Update 2 - Painticus

I have trouble sitting in silence sometimes. Thoughts will bounce around my head in such a way that listening to something else, something with vocalization, helps me redirect my attention. Lately I’ve been more successful at listening to instrumental music while I work, but if I’m doing some mind-numbing, repetitive tasks, I still like to listen to something. I’ve been talking about releasing video essays for a few months now. I’ve got several scripts and gigs of footage, and yet I haven’t quite strung it together. It helps I think, to listen to other essayists doing the same thing I want to do. I’ve gone through so many video essays on youtube that the algorithm has finally deigned to let me see some lesser known channels in my search.

And that’s how I found Scottish Youtuber Painticus. While his tagline is ‘Mediocrity Personified’, I found his videos to be anything but. He seems to focus mostly on horror titles, which I absolutely love, and has covered titles that are both classics in the genre and some lesser known titles I was honestly surprised anyone else had played (looking at you, Kholat.) It’s more of a short review show than an essay channel, but I absolutely love his approach. His humor is really well woven in with his earnest thoughts on the game he’s covering. The best part though, has been the fact that he really seems to see some good in anything he covers. I get so tired of seeing titles like “X is Garbage, and Here’s Why”, where someone throws around terms like ‘objective’ without seeming to really know what that means. Painticus seems to genuinely enjoy the fact that others create things. Even when making light criticisms of the game he’s covering, he stresses that it should be used to encourage devs to try new things, and that it’s only his opinion.

Painticus writing style is sharp, witty, and concise. It’s what sounds to be an inherently good nature that was my favorite part though. For some mad reason, he’s only sitting at ~2,400 subscribers at this point. That feels damn near criminal. I can think of a couple channels that have released good initial content over the years and then just dropped off the face of the internet after not reaching immediate success. Painticus has been at this since October of 2018, still releasing content on a semi-regular basis. I know for a fact that balancing content creation with everyday life can’t be easy. Getting discouraged and asking ‘what’s the point?’ is all too common a reaction when trying to independently create content. This one obscure channel I found is still sticking it out though. It made me get up this morning and work on making a more solid plan for my own content. I’ve got to bite the bullet sometime.

You can find his Youtube channel here, and he’s on Twitter @PainticusYT. I’d ask you to subscribe and follow the guy, if only to help his numbers. If I can find a working link to his Patreon, I’ll place it in a follow up edit. It’s hard to create. I think it’s important that we encourage those who do.