TRIZE

State of the Channels: 2024 YouTube Recap & Future Plans

_{YouTube analytics page showing my 2024 stats for TRIZE and It’s TRIZE Here!}

As we enter the new year of 2025, I want to publicly reflect on how my YouTube channel performed in 2024. Overall, things had gotten WAY better compared to last year on my main channel. Viewership, subscriptions, and ad revenue have reached all-time highs throughout the year. I’ve also created a new IRL/Automotive Vlogging channel, which is still in the works. In this article, I will go over both of my channel’s analytics, as well as any future plans to further grow my brand!

Highlighting last year’s statistics on the TRIZE channel. I averaged around 3,500–5,000 views a day when I didn’t post a video or had an underwhelming video. There were some spikes in viewership with my Automation & BeamNG builds, Mon Bazou, and the Most Powerful Engine Series in Automation. One of my most popular videos that exploded last year was when ChatGPT helped me design a turbocharged car. The video stands at over 255K views and is the 3^rd most viewed video of all time. It all started when I posted my first chatbot AI design video on April 22^nd, 2023, where I put ChatGPT and Automation’s AI head-to-head to see which AI car was better. I followed along with the Google Bard (now Gemini), Bing Chat (now Microsoft CoPilot), and X’s GrokAI.

Another new series of videos that helped was the BeamNG Career videos. I started my first video in this series on February 24^th, 2024 when it was a “hidden feature” in the 0.26 update back in late 2022. I started with the vanilla version of BeamNG’s Career Mode progressing through the game. In my 3^rd video of the series, I tried out an exploit in the game to earn money by running a “chop shop.” That video is the 2^nd most popular video of all time with over 260K views. A couple of videos later, I tried out a mod that expanded the game’s career mode drastically called the RLS Career Overhaul Mod. This mod adds freeroam police cars, more AI races, solo drag runs, hotlapping, and allows you to become a cop or a repoman. After installing this mod, I’ve never looked back on the vanilla career mode version of the game as this mod added more versatility and opportunities to progress in the game!

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On the 2^nd channel, It’s TRIZE Here!, The only 4 videos published in 2024 were; the Nürburgring vlog, the speed limit experiment video, a YT Shorts video highlighting using turn signals in roundabouts, and the drastic changes to Maumee, Ohio’s streets, which won the 2024 Strong Town Award. The most popular video is the Nürburgring vlog at 39K views. In that video, I rented a VW Golf GTI from Ringfreaks and drove it for 5 laps around the Nürburgring Nordschleife during the Touristenfahrten (Tourist Drive) event. It was my first time driving around an actual race track after driving it in racing simulators for years. The other 3 videos had modest views and engagement, except for the Maumee, Ohio documentary-esque video. It has received about 1,000 views within 2 months from its publish date. Despite having a few videos on the new channel, I managed to get over 90 subscribers. It would be a lot more if I managed to balance out both channels and my life.

By the time I was hired to a full-time job, things had slowed down considerably. I was publishing videos less often, roughly once a week, maybe every other week. This put a ding to my viewership as YouTube’s algorithm recommended fewer of my videos due to the lack of activity. This was noticeable throughout the second half of 2024 when I was hired at my new job. It also gave me an excuse to further research and improve my content as I’m currently employed. With the drop in activity, viewership remained consistent, even when I wasn’t uploading for a long period of time. This is probably due to some of my more popular videos of 2024 and before maintaining my channel’s views and subscribers. If I didn’t have an actual job, I would’ve been more active than I was when I was in college. Back then, I published videos about 2 times a week. Now, I upload about once a week because of having a job.

About my 2^nd channel, I haven’t posted a lot of content on there. The reason why there has been a lack of video on the new channel is due to a lack of executing my plans. That’s because I’m a fresh college graduate looking for my own place to live and easily thrive on the new channel. Another factor is because I work throughout the week as I’ve explained. Next week, I’ll be attending the NAIAS Detroit Auto Show for the 3^rd time. I plan to record my entire experience being at the auto show at the Huntington Place in Detroit, MI. However, it will be condensed down, rather than publishing a raw 6-8 hour video being up there. This will be my 5th video on the new channel. I also plan on creating a handful of YT Shorts regarding driving behavior and best practices. I don’t want to turn this channel into a gimmicky, Shorts only channel. Where everyone will expect short-form content, instead of my long-form content.

So this concludes this blog post about the previous year of my YouTube channel and my future endeavors. I would like to thank everyone who has been supporting me throughout the past 4 years! Whether you’ve been around since the MrJacon000 days or the current TRIZE Media family. I’ve got another 365 days of the year to make further improvements on the channel. No matter the size of my impact, I will continue to create and pursue my passion for being an automotive/racing sim YouTuber.

The HIGH Cost of My Latest PC and Equipment Upgrades

_{Photo showing various computer & equipment upgrades with ZOTAC Gaming LED logo from new GPU}

In the summer of 2024, I’ve considered upgrading my computer and recording equipment to improve quality and productivity. I researched the best yet cost-effective parts that would suit me. While my last setup was good all-around, it was lacking in a few key areas. That’s why I took the time and money to make the necessary changes to my setup. From changing out parts of my computer to upgrading the microphone.

