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My online content is changing, and I feel it’s for the better. I started my first YouTube channel back in 2005, and about ten years later, I made YouTube my full-time job. Some of you might not know that I have a degree in Character Animation from CalArts. I haven’t always shared my creative side fully, and sometimes I wonder how things would have turned out if I had chosen a different path. At one point, I stepped away from creative projects to focus completely on YouTube, since it was the only thing paying the bills. Before I finished college, I tried to keep the fact that I was transgender private for my own safety. I went after a full-time YouTube career, honestly, because I faced discrimination. It wasn’t until I legally changed my documents that it became easier to find work and be taken seriously. That was about 16 years ago, though it doesn’t feel that long. With the way the economy is now, I realize that even though there are challenges, I’m in a more comfortable spot than many people. Over a decade ago, I started building my online presence at a time when most people didn’t think it was possible to make a living this way. Now, I’m able to live fairly comfortably in a big city thanks to the income from my online work.

When I was a child, I wanted to be an artist. My splatter-painted clothes and sketchbook, which never left my side, made that obvious to most people who met me. I spent most of my childhood in relative Evangelically-informed isolation. I think that caused me to be rather time-blind, but perhaps that’s just my ADHD. I’m used to putting my head down and doing busy work; idle hands, and all that. However, what I’ve been feeling right now is as if time has truly gotten away from me, leaving me to forget who I wanted to be. Looking back on my life, it’s different, but not exactly the life I imagined I’d have as a child. I have a career in which I largely use my creativity to earn a living. I make what I want; often, however, I want to make it. And yet, for quite some time, I’ve felt like there was a distant time when things would eventually stabilize, and I’d get back to creating art. A boyfriend, whose name I’ve already forgotten, helped me build a drafting desk for my art, which is sadly unused in the three apartments I’ve lived in since moving to Los Angeles. I moved here in 2017.

Next year will mark a decade since I moved to LA. Realizing that made me think about how little I’ve accomplished here. For years, I’ve been searching for a way to make YouTube content that I can actually keep up with. I’ve tried all sorts of ideas and formats. A few years back, I decided to wear the same outfit and film everything against a red backdrop. That worked for a bit, but once I started meeting other creators, I realized how behind I was. Working with Matt Bernstein was a wake-up call. He keeps things simple; plans in a Google Doc, films on Wednesday, and has the video edited and posted by Friday. When we first worked together, I was paying my assistant to research for a week, then I’d spend another week writing, and another week editing. By the time my video was ready, it was already outdated, and it rarely did well. Clearly, I needed to change my approach.

The reality is, because I was raised in such isolation, it is both a strength and a weakness of mine. On the one hand, I earn my income almost entirely by devoting myself to being a content creator and hosting a platform where I can freely express myself and allow others to do the same. I probably wouldn’t have done that without feeling the need to have that sort of space for myself. I am incredibly self-motivated, and that’s a good thing. The bad thing for me is that when you’re in isolation, it’s very easy to lose sight of the bigger picture and to see where you’re perhaps falling short. About a year ago, I finally sat down and calculated how much I’d be paying myself if I were working hourly. As it turns out, I have been a particularly oppressive boss who has been underpaying my workers quite greatly. I realized that I needed to do something different and rethink exactly how YouTube fits into my life.

IIn the past, I’ve been frustrated by seeing what other content creators have done with their platforms. For quite some time, I vented about this on Patreon. It wasn’t quite jealousy, but this emotion that I couldn’t entirely place. One day, I was walking on Hollywood Blvd, as I always do, and I ran into a follower of mine who happens to work at one of the bars on the boulevard. She asked me, “What are you doing next?” and when I responded, “YouTube,” I could see the disappointment on her face. I’ve seen this look on more than a few people who seemed very surprised to hear that I was focusing so much of my time and energy on YouTube. For the longest time, my primary focus was sustaining myself through the work I do online. I suppose I have to admit that I’ve been doing that for a very long time now, and I’m not really continuing my personal development or actually pursuing some of those goals I let go of many years ago. When I had that conversation with the woman on the boulevard, I was frustrated because, from my perspective, I’ve been actively uploading some of the best, highest-quality content I’ve ever made, but the truth is, it’s not the content I’m proudest of. Over time, I realized that the feeling I had was simply seeing some of my colleagues pursue things I had essentially given up on. I realized I had a latent resentment that they never backed down from pursuing their dreams, and in reality, I had.

