TikTok Ban & Unus Annus

As I Write this, the fate of TikTok is being dictated by the interest of politicians bought by Zuckerberg and trading in stocks for META.

so clearly set back technologically, that they proudly demonstrate their lack of understanding on how Wi-Fi Works. 

Being  the type of person that I am, I have found myself stricken with soul crushing anxiety over the worst possible outcomes.

Anti-Trans Legislation is being proposed left and right, with far too much of being passed for ANYBODY to rightfully be comfortable with it.

And it was not quite a year ago that the SCOTUS Leak informed us that Roe V Wade was going to be overturned.

This isn't about protecting kids or being worried about foreign access to our data.

It's an  excuse to justify something all of us fear, and therefore FEAR to accept it isn't just at our door step, but that it is here...

and THAT is a type of heavy that I can't even begin to properly describe.

Hell, I haven't even begun to process how I feel about it.

Much less what to do about it. 

So here I am.

Making a SpaceHey page to take a deep breath of that fresh MySpace nostalgia,

hitting that pleasure button over and over just to reap the minimal reward of a short lived few moments to remind myself of a time when things were just a little bit simpler. 

In light of recent events, I have had to ask myself, 

"How am I Going To Get By?"

For you see, 

Over on TikTok I have spent the better part of the last 2 years making content about magic, witchcraft, and sharing my knowledge of, as well as my experiences WITH divine beings.

WitchTok is a whole other monster that has Tumblr trembling as it looks down at the beer that it was requested to hold.

And it has been in these waters I have dared to navigate, in which I carved a little corner for myself, being granted the privilege  to ask people to support the channel

 and it WORKS?

Being my only true form of lucrative pursuit, I have had to take the time ask myself, 

"How Will I Survive the Death of TikTok on American Soil?"

YOUTUBE! Duh!

Long before I ever thought I'd make a difference in any significant way by info dumping about magick, demons, and divine beings, I was a YouTuber.

Inspired by the likes of Shane Dawson & Destry Smith

(regrettably so in hindsight)

I looked around one day in mid October of 2017 and said, 

"I have a laptop and a phone camera... I can do that!"

So I tried!

And Good GODS did I try...

With more patches and holes in my upload history, and at times being less consistent than some of the politicians interrogating the TikTok CEO the other day,

I definitely did the thing. 

It just didn't get me very far.

But in my mind, for some reason, YouTube was always supposed to be home base.

Until TikTok happened! 

And since everything is in-app, (recording, editing, uploading) It was a little TOO convenient.

It became much easier to share a thought OR  debate a talking point in 3 minutes or less than anything I could have ever dreamed of doing with YouTube.

And Since my life is almost always an unpredictable tumult of uphill battles, decked to the nines in metaphorical land mines, 

TikTok Became My Go-To. 

As time moved on and I'd make attempts to return to the Big Red Play Button, those efforts would eventually fall off and fade back into obscurity. 

Because something happened that I did not ever expect would or even COULD-

I gained a subscriber base on YouTube,

But they were almost all from my Tiktok.

All my witchy and occult content is what brought people to my demonstrably NON-witchy YouTube channel.

So most of my videos from that point on wound up being witchy or occult in nature.

And I fucking hate it.

It gets under my skin in such a way that it is a genuine emotional sensory HELL.

I hate looking at myself in some of these videos.

If for no other reason than the fact I did something I never thought I'd do.

I sold out.

In my mind, I was treating it like a job or a business.

Since most of the people who showed up did so because I'm a witch who loves to pump my audience full of free information, THAT is what I felt I needed to keep doing.

But the more I did this, the more I realized

My YouTube Channel is NOT Supposed to Be This...

Yet I had come so far from where I was when I had last uploaded regularly to my channel,

And so had YouTube itself.

The last time I was uploading consistently was back in the first half of 2020.

And in this time, I was HEAVILY inspire by Unus Annus.

For those of you who weren't there, Unus Annus was a collaborative effort, hosted by Markiplier and Ethan of Crank Gameplays. 