What Have I Upgraded?

On September 1, 2024, I installed the first batch of computer upgrades:

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
MSI MAG B650 Tomahawk Wi-Fi
Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO
G.SKILL Flare X5 DDR5 6000MHz CL30 2x 32GB RAM

I purchased the CPU cooler and RAM from Amazon, while I purchased the CPU at Micro Center in Michigan, and the motherboard at a local Best Buy in July. The reason why I decided to upgrade the CPU from a Ryzen 7 5800X to a Ryzen 9 7950X is because I wanted to add more traffic in BeamNG. This game is deemed CPU-intensive as a car uses up one thread. Theoretically, I could have 32 cars loaded in at once and not have terrible frame rate. Even though I tend to load up 12 AI traffic cars in the game to not lower my frame rate while recording.

Every Upgraded Part

With this new CPU, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X. It’s a 16 core/32 thread processor that has twice the core and thread count than my last CPU. It’s also a smidge faster in terms of clock speed. This CPU will be the workhorse that improves my capabilities for BeamNG, and provide more power for editing videos. The Ryzen 7 5800X was the first CPU I used when I built this computer in late 2021. That was when I built the computer for about $1,000 worth of parts. Ever since upgrading the processor back in September, I’ve been getting more consistent frames on BeamNG because of that higher core count. Same thing with a slight improvement in rendering performance. Even though the GPU is mainly responsible for encoding/decoding videos and rendering them.

To give my CPU a new home, I had to upgrade my motherboard to an MSI MAG B650 Tomahawk Wi-Fi. This is required for the 7950X because it uses an AM5 socket instead of an AM4 socket on my old motherboard, an MSI B550-A Pro. A couple big props to the new motherboard is that it’s got Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capabilities. Hence, the Wi-Fi plastered on the product. I’m probably never going to use the Wi-Fi as I use ethernet. For Bluetooth, I tend to use it here and there by sending photos and videos between my computer and phone for video editing. Also, I’m able to connect the PSVR2’s Bluetooth controllers to my computer, as I’ve demonstrated with my BeamNG VR video. That was when I had my old GPU where I was running the game on the lowest settings because of a lack of VRAM.

The CPU cooler I got, a Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO. This cooler is starting to make waves around the market. It’s an affordable cooler with the performance similar to some of the name-branded ones. It cost me over $50 for a twin air cooler with two 120mm fans attached to both sides of the cooler. While I can buy a be quiet!, NZXT, Corsair, or other similar high-priced cooler. This one has been doing excellent ever since buying it after getting the Ryzen 9 7950X. Never overheated, and it’s not obnoxiously loud when under load!

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For the RAM, I purchased a pair of 32GB G.SKILL Flare X5s. Like the motherboard, it was needed to purchase new RAM for my computer. It’s your ordinary, high-end stick of RAM that’s not RGB or too flashy. People said that CL30 latency and 6000MHz speed are optimal for my new CPU. It cost me over $200 for this pair, compared to a pair of 16GB G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series for $112.99. While it’s necessary to have RAM installed on your computer, I don’t think I’ll see a huge difference in upgrading to a faster level of memory.

For my new GPU, I upgraded to a ZOTAC Gaming RTX 4080 SUPER AMP for $949.99 at the same Michigan Micro Center on Black Friday. This GPU is normally $1,099 as it was on sale. My last graphics card was a GIGABYTE RTX 3060 Ti GAMING OC. The difference between the two cards is that the ZOTAC has 16GB of VRAM, while the GIGABYTE has 8GB of VRAM. If you’ve seen my BeamNG VR video with the PSVR2, my old GPU was struggling with the lowest settings due to the low VRAM. And of course, the new GPU is an 82.13% increase in cost, all thanks to Nvidia running a semi-monopoly in the graphics card market after AMD pulled out of their enthusiast-grade GPU market. That old GPU cost me $453.29, purchased on July 18, 2022. To be honest, I was mulling on getting either an AMD Radeon 7900 XT or an XTX because it was cheaper than this Nvidia card. However, I picked the 4080 Super because of the lower TDP and potential reliability concerns with some AMD cards. If I were to pick either of those two AMD cards, I would have to upgrade my 750W PSU, which would set me back an additional $120+ for a good one that has enough wattage to power everything.

In terms of the GPU’s performance over my last one, the difference is clear! When I edit a video using MAGIX VEGAS Pro 22, there’s hardly any playback lag, and video decoding times have dropped significantly! Even when I render a video, it takes about on average 65% less time to render a 20-minute video with my new GPU than the old one. That’s because the 3060 Ti is marketed as a budget graphics card, compared to the 4080 Super, where that’s considered a high-end card. Now, I can seamlessly edit videos and apply certain effects without having any lag, slowing me down. I’m now able to pump out a video more quickly with this new card!

