Martina: That sounded smoother in my mind, but when we said it, it just went out forever.

Simon: So, on May 30th 2008 is the day that we landed in Korea

Simon: To start living overseas as teachers and it's also the very first video that we've ever shot

Annyeonghaseyo!

Martina: We're here in Korea and we're enjoying our first meal even though it's like 9 o'clock at night in Canada

Simon: What I have here is a kimchi soup and

Simon: And... it's spicy as hell but it's some of the most delicious kimchi soup I've ever had

Martina: The very first video we ever filmed we had just gotten off the plane and then we went for soondubu jjigae

Martina: Oh my god, you know what's funny is, I recently tried to imitate that video and I can't even fake that bad of an accent.

Martina: I'm like "an-nyeong-has-eyo!"

an-nyeong-has-eyo!

Martina: But, even now, I'm saying like "...haseyo!"

Martina: Like I've got the...

[playing around with saying the word in different intonations]

an-nyeong-has-eyo!

Martina: Oh my god. I have no idea that that video would go up online and be viewed

Martina: By anyone outside of like Mom, Dad, Nicole and like your family. That's it

Simon: So in our 10 years living overseas and in our 10 years of creating videos of YouTube, we've seen a lot change

Simon: We've grown a lot and a lot of different things have happened

Simon: so we want to spend this video rambling for a very long time about

Simon: many of the different things that we've learned from these 10 years of YouTube because our

Simon: Perspective is going to be very different from other people that might be a lot newer to the platform whenever we think about YouTube and the state

Simon: That it's in right now. We think about like the whole 10 years and let me tell you back in the days

Simon: It was grim, boy. There was no YouTube app. There was no notification bell,

Simon: There were no playlists there were no annotations

Martina: The comments couldn't be like you couldn't block or hide or

Martina: like all the things you can do now the listing of ordering from like newest to..

Martina: I mean, there's just so many things

Martina: You know what strikes me though as the thing that I recall the most

Simon: What was the biggest thing that changed on YouTube?

Martina: Oh, I think the biggest thing was for two years for two

Martina: years

Martina:There was no ability for us to make a single penny. That's right

Simon: Adsense was not available in Asia for two years and we were making videos. So we were just making videos

Because we enjoyed making videos. It was fun

We didn't go into YouTube to think that we're gonna make a career out of this.

We just had a quirky little hobby

We were doing this to connect with our families

and we were doing this also to connect with a lot of the community of people that were moving to Korea as

Teachers a lot of our first videos are about like how to use your washing machine

How to make lesson plans

How to, like, throw out your recycling

So, you might remember a couple of videos ago, we showed you our brand new super cool cellphones

Hi guys, I'm a T-money card

So, this acts as a re-loadable card for the subway, or the bus

And people have told us that it also works for a few taxis

So, this box is going to be right here, and right here

So back then it wasn't like a business idea was just for fun

What I was gonna say was not only was it not a business idea

It wasn't like a "hmm maybe in the future we could make money" because it wasn't even like an inkling of possibility.

So like nowadays, I think a lot of people that will join YouTube will go "this could be a career"

Like, "maybe if I try hard enough or I work hard enough this could be a career"

and then as things start getting rolling for them

it's kind of like starting a part-time job and then maybe one day ad-pocalypse happens and then you're like

Furious because what you've been paid has suddenly changed but for us we're like, "is it better than getting paid nothing for two years?"

For real, anyone that's complaining about demonetization. You haven't gone two years with zero dollars

So yes

Demonetization is an issue for a lot of people but for us we will always remember those

Hungry, hungry 2 years that we had. Nothing will feel as bad as that time

Simon & Martina: Fun fact!

Did you know that we used to make our own music from scratch because there were no YouTube library

Yup

Currently we pay for academic sound which is why our music library has changed a lot because we're actually paying for like incredible artists

Yes, the music's a lot better quality than what we used to make on our own. So we started using GarageBand Martina had a little keyboard, as she would

doo-doo-doo doo-doo-doo-doo doo-doo-doo-doo doo-doo-doo-doo

doo-doo

baaa- baaa- baaa- baa daa baa daa

Here are my favorite hit songs

[Light base tune]

[Beatbox-y rhythm]

This week's Music Monday is the godly edition with JYJ's "Ayyy Girl"

[upbeat trumpet sequence]

Okay, so welcome to our first episode of TL;DR Thursday's where we answer all your questions in video format the wonderful treasure find of

The wonderful treasure find of the week(week)(week)

[nautical piano theme]

[pixelated whimsical tune]

[Fast-paced xylophone sequence]

Spudgy! Spudgy, boy. You want to go outside?

*bark!*

Okay.

Spudgy be nice to people come on.

kids want to say hi to you come on

[groovy playful electro-synth]

Welcome to this week's kpop chart update

So this ties

into the question that we asked for our sponsors in the community tab happy hauser wound up asking have there ever been times even

Now we felt that continuing a career on YouTube could possibly no longer be a viable option

For the future of the company and for us the answer is every damn day

Every day I keep on expecting

YouTube to just like shut down not because of I'm noticing any trends in YouTube that make me think that way but I just

Remember there not being anything like this before

So if things go back to the default of 0 ad dollars and zero possibility, really. Yeah, it figures

Yeah, we kind of feel like we had a good run

Yeah

you know never thought never thought we'd go this way so we could so I think that's why that whole

Stressful side that's happening with newer creators

like I think that that stress that they have is because um

It was kind of locked in the mode that

YouTube will succeed and YouTube will always be there, but because we entered in before there was YouTube possibility

Then it started happening if we were like, whoa, this is pretty cool

Woah! Holy smokes!

