I will never be the same... | Storytime

Aug 8, 2021 20:41 · 3231 words · 16 minute read

hi I’m going to tell you a story and all I need from you is just to listen this one time you may have noticed my content has changed over the past two months I thought that I could just make the change and not speak about it because but now I know that I owe you more than an explanation so let’s start from the beginning my name is Jefferson Festus i have two sisters named princess and blessing one brother named prince and my mom that single-handedly loves and works hard for me and my siblings my mom believes that prayer is the key and that having a relationship with the most high is very important I already know ever since I was in my diapers I was doing a lot of dancing I even played games like just dance or the Michael Jackson experience so you already know your boy loved to dance come on come on fast forward to my freshman year of high school i rediscovered Michael Jackson and became fascinated by so much from his dance moves to his singing and the way he gave to others he inspired me to be the best at anything i do i even participated in my high school’s 2020 talent show and performed a mix of Michael Jackson’s songs that i mixed myself in front of a crowd around 45 to 50 people a week after i posted it on youtube hoping for it to take off it didn’t and that made me upset within since the video didn’t do as i hoped i moved back to doing public school interviews because all I wanted was to be seen by others I had a whole plan set out just to do videos at school for the rest of the year until i couldn’t there i was another day another video at school not even knowing the words corona or quarantine even existed but my bubble was really popped when two of the school administrators came up to me and expressed that they didn’t feel that it was appropriate for me just to be asking questions to other students without their parents consent i was like oh are you kidding me but my little radio rebel self still recorded that day and i even had a plan to keep going when we got back from spring break so there i was gathering new ideas and new questions to ask but little did i know that my one week of spring break would become the beginning of my four months of summer break hey when i found out about that i had a mini freakout session i’m telling you i was wondering how’s gonna make videos or how’s even gonna get subscribers i mean then on one random day in march the official michael jackson team reposted my dancing video you know the one from earlier anyways i remember waking up that morning checking my youtube studio and seeing a random spike in the views in that moment i was just as excited as i was confused because i had never gotten that many views it is also important to note that i did join a michael jackson fan page on facebook a few weeks before obviously i want to go check if they had something just to do with it but they didn’t the next logical thing i had to do was to check michael jackson’s page because i knew i had no doing with this sudden outburst of views so i clicked on his page and there i was in michael jackson’s most recent post i screamed and spent the whole day flipping out just checking comments likes and shares as they kept going up a week later the hype was reduced but i was so thankful because for the first time my dancing had been recognized by michael jackson’s management one random day in April, me and my siblings made a TikTok that got over 7 000 likes on my brother’s page so I tried to post it on my page but it did not get nowhere near that I became upset and was back to looking on youtube and TikTok for things that i can do to get a lot of views I saw people like juvie joovier and talitati making videos on an app called monkey and how so many people liked what they were doing so that made me want to do it too i created and edited seven videos on four different topics letting people roast me and roasting other people i see my meat prank and pranking people by making them great my non-existent way and the last two videos a reaction video to the comments on the michael jackson dance video that i did and a make me laugh for money that i did not have i posted each video daily hoping for a spark the first few videos didn’t get the amount of views i expected on the third day i posted another video that i made i remember praying over it saying god i don’t care about the money i just want people to see this video at least but even when i posted it it didn’t get no more than 200 views i practically had given up on myself at that point and wondered if i should even keep going somehow through my emotional rollercoaster i managed to post a snippet of the video on tick-tock and instagram later that day i laid on my bed with numerous thoughts of doubt once again questioning if someone like me was even capable to gain an audience of such i held this feeling all the way until i checked my tick tock page and saw the short clip i posted a couple hours before had obtained over 5 000 views when i tell you i screamed i screamed no in fact i was hollering i was so happy that i ran outside all the way to the far trash can and back bare foot i looked at all the comments and saw that many people liked it and wanted more i checked my youtube channel and saw hundreds of viewers coming in within the first week the video had gotten 10 000 views on youtube so from there on out i decided to stop everything that i