My last microphone, the Samson C01U had served as my go-to microphone for over 6 years. It was a budget USB microphone that had good sound quality for the cost. My new microphone is a BIG step up from the old one. I ended up getting a Shure SM7dB with a Focusrite Scarlett Solo pre-amp. The Shure mic I got was somehow a few dollars cheaper than the original SM7b on Amazon. So, I got the SM7dB as it had a built-in pre-amp and it costs about the same amount as the other one. Also, I had to buy an XLR cable because this is a high-end mic that only uses an XLR connection. In terms of sound quality, it’s a LOT clearer than my old one, and I don’t need a pop filter when recording my videos. As time goes on as I learn this new microphone and pre-amp. I will try to find the sweet spot with my audio editing and recording level. So, the audio doesn’t have any obnoxious clipping, or lackluster sound mixing.

Cost of Upgrading Every Part

So, you’re wondering, how much did I spend on all of these upgrades? I have a table below of all the parts I’ve purchased in a 5-month span with their final cost after taxes.

ITEM	PRICE (After Tax)
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X	$492.89
MSI MAG B650 Tomahawk Wi-Fi	$150.84
Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO	$53.77
G.SKILL Flare X5 RAM	$210.10
Shure SM7dB	$382.51
XLR Cable for Microphone	$13.30
Focusrite Scarlett Solo	$145.52
ZOTAC Gaming 4080 SUPER AMP	$1,006.99
*TOTAL COST*	*$2,455.92*

According to this table, it’s obvious that the GPU was the most expensive out of all of these parts — coming out at $1,006.99. Compared to the total amount of my first PC build, it cost me $1,004.34. That’s a $2.65 difference! Comparing the final price of the upgrades to my first build, it’s a $1,451.58 difference. I guess these are the new “sacrifices” when it comes to buying new things in this economy…

Conclusion

After spending over $2,400 worth of upgrades, it’s obviously a TON of money spent on these parts. Mainly thanks to the current GPU market of having graphics card prices go through the roof and the post ripple effect of a post COVID-19 economy. For the rest of the parts, I can say it’s all thanks to the recent inflation causing some of these prices to significantly increase. At least obtaining all of these parts is thanks to my YouTube channel’s AdSense revenue of making roughly $550-$700/month. And even having your average 9-5 full-time job making $17/hour. At the end of the day, I can say the price I paid for these upgrades. It’s sort of worth it in terms of the cost. The change in performance, definitely! These upgrades are really beneficial for my channel as they improve overall quality and productivity.

The Start of “It’s TRIZE Here!” — An Automotive Vlogging Channel

_{It’s TRIZE Here! YouTube channel page after its creation}

I’ve been considering expanding my role on YouTube for some time. Instead of only being a gaming channel dedicated to the sim racing and automotive genres, I decided to go beyond that by creating a vlogging channel. That channel is called “It’s TRIZE Here!“, which is a new channel to the TRIZE Media family. It will be an IRL vlogging channel dedicated to the automotive world. This channel will not hinder any scheduling with the main TRIZE gaming channel. It will be a second channel where I hope to upload a video at least once a week. After months of planning, I have some rough ideas on what is expected on the channel.

What you’ll first see on this new channel is a video of my personal experience driving on the famous Nürburgring Nordschleife as an American. (Check out this blog post about my experience in further detail.) The video will portray me flying out of the United States and arriving at Frankfurt International Airport, where I’ll spend 10 days taking this vacation. This wouldn’t be your run-of-the-mill vlog where I go to this place to that place highlighting everything over there. Instead, the video will show a timelapse of my take-off and arrival, shots of the Nürburgring, the car I’ll be renting (a Volkswagen Golf GTI from Ringfreaks), and interior footage of me driving the car for 5 laps.

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I’ve also planned a couple of other videos where I do some public driving experiments of following every driving law versus how other drivers react to this ordeal. Especially how Ohio drivers seem to be ignorant on the road, which could prove some use to the channel. For example, there will be a video of me driving the exact speed limit on various roads from residential, municipal, and highways. I will time myself in varying traffic conditions, driving from point A to point B, going the legal speed limit compared to going over the speed limit, which risks getting a speeding ticket. Another video I had planned out is highlighting the importance of the passing lane on interstate highways. In the state of Ohio, the passing lane is defined under “OH Rev. Code § 4511.27“, which states: “The operator of a vehicle overtaking another vehicle shall signal to the vehicle to be overtaken, shall pass to the left thereof at a safe distance, and shall not again drive to the right side of the roadway until safely clear of the overtaken vehicle.” That video will demonstrate how the passing lane on a highway is defined under the law by passing slower traffic on the left while driving the speed limit and following other traffic laws. There will be scenes of drivers hogging the left lane, preventing legal passing on highways, and highlighting why this can be dangerous and may violate “OH Rev. Code § 4511.25“, also known as the “Slower Traffic Keep Right Law.”

