Many people are wondering why I shut down Dear Pats Nation,
the real reason. Today I’m going to try and give you as much clarity as I can.
The month of August 2018 was my best year ever as a YouTube creator. I was a
creator of a somewhat successful YouTube channel. I had achieved my highest
monthly subscribership than I had in over a year and a half of working at it. I
was actually making a little bit of money (Not a lot of money) but I was making
some money. I was pumping out more videos than I thought possible. My comments
were about 95% positive, and yet I wasn’t happy. My passion and my hobby was
feeling like a job. My creativity was dead, and all I kept doing was thinking
about the “business” of my channel, and not just enjoying the channel. Not just
enjoying being the creator of a cool channel specifically for Patriots fans.
Than it happened. Somebody I thought I was cool with; another YouTuber that I
had actually went on his channel in the past, came after me. He went on a
mission to “expose” me as a “fraud”. “Expose” me as a New England Patriots “bandwagon”,
and it was at that moment I realised that no matter what I did, no matter what
I said, I had lost the war before the battle could even begin.
The problem with the internet is, people say things and
other people take it as truth. Alex Jones is a prime example of that. He says
things, people believe him, then Jones will come out and retract the statement,
but the damage of his words were already beyond repair. That’s exactly how I
was being set up. People in my own fan base after supporting me for months,
even some since the day I started my channel, turned on me. They took one
person’s word and took everything that he said as fact. You can’t beat that,
well you can, but I didn’t have the energy or the time to go to “war” with this
guy, so I did what any “coward” would do. I quit the channel. I made a goodbye
message, allowed this prick to believe he won, and I left. I shut down my Twitter
account, shut down my Facebook page, deleted my Instagram account, and on
September 1 I will be shutting down the YouTube channel. So you might ask why I
didn’t fight to clear my name. Well, the reason actually goes further than one insignificant
person on YouTube.
Years ago I read a quote from Mark Cuban, he said don’t turn
your passion into your job. It was always something that stuck with me, and I
realized that I was no longer enjoying making videos. It was taxing, I was
tired, creatively I was burnt out and I had done everything I could with Dear
Pats Nation. Honestly, I had nothing left. It was around May that I started
toying with the idea of shutting down Dear Pats Nation. A new channel called
Patriots Global had popped up, his content was similar to mine and he was
crushing me. I’m not sure if people were just sick of me, or if people liked
him better, or people were just looking for something new. I don’t know and I really
don’t have the answer for you, the point is, I was losing the views, and I
needed to do something. By the end, Dear Pats Nation was a shell of it’s self.
I was turning more into a reporter than I was a creator. My opinions were
becoming less and less and I was repeating the news to people. My content was
unoriginal, and people were starting to see through it. I was trying to make
myself so different from Patriots Global that I turned away from who I was. As
we moved into July I was really at the end. I had spoken to my wife about it,
and decided that I was going to give it until September and if I didn’t see a significant
change in my numbers and I was feeling stuck, I was going to shut down the
channel. By the time that guy started coming after me, I was exhausted. I was
sick of Dear Pats Nation, I wanted to talk about other things than just the
Patriots, it was making my passion for the Patriots miserable, and the
connection that I once felt with this team as a fan was going away and I was
feeling more like somebody who covers the Patriots, and that’s not what it was
supposed to be.
The day I recorded and uploaded the goodbye video was tough.
I was leaving a lot of great subscribers and viewers, and I was leaving
something that I had dedicated a lot of time growing. But, as soon as I pressed
save, I was at peace. It didn’t feel great, but I was happy with the decision.
The irony was, I quit the channel on my birthday, and the best gift that I gave
myself was freeing myself as only being seen as the Patriots guy. The fallout
was exactly what I expected, a ton of support, and a lot of hate. My troll sat
on his throne and enjoyed his victory, others who followed him took their
opportunity to take parting shots at me, and I knew it was coming, and I
expected it, and accepted it. When you make a decision like I did, you need to
understand that it’s going to happen.
So, now removed and recovered, I decided that I wanted to address
a few things. I think the thing that got to me the most was not the hate, but
the misinformation that was being presented as fact, and unfortunately at that
time I was in no position to defend myself. I couldn’t create a video clearing
things up after I released a video saying I quit. So, I just needed to sit
there and accept that things were being said, and there was nothing I could do
it about it. But, now that I’m in the process of creating a new channel, one
that will allow me to be more creative, focus on my music, and focus on being
happy and making people happy, I want to put this issue to bed and move on from
Dear Pats Nation.
