeah i've been working on my own instagram building up this whole retro aesthetic on there if you're unaware go follow me over at instagram.com eposvox get followed on there uh we're at about 2500 right now i'm super stoked i've been been promising this for over a year now and finally within the past couple months i've really been able to get like rick crane's schedule of posting going we've got post after post after post retro aesthetic if that's your thing go hit the follow button instagram.com slash eposvox anyway you see the accounts that i have followed there are some of them who have within the past year or two made what they call a personal account which is very similar to the account they have now but it started fresh and it shares a bit more behind the scenes things and less polished posts compared to their main account it's like my secondary channel where i post random gaming clips and things like that it's just kind of a dumping ground where i want to post stuff but then i notice i will have like they will post a lot to the second account and their main account will fall pretty inactive which of course hurts that account and then they'll post a story to it at some point being like hey i'm still alive i'm having a lot more fun posting over on the second account so blah blah and while obviously that serves as a great promotional opportunity of like hey if you're missing the content come follow a second account so now i have two accounts worth of followers it also identifies a real problem that these people are struggling with with their creative cycle in that these are creators which i've actually dug into them quite a bit to find out what else they're posting these are creators who only post to this one platform to this one page other than their new second page they have one instagram profile that is all of their social media with regards to like a brand that they have they have this one account it's on instagram they post one thing to it they're beholden to this one audience and they are restricted to the bounds of what they find restricting about the expectations of that platform if that doesn't make sense to you in terms of youtube or streaming terms linus actually talked about this recently with regards to them starting up the secondary short circuit channel and some of their other side channels in that just a casual unboxing talking about a product doesn't really have a place on the main linus tech tips channel anymore because the alignus tech tips videos come with their own set of expectations and you know in terms of both the content quality as well as the content subject and it can actually hurt their main channel to post subpar or poor performing videos to the main line of sections channel but that is still a niche of content that some people are interested in so it makes a lot more sense to spin it off onto its own thing well think about that but in terms of your creative juices if i want to post something unrelated to retro stuff or general retro gaming retro tech stuff on this instagram account it's going to confuse the viewers it's potentially going to cause some followers to not show up to unfollow or it's going to cause some people to follow for that post and then unfollow or just stay inactive when i'm posting stuff unrelated to that same thing with streamers if you build up your entire career streaming one game then you feel locked into that game the issue does not necessarily come into that strategy i have a lot to say about that kind of strategy though and i've said it over time and we can talk about it more in the future the problem comes in the form of putting too many eggs in one basket these are people who have put all of their eggs in this one game or this one platform or this one subject and when they want to do something else they don't have the freedom to now there's obviously the business uh problems of putting all your eggs in one basket and we talk about that all the time and you should never be holding to one single platform for your revenue for your audience for anything but when it comes to content wise and stuff you as a person are probably interested in more than one thing there are some people that aren't there are some people who could play one game on stream or on a video or talk about one subject on video for the rest of their lives and never question it those people probably secretly have a lot of other hobbies behind the scenes and they just don't want to tell you about it but there are some people who genuinely just they have one interest and that's all i care about but most people have a lot of interest if you follow me i mean even just talking about the instagram stuff for you know the retro gaming stuff i have interests everywhere i've got tech i've got gaming i've got retro stuff i've got vhs i've got movies tv shows podcasts i've got skateboarding i've got art i've got stylistic things i'm interested in i've got film critic channels i follow things like that i am interested in so many subjects if i were to build up my current business model my current lifestyle around only being able to talk about tech and on this one channel and having no other outlets for my creative or talkative juices i would feel really restricted and really frustrated in fact i always have considered myself to have given up potential youtube growth milestones back in the day when i was doing gaming content and things like that because i was terrified of the idea of being locked into one subject i never wanted to be beholden to this one thing so i always did everything i could to make sure even if it meant sacrificing growth i was never locked into that it is very important as a streamer and as a content creator to make sure you have secondary outlets for what you do it does not need to be something online that people even see it can be a personal instagram that you don't promote anywhere but you post two for fun it can be a writing blog it can be a journal it can be something completely private or something online that you maybe side promote but otherwise don't make a big deal about or it could be just a full second channel where you're like here's my main i'm streaming on this but i also have a youtube channel where i talk finance or construction or woodworking or something one have you heard of the idea of secret art do you know me personally no it was amy i'm talking to you yeah you so the idea of secret art is art that artists who have sort of gained a following make just for themselves that they don't ever show to anybody else they don't ever plan on selling or or showing to an audience