So, with this new channel, this is an exciting new venture into the content-creating business! This will improve my creativity and explore new options for both channels. I didn’t want to be that type of guy who’s only known for having a single channel on the platform. I believe that making this expansion is the right way to go for what’s to come. If you haven’t subscribed to the new channel, I have the link HERE to subscribe to “It’s TRIZE Here!”. My first video about driving on the Nürburgring can be viewed on the new channel. The other two videos are currently in the works and it’s unknown when those will be published.

First Time Overseas: My Personal Experience in Germany & The Netherlands

^{Collage of different images taken from both countries. (From left to right: Downtown Frankfurt from Main Tower, The Royal Palace of Amsterdam, Neroberg Temple, Frankfurt skyline, Nürburgring sign, Frankfurt Flughafen Fernbahnhof interior, “Die Wasserfälle von Tivoli” at Städel Museum, Heiliggeistkirche, and Schloss Biebrich.)}

I’ve recently made it back home after taking a once-in-a-lifetime vacation to Germany and The Netherlands. From visiting the many landmarks around Frankfurt, driving on the famed Nürburgring Nordschleife, visiting Heidelberg, and taking a day trip to Amsterdam. It was an amazing trip that I may never get to experience again! In this blog post, I go into detail about what we’ve experienced throughout our 10-day vacation in these two countries.

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Amsterdam Day Trip

After arriving and winding down for a day at the Courtyard Hotel in Wiesbaden-Nordenstadt, we decided to take the train from Frankfurt Flughafen to Amsterdam Centraal to see parts of the city. I managed to purchase a round-trip train ticket for around $910, which took about 4 hours to get to Amsterdam and over 5 hours back to Frankfurt. However, the non-stop Amsterdam train line was canceled, and I had to go to Deutsche Bahn’s information desk to suggest another train to go there. We ended up taking a train to Mainz, Koblenz, Bonn, Cologne, Arnhem, Utrecht, and Amsterdam Centraal. It was a pain in the ass that got us there 2 hours later than anticipated.

Upon arriving in Amsterdam, I was amazed at the landscape and the vast amount of people who commute on bicycles. It could be why this city is considered the “Bike Capital of the World,” as kids and adults tend to travel from place to place on bikes. Other than that, I ended up exploring parts of Damrak Street where I saw some landmarks, such as the Royal Palace, Madame Tussauds Amsterdam, Dam Square, and Oude Kerk Amsterdam. Then, I explored the canals westward from the town’s center. I had plans to try out a canal cruise for an hour, but time was winding down due to that train delay earlier in the day. Also, I wanted to visit the Anne Frank House as my last stop for this day trip, but all tickets had to be ordered online. That wasn’t posted on the website last time I recall. Despite that ordeal, I traveled back to the train station to head back to Frankfurt. Passing by the many sex shops and museums on the way because prostitution is legal in this city. We got back at around 12:45 AM to the Frankfurt train station and got an Uber back to the hotel to start the next day.

Wiesbaden & Frankfurt

The next several days were spent checking out what’s in show at Wiesbaden and Frankfurt. We went to some cool buildings, castles, and a couple “tourist traps.” One in particular was the former largest cuckoo clock (Große Kuckucksuhr) in downtown Wiesbaden, where the clock chimes every half hour. When the clock reaches the top of the hour, it does cuckoo stuff, but in a disappointing fashion IMO. Other than that, I managed to see some cool churches and architectural buildings from many centuries ago. A few in particular were the Spielbank Wiesbaden, Hessisches Staatstheater, Evangelische Marktkirchengemeinde, and Marktplatz. After exploring these buildings, we decided to check out an interesting hot spring park nearby called Thermalquelle Kochbrunnen. This park has a fountain fed from an underground hot spring and a bustling plaza connected to it. The next day, we checked out the remaining parks and landmarks in Wiesbaden, such as Neroberg Temple, Schloss Biebrich, and Schloss Park.

In Frankfurt, there were a lot of things to do in this city. My nephew and I decided to stop at an art museum called Städel Museum. It houses a large collection of fine and contemporary art at this facility. We first checked the downstairs contemporary art section, and there were some interesting, neat, and weird art pieces. Some were I wouldn’t consider as “art.” For example, there was an art piece that had blotches of oil on the canvas, another one had perfect squares, and one had nearly the entire canvas painted with red and dark orange lines. On the upper level of the museum, that’s where the fine art exhibits are located. There were tons of masterpieces from centuries ago from different countries. We saw most of it until security kicked us out because the museum was closing for the day. Then, we decided to rent a pair of e-scooters from Lime and rode around town to explore. After stopping by Eschenheimer Anlage Park, we headed back to the hotel to rest for the day.

The next day in Frankfurt was with the rest of my family. The first place we stopped was a castle north of town called Burg Kronberg. It’s a medieval castle that was renovated some time ago and has vast gardens, museums, and dated architecture. Exploring that castle took about an hour to do. After checking out the castle, we headed back to Frankfurt to explore what we could do for the rest of the day. We checked out an observatory deck on top of Main Tower in downtown Frankfurt, where there are breathtaking views of the downtown skyline and beyond. After checking that out, we decided to eat at an American restaurant before heading back called What’s Beef. It’s pretty much your typical burger joint that’s common in the United States but in Europe.

