I have a confession to make - A Journal Entry Summarizing my Life in 2024

Hello there. This is Brayden Nohai here to bring you a very important message to those who have been with me on this little rough journey of mine. I know it's been almost months since I tried to talk about my feelings, so I decided that this would be a great time for me to let it all out and show it to you from the beginning of the year. And it's not just about me, but it's about my whole exprerience of being on the internet in 2024 as a whole, and why I am struggling to try and do the things that I have used to do. Besides, there has got a lot to be dicussed over here, from suffering in the real world, to people going on strike across the internet, and it's not just about me. I know it's a pretty hard topic to talk about but the internet is a pretty crazy place right if I say so myself.

To start things off, right after I graduated high school in June, my parents were trying to look in for a program that I can get into so that they can prevent me from being on the computer all day, but they've spent almost months trying to find one, and they had to sign some forms so that I can get into them, but the printer was one of those issues. Infact, it was such an issue that whenever I try to scan an artwork from the scanner that was built-in my printer, as I load up the program known as "HP Smart," the status says that the printer is offline, which happens almost every single time. Sometimes, it could even crash and might lose my progress of saving the scanned artwork so that I could trace it. And right now, I'm literally trapped inside my room all alone with a bunch of books and collectibles surrounding me, as well as sitting at my desk that I've gotten for Christmas in 2022. Feeling paralyzed, I didn't really feel sure what to do, and so, people like you have been requesting me numerous artwork so that I can stay more active on the internet, as well as social media. And since I've graduated from high school that time, progress for these artworks and graphic design that I do mostly in my spare time has increased and was less waiting for, and I'm glad that it'll help get all my art requests done faster and in time. And that's the reason why I have more than a hundred artworks and pictures drawn, modeled, and created through this year, as my hands start to get tired after using all of this time that I killed, which is a good thing for me. Although I might've not used this laptop of mine everyday, I've actually been getting some fresh air outside usually in the middle of the day or in the morning, just to stretch out and get my steps in, which I have been doing for so since the past few months.

But recently, there has been a lot concerning me on the internet almost everyday, that I feel like I'm ending up in some kind of an endless loop. First off, there has been a numerous amount of spambots on DeviantArt that I have blocked who have kept asking nicely to use my artwork in their art, but obviously it's just a trick that could potentially lead to a virus on my computer. And besides, they don't even know that they're not allowed to steal certain pieces of my artwork, since my account uses limited protection. Now I can't even figure out how many spambots on DeviantArt that I've blocked, due to the fact that they're almost all over DeviantArt willing to steal my info. It's just not fair anymore to me. Like, why are they always wanting to do this every single time? My block list already has tons of users who won't have to bother me all the time. Unless if they create a new account, then things could potentially get even worse from here. Another thing I want to talk about that has been concerning me since the beginning of the year is the Middle East. And it all started with Israel launching missle rockets at Palestine (especially Gaza), which unpredictably led to people posting stuff saying "FreePalestine," "CeaseFireNow," etc. Not only that, some accounts that I used to follow, take Instagram for example, have been reposting other Palestine-related stuff in their stories (like donating to the country, including Gaza) just so I can be pissed off about it. It's almost the same way like when the radio is playing ads that have been too cliché, but that has happened when I was still in school. Ever since, it seems that I don't have interest in the Middle East if Israel is doing all of this damage. But obviously, I'm not on any side of which country to support, so let's just say that I am neutral from at this very moment. The problem is that it's very hard being an American/Irish/German human-being in these tough times. Besides, when I was watching a NewsHour episode online, I realized that I shouldn't be supporting Palestine due to the 9/11 attacks that they were involved in. Can we also mention in October about what was going on about Florida and the impact of Hurricane Milton that was going on at that time? The world is becoming an impact for me and so is the United States, where I'm doing just fine since New York doesn't get any hurricanes at all! Across social media, I saw many people posting #PrayForFlorida, but this is on my biggest concern, along with Palestine which I just mentioned earlier. Besides, I respect all of your opinions on that.

