Image Courtesy of @DigiBott on Instagram

So for those who are not in the YouTube Creation realm, they offer an opportunity to become a YouTube Partner.  Basically it means they will make you a partner with YouTube and they will monetize your channel and will give you a cut of the money they make on Ads from your channel.  As of writing this now, it takes: 1,000 Subscribers and 4,000 Hours of Watch Time.  It takes just 500 Subscribers and 3,000 Hours of Watch Time to be able to share merchandise on your channel, and do Super Thanks and Super Chats when you go live on your YouTube Channel.  The Hours of Watch Time is calculated in a 365 day cycle.

In February of 2027, just 173ish days away from this current blogpost being public; while the latter tier is still the same to get  Adsense, which is the money earned via Ads on the channel.  It will officially jump to over 8,000 Hours of Watch Time.  It also doubled from a whooping 10,000,000 Engaged Views from Short form Content to over 20,000,000 Engaged Views.  Engaged Views are described as what the YouTube Platform says that are watching Shorts for longer than just a couple seconds.  The Shorts is also calculated in 90 days of 3 months essentially.

What this means for my channel is I've got a longer climb to make.  I'm sitting at just 31 Subscribers and a total Watch Time of just 128 hours and 50 minutes in the last 365 days on my channel.  I'm not super into Shorts personally but I am currently working with it.  I can't end up getting Ad Revenue from Shorts unless I keep those Engaged Views up under the new terms of monetization.

Yet, I have this website.  I have some fans on my YouTube and I did share about it not as vocally prior to this now.  I have an option to just make donations if you decide to donate to me and my channel and what I do, both on here and on YouTube and other Social Media sites like Facebook and Instagram.  I have set up this website to get ready for when I can have merchandise on my channel right under the video.  I also started YouTube because I am passionate about the Enneagram.

I know that I've got a long way ahead of me for online aspects at least.  I also am in a world of real life change happening outside the internet.   From searching at living at a new place, working just one job, overnights at a major retail chain, versus for the longest time working multiple jobs.  I am chosing to make my second job my social media activity and the videos on YouTube until I at least no longer work overnights so I can find a balance between sleep schedules. 

My initial goal this year, during the summer specifically, was working towards monetization on YouTube; and prior to the news on changing the plans I now have to work longer at it.  My reasoning is that the overnight job was closing up around Juneteenth and I had only that seasonal job lined up.  I planned on working as much as I could as a YouTuber outside of the seasonal job and I knew that would hold me over until the end of the Calendar year if I played my cards right and the YouTube channel could reasonably give me some money from my Catalogue if I got into the program.  Life had other plans, if you check out this link, it'll give you the whole backstory to my change of plans. 

I'm not deterred as I still will make content, I just had a Reality Check on what the Monetization Goals and for my channel means.  I'd need to keep  the 4k Watch Hours post being monetized to stay with the Partnership program.  But I also know that most YouTubers don't earn money alone from their ad revenue, they have merch they sell, sponsorships and brand affiliates that bring in money for the Creator.  That being said, supporting just via Donation with this page would be stellar if you want to.  Donations can help keep me going like financially.  I can put the donations back into the channel growth via Gear or Technology, the costumes I use in the videos like during the Holidays or Skits, or even new Enneagram Books for the Channel.  

     This is a vulnerable blogpost and meant for transparency really.  I'm not trying to start anything.  I'm not sure if this will be a video in my future so I figured I'd make a blogpost.  For those who stumble upon this on it's own; I am a YouTuber.  I've made YouTube videos since February of 2025.  

     I'm a small YouTuber, with about 28 Subscribers at this point in my career on there.  I made a video I was passionate about for my own desire to show how my Sexual Instinct is impacted by my Special Person in my life.  In particular, it's a compilation video I made from a bunch of my smaller videos over the time I made on my channel.

   I always knew that I had a risk with my videos, in particular because I talk about people, intentionally in a vague sense and I try to not put them on the point where they are doxxed.  I've never given names, never listened ages.  I've often said I work with them but I never named the workplaces I've worked at.  The funny thing is that my workplace had noticed my channel, they were fully aware of my channel's existence.  They also noticed it when I uploaded my compilation video.  I actually had reuploaded it when I added more onto it, the original video was uploaded on May 15th.  I uploaded the Revision video on June 5th.