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Nürburgring Nordschleife

As a car and racing enthusiast, I wanted to take the opportunity during this vacation to drive on the 20.6 km (12.9 mi) track. First, I rented a car through a race car rental agency called, Ringfreaks. They are based in Kelberg, Germany, about 8 km (5 mi) from the Nürburgring. I booked a Volkswagen Golf GTI for 5 laps in the morning hours on March 31, 2024. This cost me €774 as I included an all-inclusive package, which includes free fuel and toll passes. I picked up the car at around 7AM, about an hour before the track opened, and drove the car to the parking lot to wait for the signal that the track was open.

At around 9:10 AM, marshals gave the signal to open up the track. It was a foggy and rainy morning, which was probably why they delayed the opening time by an hour. For the next 20 minutes, I gathered my thoughts and emotions to prepare to drive on this track. This is why I prepared myself for many days on Gran Turismo, BeamNG.drive, and other racing simulators to get an idea of the track so I don’t crash the car and become a causality. For my first lap, I did a “dry run” to get an idea of the car, the track, and the road conditions, as they were still wet from the rain. After running a successful lap, I got back on the track to do my second lap. I decided to push it a bit further than my last one as I got a good feeling of the track and the car. On my third lap, I brought my nephew along for the ride, which went smoothly. For my fourth lap, I got my mom involved. During the run, there were a couple cautions on the track as a couple people wrecked. One of them was on Schwedenkreuz, where a Hyundai Tiburon wrecked on the hairpin and into the gravel. Another wrecked a few kilometers down the road, where they lost their front bumper. Other than that, it was full speed throughout the rest of the track. On my final lap, I drove the car by myself and tried to push myself as much as I could without wrecking the car. That wrecked car at Schwedenkreuz was still there, but the other wrecked car was gone. That lap seemed to be the best one I’ve done, except for slowing down for the caution flag. It is a slight downer that I got passed by a Fiat 500 and a Suzuki Swift, but hey, it was a hell of an experience driving on the longest road courses in the world!

Heidelberg

On the last day in Germany, we drove down to a mid-size town called Heidelberg. It’s well known for its old bridges and a large medieval castle near the town’s center. First, we checked out some of the plazas on the way to the castle, such as Kornmarkt and Karlplatz. Then, we checked out the Heiliggeistkirche, which is an evangelical church inside Marktplatz. After visiting those plazas, we walked up a steep path to get to the entrance to the castle called Schloss Heidelberg. You could explore parts of the castle for free, but you had to pay to get inside the courtyard and explore the other parts. One interesting part of the castle is that there’s part of a collapsed tower that exists today. According to a historical marker, the tower collapsed because the French attacked the castle that was believed to store gunpowder during the Palatinate War of Succession, or the Nine Years’ War. Overall, it’s an awe-inspiring experience checking out the entire castle for a few hours. On the way back to the hotel, I had the audacity to drive 210 km/h (130 mph) in a rented Volkswagen Tiguan 2.0 TDI on the Autobahn in a no-speed limit zone. It may have shed some time off the journey, but at least it gave me the thrill of driving at a high speed SAFELY without endangering anyone.

Conclusion

After spending my hard-earned money on this experience, it was worth every penny! From seeing ancient architecture to driving at triple-digit speeds. I had an excellent time being out here! I thought about going to Stuttgart to see the Porsche and Mercedes car museums. However, it would’ve strained us out more in terms of time to make it to those car museums. If I had the opportunity to visit Germany again, I would make my way to Stuttgart and Munich, visiting all of the car museums to see some of the most prestigious vehicles ever built. Overall, this vacation is like no other that I’ve personally experienced! Also, I will edit the Nürburgring video, as I recently obtained the videos from Ringfreaks, where the onboard camera recorded all my 5 laps driving on the track. I plan to upload that within one to two weeks from now.

State of the Channel: 2023 Recap & Future Plans

_{YouTube analytics page showing my 2023 stats}

As we enter the new year of 2024, I want to publicly reflect on how my YouTube channel performed in 2023. My channel’s performance in 2022 is a far cry from what I got last year. Two years ago, I gained a vast amount of views and subscribers throughout April and May, along with an AdSense revenue of roughly $1,200. However, I did experience some bursts of growth throughout last year. A couple of my Mon Bazou and Automation Campaign videos caused an uptick in views and subscribers from August to September. This level of growth allowed me to break the 10,000 subscriber milestone on October 11, 2023. The momentum was carried by a couple breakout videos on BeamNG’s 0.1 and a pair of Automation/BeamNG videos at the end of 2023.

