Hehe, thanks for the comments, all. My ego had taken some hits recently. I tend to be a bit too heavily influenced by external opinion (realize I should take it ALL in stride, not get too dependent on praise or respond too deeply to criticism). I think anytime you put yourself out there like that you must be prepared for the worst. Some people are just SO good at spotting those weaknesses and exploiting them so ruthlessly.

I was just being silly about using an avatar, though I think it could be funny occasionally like Mark does it. I also think dabbling a bit in "machinima" could be interesting.

One interesting thought I had was that maybe people should never talk about their # of subs or whatever; at least not on the videos themselves or in the comments. My guess is that when people see that, it turns them off. I think I'm going to try to distance myself from that sort of thing and just pretend not to be paying it so much attention. My theory is that no amount of cajoling or begging is going to make any difference anyway, in fact it may hurt it, so probably best just to make the best videos I can and respond respectfully and intelligently to comments. Indeed, it may be that even saying something like "Please send this video to your friends!" might hurt, because a friend might not want to send it and risk looking like a toadie or insider. Anyway, just some thoughts I've been having on the topic; love to hear other views.