The first thing that I want to address is my fans who are disappointed
with me because they think I started the channel to make fun of Patriots fans,
and then when it caught on continued doing it just to make money. Believe me or
not, that is the furthest thing from the truth. The truth is, I created a character
named Donny O’Donnell. What I did was, I made list of everything that people
say about Patriots fans, and I created this guy who checked every box on the
Patriots hater checklist. I wasn’t making fun of Patriots fans, I was poking at
the haters and showing them how ridiculous their stereotypes about us were.
People like Donny don’t exist, even the most obnoxious Patriots fans I’ve met
aren’t as bad as Donny. I think what hit me the hardest is that people believe
I wasn’t Patriots fan. Here’s a picture from my Facebook page. I posted this
picture in 2012. Five years before I started my YouTube channel. I am a
Patriots fan and I was a Patriots fan before I started the channel. The problem
is people are talking about me without knowing the facts and people are
believing them. That’s the truth. At the very least I can prove I was a
Patriots fan in 2012. I wish Facebook would have been a thing in the 90’s maybe
I could have proved further back.
I’ve already spoken at length about being a Yankee fan and
why I became a Yankee fan, and I don’t watch hockey, and if I do it’s because
it’s on and my dad cheers for the Habs so I cheer along with him, but I really,
really, don’t care about hockey. Because I’m not from Boston I separate every
team. I don’t hate New York, I don’t Boston, I cheer for and against teams not
the city. I cheer against the RedSox, not the city of Boston. I have no issue
with Redsox fans, I have no issue with Bruins fans. I cheer for specific teams.
We don’t have an NFL team in Toronto, so I chose one from the USA to cheer for.
I don’t know why my dad doesn’t cheer for the Leafs, and as already explained I
jumped on the Yankees bandwagon in 2000. I’m proud of my country, but I’ve
lived in five different cities in my life, so I don’t gravitate to a team
because of what city they’re from.
What I really learned from the whole situation is, people
pass judgement without knowing the whole truth. People present information
without knowing all the facts. I’m not saying believe me. I’m saying if you
really search out the truth you’ll find it. But you can’t believe what
everybody says. It was strange that everything I said about the Patriots was
met with scrutiny and nobody just took me at my word, but than some guy who’s
never met me takes a shot at me and suddenly it’s taken as truth. By the way, I
didn’t want anybody to take my word for it. I wanted people to question what I
was saying. We learn my listening to more than one person and searching our own
facts. But truthfully it is what it is.
The build up to quitting Dear Pats Nation was stressful and
quick. I remember talking it out with my wife, and she said why are you getting
upset you never let this kind of stuff get to you. And I looked at her and said
“Exactly”. I never ever cared about haters or trolls. I used to laugh at them.
I used to go at them in the comments, but not out of spite or anger, but more
out of boredom, and I would run circles around these guys. Near the end of Dear
Pats Nation I was blocking anybody that was critical of me, and that just wasn’t
healthy for me and it wasn’t good for people who want to freely get their
opinion across without people monitoring and deciding which comments will make
it through.
So at the end of the day I’m in a really good place right
now, I’m enjoying making my music, I’m enjoying just writing and talking about
what I ever I feel like talking about. I think the most telling piece is how easy
it was to write this blog. There were days that I couldn’t writer or talk about
the Patriots, I had an information overload, and I just couldn’t get it
together. Today there was no research, just sit down and start writing. Start
talking about what ever the hell I feel like writing about, and even though
this blog obviously had a rhyme and a reason behind it, it was just easy to
write because I’m talking about myself and I’m just giving my opinion. I don’t
need to worry about stat lines and salary numbers and all that kind of stuff I
just get to write and enjoy what I’m writing. I get to create music, I get to
enjoy being creative, and I hope that I as I go down this path you’ll join me
along the way.
I understand it won’t be an easy road, and I need to redo
everything I’ve done in the past, but it is what it is, and really for the first
time people who knew me as the Patriots guy, will get see all of who I am. For
those of you I knew before thanks for sticking with me, for those of you I’m meeting
for the first time, it was nice to meet you and I hope you’ll stick around for
the ride.