Looking back at last year’s analytics, viewership was stagnant at 1,000–2,000 views a day, sometimes getting less than 1,000. This was like that from January to August. That’s when I decided to return to Mon Bazou to try out the game’s hard difficulty mode after not posting any videos on the game in 2 years. At first, they did somewhat well compared to other videos I’ve published on the channel. However, viewership increased drastically after the release of a Mon Bazou Hard Mode gameplay video about buying the OlTruck. This is the most popular Mon Bazou video, with over 63K views. That video’s performance gave me hope for continuing in this series by releasing a new Mon Bazou video every Monday to correlate with “Mon Bazou Mondays.” Also, my first video in the Automation Campaign series on Ueno Motor Cars helped gain more momentum on my channel, as it sits at over 23K views. Lastly, another video that’s still gaining a significant amount of views to this date is how I’ve reclaimed my Automation Engine HP records. The video started out slow but gained as many as 6,800 views in a day in October. It currently stands as the 3^rd most-viewed video on my channel.

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The last three definitive videos for 2023 are a couple of Automation/BeamNG and the BeamNG 0.1 gameplay video. The BeamNG video didn’t do a whole lot of good after publishing it on February 1, 2023. It took a whole week to get to 1,000 views, but it ended up gaining views little by little over time. At the end of the year, the video got pushed out to the algorithm, and I managed to gain as many as 6,300 views in one day! Of course, things must come to an end, as that run for that video died out in recent days, getting less than 1,000 views a day. For my Automation/BeamNG videos, one video that is currently the most viewed in this series is the Beowulf Cypress XS, A.K.A., the most powerful car ever made in LCV 4.2.42. That video did well overall, as it consistently gained around 1,000/day for a few months. It currently stands at 65,251 views as of this publication. The other Automation video is my most fuel efficient car, the Jaynk JC13. It has around 3,500 views less than the Beowulf Cypress video, and it was published one month before that video. This video has also seen similar growth in a short time, but it appears that it died off shortly after a couple months. In total for 2023, I gained 1,172,425 views, 92,949.7 watch time hours, 5,039 subscribers, and $3,983.96 in AdSense revenue.

For this year, I’ve got many plans to expand and improve my content. I’ve thought about creating a brand new IRL/vlogging channel that focuses on the automotive scene. I’m still in the planning phase to figure out what exactly will be posted on that channel. Especially with one video that I’m willing to create is my personal experience driving on the Nürburgring Nordschleife as an American. I’m willing to travel to this famous track in Germany by Spring 2024 with onboard camera footage of me driving and others driving too. There will also be a detailed blog post about my experience, which will come after the release of that video.

So this concludes this blog post about the previous year of my YouTube channel and my future endeavors. I would like to thank everyone who has been supporting me throughout the past year. Whether you’ve been around since the MrJacon000 days or the current TRIZE channel. I’ve got another 365 days of the year to make further improvements on the channel. No matter the size of my impact, I will continue to create and pursue my passion for being an automotive/racing sim YouTuber.

“10,000 Strong!” — A New YouTube Milestone

_{Custom-made “Bronze Play Button” after reaching 10K subscribers}

It’s been over 900 days since the creation of the TRIZE YouTube channel. On October 11, 2023, I have reached a major milestone of reaching 10,000 subscribers! It was a difficult and long-lasting journey to get to this point after being a content creator for over 12 years. Throughout my time of uploading random videos on the previous channel to “rebranding” and getting serious on the new channel, I’ve learned many things to become as successful as I am at this point. On top of that, I had to commit to a time schedule while I was at school, so I didn’t lag behind in terms of my channel’s growth, as I did this many years ago. Despite this, I managed to balance out my education and channel so they wouldn’t be in the way.

Being a channel with 10,000 subscribers is a small step for what’s to come in the future. It may not be that much on the YouTube ecosystem, where there are millions of other channels of this size or even greater than mine. Because of my experience, I came up with many different ways to stand out from the competition. Ranging from my content to my thumbnails, they were one of the reasons why I’ve amassed over 10,000 subscribers in almost 3 years. In the next paragraph, I’ll explain in detail what I changed over the years to become a better content creator.

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What I’ve changed the most in my videos is my commentary skills. About a year ago, I changed up my video intros from the “Hey guys, it’s TRIZE here. Back with (game name) and (insert what I plan to do here).” This intro on my older videos dragged out for over 30 seconds to a minute, which caused users to either skip ahead or click out of my video, harming my average view duration and retention rate. These two stats are very important to how YouTube considers recommending those videos to the front page or in the search results. Now, I add a synopsis and hook to draw the viewer into what the video is about in roughly 15-20 seconds, and I get right into the video from there. This doesn’t try to bore the viewer from becoming disinterested in the video because I talk too much without getting to the point, which seems like the current generation of viewers. (I apologize if that got personal.)

