I'm Retiring...

I don't wanna do this anymore. And by "this", I mean being in this space, in this set, talking about products I don't actually care about, but that I think will draw more views or earn me a bunch of money. I don't want a portion of my house to essentially be a shrine to cameras. When I started this channel 10 years ago, I was legitimately very interested in cameras, I was obsessed to some degree, and that version of me would have been ecstatic to have shelves filled with interesting and expensive camera paraphernalia. And while I consider myself very fortunate and feel thankful for the opportunity to build what I did over the last decade, and of course to enjoy the many comforts and perks that come along with that, I also need to accept that my interest in this category has significantly waned as the products themselves have gotten better. In my last few camera reviews, I suggested that I was finished with my extensive testing, because cameras felt mostly solved to me. I'm the type of person that stays interested in something for the puzzle or challenge of it, and I bore quickly if that challenge is removed. And so, even though this space is supposed to be dedicated to being creative and working on projects I'm passionate about, it has instead devolved into a place of torpid inertia. I'm surrounded by objects that don't bring me joy, well, except for these purple cables from my collab with Kondor Blue; I'm still really proud of them and have no plans to discontinue that. But everything else feels like an endless performance, feigning interest in features devoid of any authentic curiosity, in an uncomfortable position, behind too many lights designed to make me look as attractive as possible, reading from a teleprompter. This is theater, and I don't wanna do it anymore. So what am I gonna do about it?

Well, for starters, I'm done with having a contrived YouTube "set". I'm gonna tear all this down and convert this area into a space I'd actually wanna spend time in. I'm gonna fill it with objects that bring me joy and actually mean something to me, I'm gonna light it in a way that I find pleasing to exist in, regardless of how it looks on camera. And then when all that is done, I'll find a spot to put a tripod that doesn't interfere with those other aspects. This doesn't mean that I'm never gonna talk about cameras or the related processes again, there are aspects I still enjoy, certain tests I like running; I like profiling cameras to make my LUTs, link in description. But I do think I'm done making my exhaustive, long-form camera reviews. I also thought it would be fun to offer up more about myself, since that's something I haven't done a lot in the last 10 years. Maybe as I decide what objects I do wanna be surrounded by, I can make episodes dedicated to sharing with you why those things are special to me. I like the idea of building out this space over time with a meaningful purpose, rather than just trying to design something that looks good on camera right now, but is laden with artifice. I accept that this will likely have significant impacts on my bottom line, viewership will likely take a hit, I imagine I'll be less desirable to camera-related brands looking to spend money advertising on my channel, and this might even be the pivot that steers this ship directly to the dark shores of obscurity. But I'm okay with that, I've had my fill of camera-YouTube popularity and the spoils that accompany it. But speaking about brand deals, I do wanna share my intentions for that moving forward and some projected changes to my ethical practices regarding camera brands in the future. But before that, I wanna give a special thank you to Storyblocks for sticking with me over the years and throughout the various revisions of the "Gerald Undone" YouTube channel, and even for sponsoring this video. So Storyblocks is an all-in-one creative toolkit designed to help creators tell stronger, more professional stories through video. They are not a text-to-video AI generation platform. The entire library is 100% human-made, created by real filmmakers and artists from around the world. And it's "all-in-one" because it brings together high-quality stock footage, music, sound effects, and motion graphics templates into a single, easy-to-navigate platform filled with tools to make your creative ideas come to fruition faster. Everything you download is royalty-free, pre-licensed, and ready for personal, commercial, or monetized projects, with no worrying about usage rights. The library is deep and diverse with unlimited downloads, and best of all, for a limited time, Storyblocks is currently offering 15% off any annual plan, but that discount is only available through my link. So to start telling better stories with your own all-in-one creative toolkit, head to storyblocks. com/undone, or click the link in the description.

Now when it comes to this new direction for the channel, I see myself doing considerably less sponsored content on YouTube. If I do any paid showcases, it would have to fit all the previous goals of being something I'm actually passionate about, something I'd enjoy having around me all the time, or something that helps facilitate the process of making those videos. And I foresee those criteria heavily reducing the frequency of applicable brand deals. At the same time, however, I'm also lowering the gates when it comes to working with camera manufacturers. Previously, despite what some inexplicably angry and vocal outliers would tell you, I did not get paid by the camera brands to make my videos. Even if I glazed a Sony camera for 30-minutes in a review, Sony didn't pay me a dime for that coverage, same with Canon, LUMIX, Nikon, et cetera. And I thought that exclusion was important to remain as objective as possible when comparing cameras. But moving forward, if I'm not trying to objectively review cameras anymore, and a camera brand wants to give me a bunch of gear or money to help me make my new unrelated, passion-project videos, then I don't see any harm in that. This might not even come up, because again, I'll likely be much less desirable for camera brands to work with, but my point is that I'm no longer opposed to doing it. Now when it comes to actually making paid content on gadgets that don't fit this channel's new strategies, I've discovered recently that I much prefer making short-form content when it comes to stuff like that. So maybe I'll keep Instagram and possibly YouTube shorts, though I'm not sure about the latter, open for a place to put paid content about new camera-related components and accessories, or anything, really. I feel like that will lead to a cleaner separation both in practice and mentally when it comes to staying focused on long-form content that I enjoy making and not being motivated by how much a YouTube video could potentially pay. I've been debating on what to call this transition

to make it easier to reference. I'm certainly not "quitting" YouTube, at least not yet, but I have often joked about "retiring" from camera YouTube after 10 years; but then I would joke further about what a YouTube retirement would even look like. So this is the best I could come up with, me just poking around with things that make me happy and taking you along for the ride when I feel like it. So let's tear down this set, and get this retirement started. (screen beeping) That would have been the perfect opportunity to say "Let's get undone" instead of "Let's get this retirement started. " You'd think by now, I would know when to use my own catchphrase. Forget it; play the intro, anyway. (bass music) He's crazy ♪

- But seriously, thanks for coming along on this ride with me. Whether this is your first video, or if you've been here for all 10 years, it's been a truly wonderful, unpredictable, life-altering, and occasionally unhinged journey, and one that I'm incredibly grateful I was able to take. (groovy instrumental music) Alright... I'm done.

(funky music) (funky music continues)