um it's just to it's it's to be able to make art that isn't going to be judged by anybody that does not have to be compared to their previous art and and that's what sort of what you were saying about gaming and wanting gaming to be to be enjoyable for me it's building things right so i have i guess secret projects now stuff that i haven't haven't posted on the channel because sometimes i just want to build something and i don't constantly want to be talking into the camera uh i don't constantly want to be like worrying about like oh i need to move the camera for each of the the following things i'm going to do so this cuts together into a nice montage that sometimes i just want to build a thing um and so i don't know i guess that's that's something that's evolved or maybe the past year is like reconnecting with just that love of building things and not always viewing building things through the lens of like is this going to make good video what is the story here how do i show this to everybody um it is important to make sure that you have a couple feet in a couple different places now i do want to state that you probably shouldn't have those feet in places where you have the expectation of delivering full-time content on both unless you're capable of it as this is something that will also restrict you and possibly cause conflict between the two platforms because then you have the expectation of making this a full-time gig while also having your second channel be a full-time gig you need to approach the second thing as being a casual secondary you know outlet but i think it's very important for everyone to have it and i don't think enough people consider that so many people want to put all of their energy for eight hours a day three to four days a week streaming or content creating on this one subject and then when something else comes up it becomes almost an existential crisis of what to actually do with it and it's fairly easy to get around it so my challenge for you for this weekend is to make a new profile on some sort of online site it doesn't have even have to be public a flickr an instagram a blog site uh a facebook profile a secondary youtube channel a different streaming site make that and just create something basic for fun no pressure no production quality nothing like that just something small and easy that you enjoy that comes from the heart and get that out there and see how it feels you may find out that you want to keep doing that from time to time and that's pretty cool hope you enjoyed this kind of weird one-off discussion video let me know what you think in the comment section down below hit the like button and subscribe for more streaming education and tech content do go follow me over on the instagram instagram.com eposvox to get more of my retro room stuff i'll see you in the next videoso i've been working a lot on instagram i said i would for about a year and never really got to it but i've been working on it a lot which means also following a lot of other creators here in the retro space and you know engaging with them talking with them finding out what works for them what doesn't work for them and just generally building the community because i like talking about this stuff and seeing cool pictures of this stuff well a few of the accounts that i follow started having the same dilemma and posting almost the exact same thing they were running into the same problem and it's something that i see streamers face all the time even youtubers as well and it's something i wanted to talk about here because i think there's something that can be done about it if you want to get in the headspace for it otherwise it's pretty self-destructive but before we get to that let's talk about my instagram yeah i've been working on my own instagram building up this whole retro aesthetic on there if you're unaware go follow me over at instagram.com eposvox get followed on there uh we're at about 2500 right now i'm super stoked i've been been promising this for over a year now and finally within the past couple months i've really been able to get like rick crane's schedule of posting going we've got post after post after post retro aesthetic if that's your thing go hit the follow button instagram.com slash eposvox anyway you see the accounts that i have followed there are some of them who have within the past year or two made what they call a personal account which is very similar to the account they have now but it started fresh and it shares a bit more behind the scenes things and less polished posts compared to their main account it's like my secondary channel where i post random gaming clips and things like that it's just kind of a dumping ground where i want to post stuff but then i notice i will have like they will post a lot to the second account and their main account will fall pretty inactive which of course hurts that account and then they'll post a story to it at some point being like hey i'm still alive i'm having a lot more fun posting over on the second account so blah blah and while obviously that serves as a great promotional opportunity of like hey if you're missing the content come follow a second account so now i have two accounts worth of followers it also identifies a real problem that these people are struggling with with their creative cycle in that these are creators which i've actually dug into them quite a bit to find out what else they're posting these are creators who only post to this one platform to this one page other than their new second page they have one instagram profile that is all of their social media with regards to like a brand that they have they have this one account it's on instagram they post one thing to it they're beholden to this one audience and they are restricted to the bounds of what they find restricting about the expectations of that platform if that doesn't make sense to you in terms of youtube or streaming terms linus actually talked about this recently with regards to them starting up the secondary short circuit channel and some of their other side channels in that just a casual unboxing talking about a product doesn't really have a place on the main linus tech tips channel anymore because the alignus tech tips videos come with their own set of expectations and you know in terms of both the content quality as well as the content subject and it can actually hurt their main channel to post subpar or poor performing videos to the main line of sections channel but that is still a niche of content that some people are interested in so it makes a lot more sense to spin