We've always been like strap on the helmet. We're gonna enjoy this bumpy ride

And that mentality sticks with us to the stage a lot of our opinions of YouTube are going to be tainted by that so

They might not be fully applicable to you or to other youtubers

But maybe this could offer a different perspective as opposed to what you might be hearing online

Tuesday, we are moving out of Bucheon into our new apartment, in Seoul.

We just have so many places here that take care of us for so long

Simon: Are you crying already?

Simon: Ducky!

We have our *Korean* shop, and the *Korean* place.

and the Japanese restaurant, and the

And we have to say bye to all of them

I know we're not even leaving Korea, but still...

Don't be afraid to change

But it's scary

It feels scary to change.

Because for those of you that have been watching us for a long time

You've seen very many changes with us including like how we physically look like back when we started

I was like a dorky looking pudgy little teacher with glasses and a little

like crappy hair and then like I had a red mohawk and I shade the side of my head and then I became like a

Twig and I was super skinny. I like a 180-pounds and then after the red mohawk, I went to the struggle bun

do you remember me holding on to like my hair and then I

Accepted my baldness and I shaved my head and now I have a big beard

I've changed so much fun fact back when I had a red Mohawk, male demographic was only 7%

So small, but since I started growing my beard the male demographic went up to 40 percent

I think we know what that means. Hey, boys. You like my beard. Yes, you do. Oh you meant

Hey men, don't unsubscribe. Like this!

and when we say don't be afraid to change

we're not just talking about like physical appearance because obviously

Everyone's gonna change in like a 10 year span right when we're talking about don't be afraid to change your contents

Yeah, when we first started doing YouTube videos

We were really focused on the X hat community and then we started to get into music reviews

Right we started to do kpop reviews and that was actually for our students. Yeah

A lot of people don't know that

Yeah

It was really hard to connect with our Korean students because at first they were really excited that you were there that you're like an English speaker

Uh-huh

But then that fun wears off after like three weeks when they realize that you have to actually teach them something so we got into

Kpop for our students and then we started making these reviews and then we show our students these videos like Acts

at the end of class and it was in English and when we were doing these k-pop videos who did it for a while until

Afterwards when we learn more about the kpop industry how dark was how people are being treated terribly

We just kind of started falling out of love with it and it was a big move for us to say

Hey, I'm not passionate about this topic anymore

I don't want to do it and we stopped and there was like people that were pretty upset about it

But that didn't mean the end of our channel

We kept growing we kept trying to change we kept on trying new things and it's so scary

I know if you have a

formula that you've got down pat you think this is what my audience likes but sometimes if you don't feel it in your heart you

Can't keep pushing yourself to do it. It's like people feel like well, it's working

So I guess I'll just do that and you know exactly what I mean

When I say this, you definitely see if there are some youtubers that you watch that

You know that you see that the love has died from their eyes

and they're just churning out their videos because they think that's what their audience wants and

then when people stop watching them when their numbers start dropping or their

Subscribers start dropping. Here's the next thing they start blaming the algorithm for it people get bored of content

It's natural like we've had favorite TV shows that we like like we used to love 30 rock

I watched like three or four seasons of it and afterwards I'm like, yeah, I get it

It doesn't it's not really that new for me more on Brooklyn nine-nine

Yeah, and then after was like man, I've had enough of Brooklyn nine-nine. That's not the algorithm

Sometimes you just need to change and so you have to accept that you're not maybe everyone's cup of tea and so for us

When we started doing kpop we enjoyed it

We loved it and then it started to get really dark and it started to drag us down right we got bored

And we change and it was scary. Scary. People told us like 'Oh, everyone's gonna leave your Channel, right?' 'Okay

well if they do, they do' because I don't want to be making videos that I don't wanna do it

Right and then two and a half years ago we decided

Hey, let's stop making Korean videos all together and move to a new country. Let me tell you that's terrifying as well

We had a coffee shop. We had a studio we had staff

we got rid of all that so we could come and try something new and a lot of people have noticed in the coments that

We look a lot happier. Yeah, there's a joy in her eyes again. There's a spark you have to be true to yourself and not

Just make videos for a machine

Be yourself, be yourself

My snow globe collection. I dont want to be myself

No one no one's seen it? Fun Fact: Even though we're often talked about for reviewing kpop

We also introduced less or no Korean indie music from February 2012 up until when we left for Japan

During the Korean indie playlist and then later on during Martinez mixtapes

honestly

It's always disappointed us that Korea only pushed kpop while ignoring the super talented Korean musicians and artists that they have right under their noses

If you're sick of kpop but you still love good music

I really urge you to check out our past Korean Indie playlists to discover some new musicians

And we have a very, very special edition for you. Because it is

I think the biggest weakness that we've had in our 10 years of YouTube

Even to this name we struggle with it is how we handle negative comments. I feel like we're such a strong couple

Otherwise, we're so driven and we work hard but negative comments are just so tough to handle

We are a lot better at it now than when we first were because I remember like when we first started getting negative

comments