It’s hard to admit that I’ve let much of myself go when it comes to my goals and dreams, but the way the world turns has rekindled a fire within me. Many of you do not know that the channel now known as Kat Blaque started as TransDIYer, a transgender-themed DIY channel. In 2010, when I started the channel, I wanted to create sewing and DIY content, but I ended up getting sidetracked into being a talking head. The reality is that I’m passionate and I care deeply about the topics I’ve discussed. It is, in fact, quite hard for me not to make content, as it’s the one habit of mine that I’ve maintained since I was a child. However, I can also lean on the fact that I’ve now done it for most of my life. In the early internet, those of us who were early adopters felt the need to create conversations and hold spaces online because we knew the status quo would ultimately not do so. Over the years, I’ve created forums, groups, blogs, and websites dedicated to various causes I advocate. Many of us felt a sense of responsibility to hold space on the internet for the marginalized, seeking a place to be. Frankly, as I look around the net right now, it seems like many of those spaces have multiplied and are almost oversaturated. I’m divided about that because, as the world has become more online, I’ve become less online. I was one of the first trans bloggers online, but now I’m shifting into existing offline. While I was isolated online as a child, it seems like Billionaires are attempting to isolate everyone in these algorithms, where they’re taught what to think and how to feel. I’m becoming more sensitive to that, and as I do, I think a lot about how to add value to people’s online diets.

So what’s next for me then?

After pitching an idea to a company, the director reminded me that whatever I create should have a reason for me to be involved. I try to stay humble, but as I get older, I see the importance of being confident in what I do well. I’m a writer, public speaker, illustrator, seamstress, and sometimes an actress. I’ve come to realize I have creative talents that not many people have. When I think about it, creativity is my superpower. It’s helped me get this far, and without it, I don’t think I’d be successful.

Right now, what I want most is to create. I know many of you miss my old video essays, and I understand that’s why a lot of you joined my channel. I saw someone on TikTok say the video essay is dead. For me, it’s not dead, but I do need to rethink how I make them. I don’t want to spend so much time on a single video essay anymore. I’ve realized I can’t reach my creative goals if I spend weeks on a video that doesn’t pay off, and most of them don’t. Now, I see YouTube more as a job that pays my bills and supports my other business. For many topics you like to hear me talk about, I want to spend about as much time on them as I do filming reactions. I’ve noticed that reaction content helps keep my channel going and lets me put out videos faster, in a format that’s much easier to edit and doesn’t need a lot of graphics. This way, I can share more content and still have time for higher-quality projects that support my art career and my passion for education.

I feel very drawn to teach. It’s what my Grandmother did, what my Mother did, and what I feel drawn to do in this phase of my life. What I’ve recognized is that in the age of AI, creativity is being undermined. While people eagerly celebrate that they no longer need to pay artists, what they’re not realizing is that under fascism, art and self-expression are always under attack because they are powerful. It transcends a lifetime, and often encourages feelings that lead to action. These billionaires want you to stop thinking for yourself and just let the white supremacist robot do the thinking for you. As art education is defunded, discouraged, and replaced with AI, I feel a similar obligation to the one I felt in my early internet days to fill in the blanks. I’m not the only one doing it, but I’m one of the few who really can.

At the moment, I’m working on a DIY series and creating new posts for this website. I’ve hired a few new editors to help me produce most of my YouTube content. Working with them and my assistant has freed up my time for other projects. Now that I’ve thought about what I want to leave behind, I have some new goals I want to pursue.

So expect Blaque in the City and my YouTube channel to both be more active, but also more intentional. I’m very excited about what’s to come. If you’re ever curious what I’m working on, check me out on Patreon!