Another thing that I really need to talk about is YouTube, and what is ruining my reputation of being on the site. Over the past year, when it was February 16, 2023, and Susan Wojcicki announced that she would step down as CEO, that's when eveything got from good to worse. Since Neal Mohan became CEO, as I think he was "crazy after money in his life," the website started to hunt down ad-blockers beginning in July of last year, and and forced people to subscribe to a YouTube Premium plan in order to get rid of the ads, but there were many users across the internet who used the site that were not very pleased about this situation. As we all know right now, ad-blockers on YouTube does violate its terms of service, and could result in account termination or suspension. This even affected to me twice when I was trying to use ad-block, and I did post it all on Reddit last year, and ever since this has happened, I don't know if I can look at YouTube the same way that it used to be. Even worse, YouTube started putting ads in embedded videos such as Discord by around August, meaning that I am now unable to watch any videos in Discord ad-free, as the only way I can watch YouTube videos is to download them from websites where you can download them for free, even though they are not associated with YouTube whatsoever. I just can't look at myself anymore enjoying one of the greatest online video-sharing websites without putting my finger on it. Not to mention that on September 19 of 2024, YouTube even started putting ads on videos whenever they were paused. I feel like it's all Mohan's fault of doing this "ad business" instead of me, because obviously Wojcicki would never do that. Let me tell that your really seeing the true downfall of YouTube itself, because this isn't what life is suppose to be like on there. I just wish that there was a way for everyone to watch videos on YouTube without being interupted with a single ad! 

And now to talk about the future of what everything would look like for me to use Windows 11 by the end of August 2024. Eventually, I am going to be upgrading to that operating system on September 1, 12:00 PM EST (date is subject to change), since support for Windows 10 is being discontinued on October 14, 2025 and I want to make sure that I am up to date with everything else. And Windows 11 was already around for 3 years, so it seems to me that I have to get used to things of change. But there is just one problem, and that is WordPad being discontinued in the latest update. Not to mention, many of the programs that I use might not work with Windows 11, which would be a waste of almost my mind and everything inbetween. I'm actually very anxious about using Windows 11 for the first time, even though I might've used Windows 10 for almost 10 years across 4 laptops that I have wasted on, even though 3 of them don't seem to work properly anymore, one of them I broke the screen of. I'm really going to miss the old layout and especially Paint 3D, which I only experimented on before moving on to Blender. I just wish I could use Autodesk 3DS Max and Autodesk Maya more often, but they're just so expensive nowadays that I can't even afford it! It seems that I've actually been stuck on a budget for as how long long I can remember, but it's almost been forever now since I can't afford much in the world. But from what I mentioned earlier, I am also struggling to find new sites to download YouTube videos in high quality, but nothing is working because they literally want you to pay a ridiculously high amount of money in order to buy their product. That's just retarded and useless, and besides, I can't afford anything else in life if I don't have a credit card to access the internet. It's like I can't even access the possibilities to YouTube's enjoyable videos anymore! Besides, downloading videos from YouTube is very important and sometimes concering to my hard drive, somehow.

Can I also mention that Donald Trump is about to make my life even worse than 2016 after he won the 2024 Election? This just happened when I woke up this morning and made myself breakfast, and when I reacted to the election results, my life literally went back to square one. I mean, you just can't have a president who used to become president run again in the next 8 years. That's not how the politics work. Now everything is gonna go back to how my life was in 2017 when he was inaugurated back then, it's like a nightmare thatx has come to life! I was hoping for Kalama Harris to win the election, but no! Instead, we lose another chance of having the first female president of the United States! That's the second time it happened. I just wish that life would've been better if Harris won the election instead of Trump.

So as we speak, this year has probably been a stressful one, because with all these things happening and to those current events, they seem that they're gonna get stuck in my head for the rest of my life. And now, I can't even do or enjoy the things that I used to except watch TV or go for a walk outside. I know. It really sucks, but it's not helping anything. Think of it whenever I am looking myself at the mirror feeling how I'll be left behind in a world of horror and trying to catch up on the most important things in life. I just hope 2025 will fix all those mistakes if it could, because the Lord literally needs me in life. Unfortunately, I'm unable to speak my opinions on Instagram and Threads, as the latter was suspended from that time. I just wish that the world would've been more peaceful if I had no interuptions on the internet than just being a bastard. But I still want to thank all of you who requested all that artwork I spent days and weeks on completing throughout this year, and it really means a lot to me. I also wanna say goodbye to Party City, since they're closing all the stores in the U.S. by February 1, 2025. And that's all I gotta say. So please take care of yourselves and enjoy the rest of the holidays. Thank you, and happy new year.

P.S.: Remember to turn your computer off before midnight on 12/31/24.