The Objective was to upload one video every day for one year,

then at the end of that year DELETE EVERYTHING.

And that is exactly what they did. 

And In MY Mind, that was the last great thing that really happened on YouTube.

And now that I look back at the warm and loving memories that linger on in the halls and catacombs of my inner world,

I cry my fucking eyes out.

How the hell did this channel, This experience, Unus Annus, leave such a lasting impression on me that even now, over TWO YEARS past channel deletion, 

I still cry.

Big ugly sobs where I don't know where tears end and boogers begin. 

And I think that was the point.

Unus Annus - Momento Mori

One Year - Remember Death

Remember what you have before it is gone.

Because you never know when what you are experiencing now is going to be a memory.

However, we, the audience, DID KNOW when Unus Annus was going to end

WHY DOES IT STILL HURT???

I can't speak for others, but for myself, it's because Unus Annus wasn't just a channel.

It was an experience that was relevant and prevalent for an ENTIRE YEAR.

It started November 14th 2019.

All the way until the 12 Hour live stream that ended in the channel's death 

Which was on November 13th 2020.

Friday the 13th, no less.

Unus Annus was an entire year of videos that I watched start to finish. 

Every Single Day I had a video to look forward to.

Every Single Day I had something to talk about with my significant other.

Every Single Day I had something I knew was going to bring me joy.

I knew it was going to end.

I knew it wouldn't last forever.

I knew the end was coming.

I KNEW IT WAS GOING TO END.

. . . .

And yet, Unus Annus still became a part of my life.

When Covid-19 swept the globe and the United States went into Lock Down in March of 2020,

They  Went on Lock Down WITH us.

Mark and Ethan grew with us.

They adapted to the changing conditions with us

They were a part of and affected by the same things we were.

That Year . . . was one of the most formative of my entire life. 

March 26th of 2020

I was reunited with my head mates and realized I was part of a D.I.D. System.

April of 2020, I started scrolling WitchTok.

May of 2020 I started working with and worshipping actual Pagan GODS!

I watched as my favorite creators were talking about the social injustices in Aemerica and abroad,

While our nation became united and divided as history was playing at our finger tips. 

As more people were laid off or working from home, or catching covid themselves,

they came to TikTok to watch the world happen. 

And some of them ALSO had Unus Annus to watch every day. 

In Some Way, a countless many were united under TikTok,

and some of THEM came to find comfort in Unus Annus. 

And this was just after one of the WORST years of my life.

When Unus Annus started, I had just gotten out of a grippy sock vacation.

Nearly ALL of 2019 was lost to psychosis because I was misdiagnosed and Mis-medicated.

Several Times That Year, I almost wasn't here. 

October 27th I get home, finally with some hope for my future with a better diagnoses and better meds more fitting to the situation.

November 14th, I see that first video of Unus Annus had bee uploaded, and I didn't know what to think of it.

But I was here for it.

I had already conceded to focusing more on YouTube.

I had promised myself while  in the crisis unit that I'd make a star of myself one way or another.

And the only real feasible means of that was YouTube.

Now, even before that fateful day in 2017 when I decided to start making content,

I always wanted to do YouTube.

I was inspired by people like Kylemonkey, 

A goober with a camera who uploaded videos of himself in 2006 & 2007 who was obviously inspired by Jim Carey, and was filming himself just being a goof ball for the camera, then sped it up in editing.

ADHD Chipmunk Pt 2 changed my life.

Soon, more like  Kylemonkey would catch my attention, such as Shane and Destrey. 

I wanted to do what they were doing and make YouTube videos.

And I knew one day I would.

However, Just Jakel entered the chat as soon as the viner invasion was taking hold and changing YouTube forever.

This is when Gabbie Hannah and the Paul Brothers became mainstays as well a the talk of the town. 

Because it wasn't long until the infamous Aokigahara video by Logan Paul went up 

and it was all that YouTube could talk about.

(I think it is amusing in hindsight when people said TikTok was going to be Vine 2.0 when removal of Vine 1.0 wreaked so much havoc on YouTube.

