Friday, January 01, 2021

2010 - 2020

 2010 was the first year of my 30s. It was kind of a year of liberation.  For one thing, up to that point, age 30 had always been some proverbial deadline to who knows what. I guess, I was supposed to be in the midst of a lucrative career, and be raising a family, or something. Passing that deadline without having achieved those milestones sort of freed me from society's expectations, to really look at and figure out what I wanted to do with my life. It was also a liberating year, as I decided to focus on forgiveness, and let go of things like anger and grudges. This lead to a rather positive vibe for the year.

2010 was a fun year for J-Dubb's Theatre. Possibly my favorite. Actually, in the beginning, I didn't post any videos, and barely blogged, for the first three months. We had just passed the YouTube-pocalypse  of 2009, in which a lot of the changes Google had made weeded out a lot of old YouTubers. Those of us who made videos for the YouTube community were left wondering if there still was a community.

In March, I began watching videos of YouTubers from the old community, and became kind of nostalgic. I came to a decision that I could be the YouTube community, whether YouTube was willing to support the community, or not. I began posting videos again, and began reaching out to other YouTubers, where I found that there still was a YouTube community, after all.

That year, I had a very fun and active J-Dubb's Theatre viewer base. My subscribers, which hadn't even grown to 200 in the first three years, suddenly shot up several hundred, up to the 500s, in just that one  year. And, most of my YouTube friendships were made that year.

In 2020, I began my 40s married and in the midst of my career. I approached this age with a plan of action. 

The year began with a  lot of parallels to 2010. I decided to have an alien themed birthday, as a throwback to the 30th birthday my sister had thrown for me. I also started the year intending to focus on forgiveness and positivity, like I had in 2010. The parallels ended, for the most part, in March, when 2020 hit. 2010 was a relatively easy year to focus on forgiveness and positivity. 2020, posited much more of a challenge, as, in the middle of the year, I found a lot of angering situations occurring in the world. I had  to really learn to take time to focus on those things which are empowering, and disconnect from those things which only drain. I learned to look at my life with gratitude, and resolved myself to make a real difference with my life, rather than grumbling on social media.

As far as J-Dubb's Theatre goes, by the time 2020 began, I hadn't posted a video in two years, and hadn't been active on this blog for 8 years. J-Dubb's Theatre pretty much existed as a place to occasionally write nostalgic blog posts. Then, into the Summer, I posted and back-dated all of my old videos to this blog, going back 8 years, when I had ceased posting videos to this blog. During this time, I remembered the days when this blog had been active. I began posting actively to this blog again, resuming the old format, complete with Superstar of the Week, Nosferatu, and other old J-Dubb's Theatre blogging traditions. 

So, I suppose, in a sense, the big parallel between 2010 and 2020, is that they were both years that J-Dubb's Theatre picked up again after an absence. But more than that, whereas 2010 began a journey of self discovery, 2020 represents the culmination of that journey.