Another thing I’ve gotten better at are my video thumbnails. Before, I didn’t have access to Adobe Photoshop, and I had to use GIMP to edit my thumbnails. What I did to make one was, that I took a still frame from a video and added the game’s logo and text to describe what the video is about. They were bland and too distracting to make out what was really going on. By the time I got Photoshop, things had gotten better for making thumbnails. What I do for every thumbnail in Photoshop is, that I take a screenshot of a car or an object in question. Second, I highlight the important object in the foreground using the quick selection tool. After that, I copy that selection to the clipboard, followed by adding a solid black color to the selection. Next, I use a black-to-white gradient, which serves as a way to gradually blur the background. Then, I add the depth map to define the filled foreground and the created gradient to blur the background. After adding the blur effect, I paste the foreground selection and add the shadow and white outline effect to make the object more intriguing, along with improving the image’s saturation, brightness, and contrast. Finally, I add the text on top of the image and add the game’s logo on the bottom left of the thumbnail. Comparing the difference between my old thumbnails and my current ones, there’s a stark difference in how much I’ve changed over time. Here is an example below of one of my old thumbnails versus my newer ones.

Left: Thumbnail from 4/7/2018 | Right: Thumbnail from 4/27/2022

To wrap this up, I want to thank every single one of you who has subscribed and contributed to my channel since its founding! Whether you’ve recently found me or stuck with me after my last channel ban, this milestone means a lot to me! It was a LONG fight to get to this point! I’ll definitely let this settle in and continue to grow and improve as time goes on. Again, I really thank you for your continued support of my channel!

I’ve Graduated, So What’s Next?

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It’s been 5 long years since I attended college and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology. During my time in college, I worked hard to balance my academic life with my YouTube “career.” It was a constant struggle to find the right balance and to stay on top of my studies while also creating content for my channel. There were times when I had to take small breaks in between uploading videos and working on important assignments, projects, and exams. Without this level of balance, I would let my academic progress go down the drain, or let my channel become irrelevant with a lack of posting anything. Especially in this content creator environment where taking long breaks will put you down in terms of the YouTube algorithm and your channel’s viewership. Despite the challenges, I managed to succeed in both areas without sacrificing either my degree or channel. Today, I’m proud to have a degree in IT from the University of Toledo and a YouTube channel that’s thriving to this day!

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Back in 2018, I first applied to the University of Toledo after graduating from high school. I had other thoughts about applying to different universities in the area, such as The Ohio State University, Bowling Green State University, Davenport University, and Indiana Tech. At first, I wanted to apply for a Computer Science degree, which didn’t work out for me due to my low ACT and SAT scores. I managed to get a 20 on my ACT and a 1000 on my SAT. These scores are pretty much right at the 50th percentile for either of these two standardized tests. While they’re not at Ivy League levels, it shows that I’m competent at doing something at a higher education level. After going through orientation and getting my first college schedule, the university put me in an Exploratory Studies degree program because I didn’t meet the requirements for enrolling in the Computer Science program. This caused some headaches during my freshman year when I took some courses relating to my intended major and other random courses I had to take to fulfill the degree’s requirements.

By the time I switched from Exploratory Studies to Information Technology, things were starting to go my way. I was able to take classes that were directly related to my degree, such as Python and JavaScript programming, networking, cybersecurity, computer system management, and a handful of business courses. These courses not only taught me the technical skills needed for a career in IT but also gave me a solid foundation in business principles. These business and engineering courses were required for my degree because it’s a split between knowing how both disciplines work. Especially when you graduate and work, you’ll need to have a well-rounded understanding of both areas to be successful. No matter if you’re going to be the typical IT guy or businessman.

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After going through the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, I managed to adapt and overcome the academic hell of learning remotely. Especially for some classes where it’s best to learn in person, which wasn’t possible due to the outbreak. This went on for roughly a year due to the severity of COVID and how the university wanted everyone to be safe. Whether it’s in the classroom or at home. Despite this, I managed to get the Dean’s List award (by achieving a GPA of over 3.5) for the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semesters because all of those classes were done online. The only two good things about taking courses online are that exams are open-book and they’re flexible. This is why I managed to get a 3.63 and 3.8 GPA for those two semesters. Also, this was my best academic year ever, as I averaged a 2.7–3.1 GPA for each semester.

For my final two years, the COVID policies were lifted. Meaning that the university wasn’t enforcing remote learning, encouraging COVID tests, and mask mandates. However, there were many classes I had to take that were offered either in person or online. I chose some classes to be taken in person since I’m a hands-on learner, and a few classes were done remotely. This helped ease some academic stress and allowed me to manage my YouTube channel more than ever before. However, this wasn’t the case for the Fall 2021 semester. I managed to clock in 19 credit hours, which is 1 credit hour away from being “academically overloaded.” If a student were to apply for more than 20 credit hours, they would have to contact their respective academic advisor to be approved for an academic overload. That semester was the most stressful due to taking six different courses throughout the fall. I took those many courses because I was starting to fall behind in my graduation timeline and was going to graduate much later than usual. At least I managed to pull through that semester and carry on for my final year. By the time I graduated, I had a cumulative 3.025 GPA, which is equivalent to a B-.

