One thing that kept me going was the kindness I was met with by other YouTubers. Every comment made me celebrate, dance and sing. "Pet and Chic" featured my #createnothate video in one of their videos and more and more people came over from their channel to see more of my work. "Christopher Robins" helped me find the perfect (free) software, gave editing tipps and also helped me getting more confident.
I already noticed that most of those people were loosely "connected" together. They supported each other, sometimes featured videos of other creators - helping them grow their audience. Some of them collaborated. And some of them stood out to me with having "Monster" in their names. Besides "Pet Monster" and "Monster Chick" there also was a "Granny Monster" (aka "Granny McMonster"), "Angie MON5T3R", "Llama Monster" and "Monster Mom" (no link to her channel because of a tragedy that happened. Sorry guys). Yeah, a lot of Monsters are out there! None of them made/makes creepy horror content (like I do) though. The channels all have very different content and I really recommend you to check them out!
It happened that I regularly went to their channels to watch, like and comment on their videos, and they came back on my channel to leave comments of support. Although I always say "Don't trust anyone you get in contact with in the world wide web. You never know who really is on the other end" it soon felt like we all were friends.
Transformation
So, one day I decided to change my name from "baphomet666100" to "baphomet666_MONSTER". I wanted to "tell the world" that I was "part" of that group of diverse and supporting creators. Not only with #createnothate in (almost) every video description, but also with my name. And I not only wanted to tell "the world" that I support that "group" and #createnothate, I also wanted to tell the "Monsters" that I felt comfortable "around them".
To be honest, I was a bit worried when I changed my name. I didn't know if all those "Monsters" were ok with me turning to a "Monster" too. But I was met with another wave of support. Now it felt even more like a group of friends. Although I lost contact to most of the "Monsters", "Pet and Chic" are still there. And so is "Granny Monster". With her, my online friendship expanded to other social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Discord. The only other YouTuber I have contact with on other social media is "Connect The Dots". ;)
Well. I got to tell you: It's so much fun to chat with "Granny Monster"! Her comments make me happy. We laugh a lot about stuff we post on Facebook (you can't use it for anything else. I tried to post serious stuff, but people always endet up in hateful arguments, so I decided to only post funny memes and entertaining things). "Granny Monster" also supported me from the very start and still does, and I can't thank "Granny" enough for everything!
Now being a "Monster", everything felt complete. At first I still tried to sometimes make cryptic comments and appear creepy but eventually gave up. I can't be as mysterious as "OO390", for example. And I don't really need to freak people out with weird comments - "baphomet666_MONSTER" is enough to make some people "worry". I might adress this subject another time.
After about six years being a "Monster", uploading short videos on YouTube every now and then, slowly growing my audience and channel, last year I found out about a really weird rumor about us "Monsters". One day I went through YouTube analytics to find out how people found my videos. It said that some viewers came from 4chan. 4chan is a scary place. Disturbing and disgusting at times. Ridiculous most of the times. It's a look into the "abyss of humanity" - but that's how this platform works. People can say almost ANYTHING there - anonymously (that's why you mostly find hate comments and conspiracy theories there, as well as "revenge p0rn" and stuff like that. It's just sad.). You got to supervise everything people can comment on, or end up like 4chan.
Because I know that place too well, I was a little worried at first of what I will find there... and it was hilarious. I quickly forgot about it. Until recently. Someone invited me to join a Discord server, because some people there talking about "Pet and Chic" and the "Monster group"... That's when I remembered the 4chan thread.
Read more about what I found out in my next article.