used to do and began doing content strictly on a fixated version of myself for two months then came the first burnout in july i never did enjoy roasting others or even pretending to be someone that i’m not for views or attention but i always felt like i had to do so in order to be viewed or liked behind the mask i really just wanted to learn how to sing and play piano and i was even playing football i still made seven videos posted them every day in july then took a hiatus for the rest of the month from the middle of july to the beginning of august i started to reflect on and i quote success and became upset to the point where i decided to go back to making roasting videos and since monkey was not available i was back on youtube looking for an app i could go on to do so i came across juvia’s channel again and saw that he also stopped using monkey and used this new app called ubo so that same night i downloaded yubo and spent an hour or two roasting people and i quote i posted the video on youtube and multiple clips on tick tock in august people responded to the short clips fast and i became excited as i went to football practice that first day the video had obtained ten thousand views on youtube so a few days later you know i went back on ubo did the same thing posted it a week after and it also performed to my expectations which is never good but it was good at the time since i began school and playing football more frequently i had made less time to post on youtube would only post on tick tock a couple times and created nothing else in august September came along and I decided to do a four-hour video shoot but due to school and football and just life, in general, i ended up not editing it, therefore, I did not post at all that month in October the football season was going pretty good and my grades were caught up as well so in the middle of October i decided to make another video my oldest sister surprised us as she came home from boot camp i vlogged the weekend with her my family and friends but that video also went into the vault in conclusion multiple videos were made but I felt as if I had no time to edit them completely it wasn’t until the football season unexpectedly ended early that i felt that i needed to make a comeback picking up where i left off i began editing the two yubo videos and posted each weekly the two videos performed a little under my expectation so i went on yubo and made another roasting video that same video really helped boost my channel’s previous videos so i kept posting videos weekly and even got paid for the first time things were going smooth and i felt good about it too in december i planned to do only roasting videos but i knew my conscience was not gonna settle for that i still posted multiple roasting videos one gaming video and some vlogs in addition i had also gotten my first real life job because i wanted the experience also i had a friend um he worked there so i wanted to work with him too but at the end of the year i really experienced the same feeling i felt even before i had thousands of followers and viewers i had a lot but at the same time i had nothing christmas was great though i was able to use my earnings and buy christmas gifts for people i cared about my little sister even called me the black santa of that time she has issues new years came and i started it off by me dancing on tick tock for 35 to 45 people i felt great because i was doing what i loved from the get-go dancing and more especially dancing for jesus come on come on i set out to make the first month of the year better than before and since i saw that my current views were lower than usual i decided that i would quote unquote need to do roasting videos again which led me to do three quote unquote new year new beef roasted videos looking back those are some of my favorite one and when i posted them the views were spiking even higher than before both on tick tock and youtube but my ego was not satisfied i told myself that my videos deserved way more than they already had i kept feeding my greed more than my need i also tried to make a cover song without knowing the basics of singing it didn’t have the best outcome so it went into the vault going into february i knew that i wanted to make music but i would have to start from the beginning on the other hand i added karaoke wrapping into my content with yubo it was received very well yet i still felt that not enough people were watching but since i saw the earnings come in i became complacent and took more time away from creating content to learn about music i did make a couple more videos before i took another month-long hiatus during the hiatus i bought equipment for practice sessions and with the help of my teacher i began experimenting with digital audio workstations i also spent a good amount of time learning how to love myself and strengthening my relationship with god another reason why I made quote-unquote roasting videos was because i was able to earn a sustainable income to help around with my mom and save a piece for myself a handout so with that and the belief that i couldn’t get money doing anything else i once again sucked it up and went to go on Yubo to start beef oh around that same time i was approached by this guy that owns an app similar to yubo he wanted me to promote his app by doing the things i did on yubo because i saw the price tag i agreed but as i was recording that footage i didn’t feel up to it because people