So, I got my IT degree, where am I going to go from here? It’s a question that’s been on my mind since graduation. For now, I plan on taking a small break before I start applying for any jobs. I’m considering going into the general IT field to get some experience working with computer systems in a real-world environment. I expect to start working within the next one to two months. So I have some time to clear out my thoughts after achieving this major milestone in my life, along with making up some lost time managing my YouTube channel. Overall, I’m happy that I finally had the opportunity to get my hands on a college degree after countless years of studying and doing the assignments necessary to graduate.

State of the Channel: 2022 Recap

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As we enter the new year of 2023, I want to publicly reflect on how my YouTube channel performed in 2022. From reaching 1,000 subscribers to getting “viral” on a couple of my videos. It was my strongest year out of my two years of managing this channel after the previous channel ban. Throughout 2022, I was performing like any small channel on the platform. Averaging hundreds of views per day, rarely breaking the 1,000 mark. As the days passed, I studied how to take advantage of growing my channel’s potential to a new level. This helped me gain a massive audience and helped my channel grow. Because of this, I managed to get myself monetized on January 24, 2022, which allowed me to earn money from ad revenue on my videos.

Going into the analytics of my channel, I made serious gains that I hadn’t seen before. I racked up a whopping 1,125,600 views, 55,749.8 watch time (hours), 6,259 subscribers, and $2,069.21 in ad revenue. This massive gain is all thanks to a handful of my Automation Engine Series videos. Specifically, the Ultimate, No Stress Inline 6, Inline 3, and V16 engines got a combined viewership total of 588,061 views. This is about 52.24% of my total viewership for the entire year. The reason why I decided to make these videos is to tackle the “shorter form” content that is becoming popular on YouTube, and I was inspired by another engine creator named, Forgotten Mustard who made powerful engines in Automation.

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For my Automation/BeamNG build videos, the most popular one out of my 63 videos created after the channel ban is the Audi R8 knockoff with a max bore, minimum stroke engine. That video got 42,503 views from its publish date of October 13, 2022. I plan on revising that car in the future, as people in the comments mentioned its poor performance of 198 HP from a 2.5L N/A V8 engine. The second most popular video in this series is the 10,200+ HP V16 used in a car. That video got 19,478 views since its upload date back on February 12, 2022. I revised this engine months later with the LCV 4.2.29 engine designer update, which makes over 12,300 HP. Despite this update, I haven’t used this engine on a car lately. Since people in the comments on that video claimed they managed to get over 13,000 HP with their builds. I’m thinking about revising that engine and placing it into a car for BeamNG.

In the future, I’m willing to carry this tremendous growth I had last year throughout the year of 2023. I made several changes to how I present my videos and how I edit them since its inception. In my old Automation/BeamNG videos, I started the video by giving a detailed overview of the body, chassis, and engine for the first half of the video. Then, I drove the cars as so in BeamNG for the second half. Now, I show off how I design the car, engine, and show a time-lapse segment of me designing the vehicle. Also, I’m beginning to move my usual intro greeting, “Hey guys, it’s TRIZE here!” toward the end of the intro segment. The reason why I made this decision is that people want to know what the video is all about right away. Not in the next 20 seconds, 1 minute, or all that. I would rather explain things briefly while remaining on point.

So this concludes this blog post about the previous year of my YouTube channel and my future endeavors. I would like to thank everyone who has been supporting me throughout the past year. Whether you’ve been around since the MrJacon000 days or the current TRIZE channel. I’ve got another 365 days of the year to make further improvements on the channel. No matter the size of my impact, I will continue to create and pursue my passion for being an automotive/racing sim YouTuber.

Overhauling My Socials

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For those on my Discord server. You may have gotten pinged by a spam bot telling you to join a sexual server. Those days are hopefully gone as I’ve strengthened the moderation and security of my server. When I first created it back in September 2020 under the MrJacon000 era, I set the moderation policies at the lowest setting thinking that it wasn’t necessary. Now I know with what happened recently. As you may have seen in my recent videos, I have a handful of video overlays to join my socials. This gives me an excuse to start overhauling and building a community outside of YouTube.

For the changes that have or will be happening in the future. First, let’s start with what’s new. There are a handful of new text and voice channels added to the server. With these new text channels, you can now talk about anything that happened in real life, BeamNG related, or any other games you want to discuss. Along with an extra general voice channel and a private recording channel dedicated to content creators. I plan on creating a new category for sim racing like Gran Turismo. Even though I’m losing interest in the game due to its progression system and excessively realistic car market. Especially when it comes to purchasing an old, popular used car for over $50,000 on average.

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My Twitter and (maybe) my Facebook profiles may soon get an overhaul. Currently, I use the platform to plug my videos as soon as they’re published. I rarely use it to give sneak peeks at my future videos and share my thoughts on major events. Especially with Twitter with ya boi Elon Musk who tried to implement a policy to ban users dedicated to promoting other platforms. Which they removed it within hours after it was published. That gives me an excuse to start using the platform as “intended” to build an audience on those platforms and lead them to my YouTube channel.

About these changes, I’ll prioritize my Discord as I currently have over 60 members and counting. By next year, I’ll consider changing how I post anything on Facebook and Twitter. Seeing that I only post my videos on there and nothing else.