Now I wonder IF TikTok does get banned, will we see something similar with a great migration over to The Big Red Play Button.

But I Digress.)

POINT IS:

 THIS was the YouTube climate and culture that I entered into when the first video went up to Just Jakel, (which was actually a cigarette review parody that no longer exists).

So as I am trying to  get some headway in the YouTube algorithm, the platform was already changing while I was still acclimating. 

As time marched on, I watched as my favorites were called out and cancelled or fell into obscurity. 

And yet I would come to find others that I would then begin to try to emulate, yet to little success. 

Some examples are "Am I Metal Enough?" which was greatly inspired by boyinaband. 

(again, regrettably)

Then the Dedicated Student of Internet Comment Etiquette, which was my attempt at showing the class what I had learned from Sensei Salvia on his channel, Internet Comment Etiquette with Erik.

In the ebb and flow of finding my voice and wrestling with increasingly deteriorating mental health, I noticed different characters were starting to show, which then brough me to start taking inspiration from the alter egos of Markiplier and Jacksepticeye.

Which gave us the first Halloween Hangover video, heavily inspired by the ASDF Movies that took off in an older iteration of YouTube history, 

Yet we still saw Characters like Darren T. Smith and Chazz Splazbury.

This eventually coalesced into a Holiday Hangover video which was a spiritual successor of sorts, where the same characters returned, including a former briefly mentioned character, Blondie Lixx, former guitarist of the fictional 80s hair metal band, The Crimson Lips. 

This eventually faded out and fizzled away as a result of biting off more than I could chew, doing too much, yielding very few results. 

Not a month later was when I started suffering psychosis,

And I still tried all of 2019 to continue uploading 

But I'd have to hang it up to take care of myself and tend to my mental health.

Now we are back up to speed, with me trying to make a name for myself, having Unus Annus to inspire me.

By The Time Unus Annus was deleted, I had already fallen off from uploading regularly as a result of my personal life being chaos once again. 

And it wasn't long after the dreaded, well known end of Unus Annus that I would realize-

I wasn't who I thought I was.

Getting very familiar with my head mates, getting used to being the host of my system, I was able to piece together a picture, and by the time it was painted a clear image was being shown.

The only remaining missing piece to make sense of it all was to accept that I had not always been the host. 

I was once the protector of my system, and it was back in the end of 2016 that I became the host, separating me from my head mates until that point in March of 2020 when we had been reunited.

EVERYTHING... Suddenly made PERFECT sense. 

And even if somebody could properly adjust to such a thing, I wasn't granted that because I found myself in the throws of a break up that demanded my attention more than taking the time to let it sink in that I wasn't who I thought I was and that the last 4 years was based in a precedent that just wasn't accurate. 

The winter would move on with YouTube still on hold, but I finally had enough distance to start licking my wounds and take account of myself around April of 2021.

And as a means to escape from my real world life and cope with an uncertain future, I started uploading to TikTok regularly and FREQUENTLY. 

With Unus Annus being the last great thing to inspire me, my own life wildly derailed from anything I thought I would be experiencing, and info dumping my vast and wonderful knowledge of magical, mystical and occult obsessions, TikTok eventually took over my life.

Every now and then I would try to make a YouTube video here and there, but it was sparing and sporadic at best.

But every time, I definitely felt myself saying, 

"Fuck, I miss this."

Now at this point, I could regale the audience, as well as myself, going back over the timeline of events that bridges the gap between here and now. 

But I want to fast forward back up to present day.

I cannot act as if it is lost on me that should TikTok be banned in the United States, it would be devastating for SO MANY PEOPLE.

Small businesses, People who rely on TikTok as a source of income or marketing toward more lucrative outlets.

Not to mention the marginalized communities that would no longer have the support networks they currently do, or the genuinely astronomical implications as to how it affects the free and open exchange of vital information such news that isn't occupied by corporate funders with other investors who want to see the news spun and presented in a certain way.