can say some hurtful things there was so much negativity in the live streams much more that i had ever dealt with the crazy part is that i was going to post it but he asked me just to wait until the app made some changes i was like fine by me because i kind of didn’t want to post it between march and april i posted four roasting videos and one karaoke rap video the roasting ones they performed regularly nothing too special the karaoke video was really the one that brought people back to my channel i was still eager to find something new to blow up from so i tried a yubo prank through the influence of youtube’s analytical insights this prank’s performance was lower than all my other yubo videos and because i usually expected high results i became so disappointed that i stopped recording videos for the rest of april here comes the one year anniversary the first full year this same anniversary that i didn’t feel i could be proud of which is why i didn’t publicly announce or celebrate it instead i was still trying to find a way to and i quote make it without putting other people’s well-being down in the means of me going up the following week i had made a video on yubo posted a reaction video a dancing video a singing video and even a vlog yet my ego wasn’t satisfied and that led me to not accept the amount of views i was receiving i almost resorted to making a roasting video, in fact, i did record it but when I looked back at the footage I just knew that i would be entering the emotional cycle once again so i tossed the footage into the vault of videos and eventually deleted it this month was full of it this month was also one of the greatest in my year of 2021.

during the whole first week i went to a christian summer camp we didn’t have our phones so that helped me connect with others like never before and disconnect from all the social labels i had identified with the people were kind different loving fun and so much more i recorded multiple times during my visit and as smooth as the videos came out to be the process of getting it was pretty rough i initially recorded a different set of videos because i wanted to create a detailed short film and for the first three days it was going as planned until one morning after recording footage with other campers during a game i accidentally formatted my camera and in the means of doing so i deleted all my footage from the previous three days when i tell you i was upset i was hurt not even upset i was hurt okay but i really turned to god in those moments and he helped me accept that the past footage was gone lucky for me though he gave me the strength and courage to record the new footage that has been released today as fun as everyone else’s company was i did spend a lot of time by myself at that camp and with the help of other leaders and speakers i realized that i don’t need to act a certain way to be accepted or to be seen or even to be loved i realize that god loves me for who i am that he made me i’ve even thought about all the wrong decisions i’ve made both in public and private thinking that i couldn’t be forgiven or even make a comeback but because i know the son of god came down to this earth and died for us i know that i am not alone in this thing called life i know that i have already made a comeback and with the force that is way stronger than my own when i stand with god i stand with majority i know where i’ll be going after my time on earth is up and most importantly i know with him that i could be myself and finally we come to the month of july this month i summoned the courage to take action for what i truly believe in at first i thought in order to do so i’d have to take all my past videos down and start anew so i took those videos down and once i made that decision the consequences subliminally came creeping out the door people unsubscribing left and right gunshots up and down just kidding okay but that of course is their choice just like it is for anyone else i was pretty upset about it at first but i realized that i couldn’t be upset about it because majority of my content over the past year had been about saying mean things to other people than labeling it as just jokes and not to be taken serious now when i see that people unsubscribe i take notice that those people may have never been here for me that they may have only been here for the false me that i have been presenting in my content from the day i got back from camp i promise to strive to be the best version of myself that i can be whether i lose hundreds or thousands of followers in the process of doing so then so be it in this life i am born to lose and that’s the truth but one thing that i know that i will never lose is the grace of god and that my friend is all that i will truly ever need with all that being said the past videos will remain public since they mark the beginning of my journey as an entertainer I’m going to continue loving others like Jesus has instructed me to instead of publicly slandering others in the forms of expensive jokes to please a certain audience the purpose of this story is not to say goodbye but to say hello this video is me introducing myself as the one and only Jefferson Festus I am a singer a dancer a creator a black young adult but most importantly I am a child a friend and a servant of God I will continue to be all the things that I have stated above for the rest of my life regardless of what anyone has to say thank you for your time.