it off onto its own thing well think about that but in terms of your creative juices if i want to post something unrelated to retro stuff or general retro gaming retro tech stuff on this instagram account it's going to confuse the viewers it's potentially going to cause some followers to not show up to unfollow or it's going to cause some people to follow for that post and then unfollow or just stay inactive when i'm posting stuff unrelated to that same thing with streamers if you build up your entire career streaming one game then you feel locked into that game the issue does not necessarily come into that strategy i have a lot to say about that kind of strategy though and i've said it over time and we can talk about it more in the future the problem comes in the form of putting too many eggs in one basket these are people who have put all of their eggs in this one game or this one platform or this one subject and when they want to do something else they don't have the freedom to now there's obviously the business uh problems of putting all your eggs in one basket and we talk about that all the time and you should never be holding to one single platform for your revenue for your audience for anything but when it comes to content wise and stuff you as a person are probably interested in more than one thing there are some people that aren't there are some people who could play one game on stream or on a video or talk about one subject on video for the rest of their lives and never question it those people probably secretly have a lot of other hobbies behind the scenes and they just don't want to tell you about it but there are some people who genuinely just they have one interest and that's all i care about but most people have a lot of interest if you follow me i mean even just talking about the instagram stuff for you know the retro gaming stuff i have interests everywhere i've got tech i've got gaming i've got retro stuff i've got vhs i've got movies tv shows podcasts i've got skateboarding i've got art i've got stylistic things i'm interested in i've got film critic channels i follow things like that i am interested in so many subjects if i were to build up my current business model my current lifestyle around only being able to talk about tech and on this one channel and having no other outlets for my creative or talkative juices i would feel really restricted and really frustrated in fact i always have considered myself to have given up potential youtube growth milestones back in the day when i was doing gaming content and things like that because i was terrified of the idea of being locked into one subject i never wanted to be beholden to this one thing so i always did everything i could to make sure even if it meant sacrificing growth i was never locked into that it is very important as a streamer and as a content creator to make sure you have secondary outlets for what you do it does not need to be something online that people even see it can be a personal instagram that you don't promote anywhere but you post two for fun it can be a writing blog it can be a journal it can be something completely private or something online that you maybe side promote but otherwise don't make a big deal about or it could be just a full second channel where you're like here's my main i'm streaming on this but i also have a youtube channel where i talk finance or construction or woodworking or something one have you heard of the idea of secret art do you know me personally no it was amy i'm talking to you yeah you so the idea of secret art is art that artists who have sort of gained a following make just for themselves that they don't ever show to anybody else they don't ever plan on selling or or showing to an audience um it's just to it's it's to be able to make art that isn't going to be judged by anybody that does not have to be compared to their previous art and and that's what sort of what you were saying about gaming and wanting gaming to be to be enjoyable for me it's building things right so i have i guess secret projects now stuff that i haven't haven't posted on the channel because sometimes i just want to build something and i don't constantly want to be talking into the camera uh i don't constantly want to be like worrying about like oh i need to move the camera for each of the the following things i'm going to do so this cuts together into a nice montage that sometimes i just want to build a thing um and so i don't know i guess that's that's something that's evolved or maybe the past year is like reconnecting with just that love of building things and not always viewing building things through the lens of like is this going to make good video what is the story here how do i show this to everybody um it is important to make sure that you have a couple feet in a couple different places now i do want to state that you probably shouldn't have those feet in places where you have the expectation of delivering full-time content on both unless you're capable of it as this is something that will also restrict you and possibly cause conflict between the two platforms because then you have the expectation of making this a full-time gig while also having your second channel be a full-time gig you need to approach the second thing as being a casual secondary you know outlet but i think it's very important for everyone to have it and i don't think enough people consider that so many people want to put all of their energy for eight hours a day three to four days a week streaming or content creating on this one subject and then when something else comes up it becomes almost an existential crisis of what to actually do with it and it's fairly easy to get around it so my challenge for you for this weekend is to make a new profile on some sort of online site it doesn't have even have to be public a flickr an instagram a blog site uh a facebook profile a secondary youtube channel a different streaming site make that and just create something basic for fun no pressure no production quality nothing like that just something small and easy that you enjoy that comes from the heart and get that out there and see how it feels you may find out that you want to keep doing that from time to time and that's pretty cool hope you enjoyed this kind of weird one-off discussion video let me know what you think in the comment section down below hit the like button and subscribe for more streaming education and tech content do go follow me over on the instagram instagram.com eposvox to get more of my retro room stuff i'll see you in the next video\n"