And not to mention, everything I hear about the RESTRICT ACT (sb 686 of the 118th congress)  , which is the bill framing the TikTok ban would also HEAVILY penalize anybody using VPNs or other tools such as the Tor Browsing Network, 

With so many other implications by granting executive power, circumventing the set standard of checks and balances or what we feign to refer to as the judicial system, 

This Bill is so cartoonishly evil That Sheev Palpatine couldn't have come up with something better.

TikTok really seems like the Trojan Horse to enact something FAR WORSE, and this hubbub is the smoke and mirror shit show to pass a bill, inaccurately labeled, "The TikTok Ban Plan"

I am AWARE. 

It is honestly just another nail in the coffin, sealing the fate between us and a genuine christo-fascist state, 

The Implications are PROFOUND and cannot be understated or taken lightly in any way whatsoever. 

It is scary. 

And I am scared. 

And I don't know what to do. 

Which is a huge part of why I am writing this blog on a MySpace Clone where not a single person follows me, yet this will probably become a script for a YouTube video. 

but for now, that is neither here now there.

What I Am Saying Though is-

Momento Mori.

Remember Death.

Death is an ever present all pervading thing that isn't just at the end of ones life or when the final breath is exhaled.

Death is the end of all things.

Death is the cold embrace that takes us over to the next state of our existence.

Death is in the leaves even before they fall to the ground to eventually decay and return to the soil of the Earth. 

Everything ends.

Weather you be a King or a little street sweeper,

sooner or later, YOU'LL dance with the reaper.

Death is everywhere and it is in everything.

And a primordial force that helps shape the ever changing landscape of our lives, our communities, our favorite TV shows, and the feelings we are feeling right now.

Everything comes to an end. 

And even if you KNOW that it will, or even WHEN it will, 

that does not change the fact death still leaves a lasting imprint.

And in the grief of recalling what once was, nothing can change that we will miss it once it is gone. 

And TikTok may very well be gone very soon.

And although I am not ready to let it go, I am seeing a personal silver lining that just might help  me get through this.

My YouTube Channel. 

One thing is for goddamn certain thought,

I am NOT going going quietly into the night.

NOR am I going to keep doing witchy and spiritual content on Just Jakel. 

The O.G., the home base. The place where it all started for me and where my social media presence as a content creator first truly began.

And even if TikTok still remains and this RESTRICT ACT doesn't get passed, bringing us into a true dystopian hell

I am so goddamn done and sick of talking about the same fucking points, 

over and over, as if the waves crash down around me, smashing me into the rocks of the shore while I am eroded and turned into pebbles upon the sand, 

never to really have any tangible sense of self, only to become a part of a never ending cycle of give and take that seldom ever gives the return I put into it.

The Monotony is killing me. 

and I am so beyond done needing to rely on it just so I can point to the thingy, hoping somebody can spare some coin so I can find my next meal. 

And if it doesn't kill me, I will.

In so many ways, I am beyond ready to return to YouTube and start getting back into the groove of things, having fun and enjoying making content the way I always wanted to.

Giving others something to do in order to turn their brains off and just be entertained for a few minutes at a time so the bleak reality of the world we are living in doesn't hurt so goddamn bad every waking moment of every single fucking day. 

The same way Unus Annus helped me.

The same way Unus Annus helped so many of us.

I can't upload daily, but sure as shit I want to help others feel a little less hopeless and give them something to look forward to!

The problem is; I have no idea how I am going to do exactly that.

So I know it is going to take me some time while I figure it out.

But I said once before, 

If I go down, I want to go down swinging and say I tried! 

Goddammit I fucking TRIED!

Not only is this, in itself a death,

but it is a rebirth.

a new beginning where I am back at the drawing board.

Only this time I have cultivated my skills and have more practice put into my craft

I have so many more tools in my belt to use as part of my arsenal.

I am not without hope.

The startup just might take a while. 

And as corny as it might sound, please remember,

It is always darkest just before the dawn,

If you're still here, thank you for your time.

As always, take care an much love.

-Momento Mori