2025 So Far…
Intro
Many moons ago it was customary for me to review how my life was going throughout the year. Usually in semi-annual increments. One review around June, and another around December. I’ve stopped doing this in recent years due to a consistent barrage of life changes and unpredictable events.
Things have slowed down in recent months, and I figured it would be a nice time to bring these blogs back. 2025 has been a very difficult, and crazy year so far, and it’s a good time to look back to see how things have been progressing.
To sum it up, overall this year has been HARD. It has been one of the more difficult years in recent memory for me but it has consistently shown promise of growth, change and potential. Truly a very spastic time for me. That’s the short of it, but these types of blogs I like to go piece by piece to measure things up and to see what’s really been happening. I usually go about doing this by separating aspects of my life, listing the pro’s and cons and reviewing what I could have done better. Today’s blog will not be that thorough. I will only cover art and life aspects without the critical aspect of what I could do better. It’s less of a review and more of a reflection of circumstances.
Let’s take a look at how things have been going shall we?
Art
This section is dedicated to my art and content creation. It’s a huge part of my life at the moment, so the impact of these events are perhaps felt a lot more than they would otherwise if I had a more balanced position in life. Going into this year I didn’t really have high hopes for this area, and it’s been a mixed bag for the most part. Here’s what happened:
Across all platforms, my videos struggled, with some of the lowest views I’ve had since I began publishing shorts
General fatigue trying to predict perfomance of shorts due to fluctuations in algorithms across all platforms
Alteration of old formats and adaption of new formats as a means to refresh the content and cut production time
Shifting production focus to long form shorts with 1 complete and 1 currently under production
Puppet Updates grew in ambition. Shifting from a small update, to a character redesign to a larger style design to simplify and expedite production
Loss of perpetual Toonboom licenses that will result into a massive production shift. This will force me to adopt a new program for animation and learning it, or adopting a more mobile workflow
Youtube channel surpassed 200k views, and on track to exceed 1000 subs this summer
Absolutely no growth on TikTok, and channel getting violations even with content reused from the app
Absolutely no growth on Instagram
For art, this year has been a weak point, certainly with mixed results at best. I’m currently in a transitionary period for my shorts. I’m shifting my focus more toward long form shorts for YouTube, and simplifying production so I can release longer videos a bit more consistently. All this work has taken a tremendous amount of planning and it seems like every week there’s some new thing I have to be mindful of. I yearn for the days where I can just focus solely on the quality of a short, and make it the best that I can. Hopefully once these updates are complete, I can prioritize the quality again.
Life
This section will cover other facets of my life. I can’t express every single thing that’s happened because life is just too fast paced and chaotic these days (also, a man needs his privacy). When the year started I think I might have been a bit more optimistic about things, but as time went on things have been a lot more hit or miss. The year is only halfway over so there’s still potential for things to pick up and improve.
My back injury has been the worst of the issues I’ve had this year and it’s something that I’ve since had to mold my life around
The animation industry is effectively dead, and there have been no prospects for years, nor any to this day
Fortunately I am working; however, I would like a second source of income so I can be better disposed to cover my financial obligations
My health in general has been up and down all year long. I’ve been far more accident and prone to sickness far more this year than at any other point in my life
I haven’t had much of a social life or any type of personal development outside of my shorts
There is one huge issue and several other smaller personal issues that I can’t mention here that has been a nightmare to deal with
While I think there have been less events overall the things that have happened have been fairly consequential in my life. It feels as if there is a big shift in my life happening that I have to brace for, and it has proven far more difficult to do so than I expected.
Outro
Overall, so far I would say this year has not been too good. We all have bad years though, and I’m certainly no different I that regard. I remain hopeful that things won’t always be bad, and there are many lessons to learn when life begins to unwind and spiral away from your control.
The most important lesson for me is to not be discouraged. It’s important to take some time to gather yourself, and always put one foot in front of the other.
-Until next time-