     On June 6th my co-workers had seen the recent uploaded and it went viral.  I had gained over 60 views on that video alone it was shared and seen by I assumed my higher ups.  In less than a week I had that call from HR they wanted to see me.  Now I know that when HR call it usually means bad news.  I suspected that it was because of the video, my analytics were showing moves and I knew the one co-worker had saw the video.  I was called in for an "Investigation" reason.

     They had wanted to know what I did on that Saturday before. They gave some long inquisitive reasoning.  They never actually told me outright that the video was why I was in that room.  They had gone through a series of questions as to why I was there.  They had insinuated that there was some underlying reason to it.  They had not actually explicitly told me my video was the reason, I had said about how the YouTube channel had got into a discussion at work, and  I explained about what my channel basically is.  I gave them the option to explicitly tell me the video was the reason why.  They never took it.  The next day I got let go, they said, "It's best if we parted ways". 

    About a month later I figured I'd finally talk about it.  In that week I was monitoring, I was relaying with the VidIQs Coach about my video and if I was likely to be terminated for my video.  What my options were.  Would they try to push me to unlist the video or delete it to keep my job there.  What do I personally want to do about my video.  I had a choice to make. 

      I also had thought about my video and my why I made it.  I made it for the world to see.  I made it to demonstrate how my dominant instinct is affected by the people in my life.  I also had started that video back in October of 2025.  I didn't actively push it until May this year when I was like, 'Oh I'm slacking, I need to get this out now.'  So I did.  Then more information came to me and I wanted to give the video closure so I added more onto it.  I also knew that my video is a risk, I knew talking about my Special Person over a year ago was a risk.  

     The video is a risk I was willing to make and that I made.  I also had realized that even if this job termination had happened back because of another video had been the controversial take, or the May compilation was seen and was blew up like the 2.0 did.  I still would've made the video.  I believe it is worth the risk to take.  My Special Person is the sole inspiration for that growth for myself.  She is an angel, a guiding light for me.  They had encouraged me to chase my current job I'm at now because I was torn between trying to get a full time job when the seasonal jobn would go out.  Or I turn it down to do the seasonal job part time to push on with that and to really push and steer my YouTube channel towards monetization and actually bring in money. 

    I encourage you guys, although granted probably not everyone is a YouTuber and gets in controversy on Social Media.  That chasing what you're passionate about is worth it.  It's worth the risks we face.  I live with no regrets knowing that my seasonal job had ended the way it did.  I wished it ended on a better note and on my terms not theirs.  But the reality is HR is HR and they aren't your friend.  They are at most a friendly adversary.  But there are good people in HR.  They weren't even the main issue in the story.  The decision is the main story itself.

     And also to be fair the YouTube aspect of this is relevant because my story is out there.  If they ever go back to look on it, the video is still up.  I'm not hurting or crying over it.  I do not regret what happened and I hope that you take away that it's important to not act and then regret your decisions.  Whether it is making a YouTube video or accidentally getting Spicy Ketchup and you don't like spicy stuff like that and putting it on your Hot Dogs.   Take care readers and be good out there.   

So this past week I had been invited by the Story Coach I had interacted and used their services with last calendar year to an Expo on Tuesday, the 5th of May to actually discuss my novelette.  The photo above is courtesy of the office that hosted the event, Guidespring.  

I had wrote the novelette, Beneath Stillwaters Bodies Lie, as a testament to my love interest I had at my old retail job; and also with the new muse in my life that carried me into Epilogue of the after the Climax where the antagonist and protagonist have a heated verbal altercation.  The novelette is a fairly short read in one sitting of around 1 hour approximately, given it's length is around 124 pages.   There was other authors as well there at the Expo and we all carried loosely the theme of grief and trauma to a varying degree.  Most of them were non-fiction peices inspired by real life events or people that have impacted their life personally.  

We also got asked questions, one I wanted to dive into more that I didn't step into a lot in the panel was taking the first step of the creative journey to writing.  I find it similar to editing videos, sometimes you have ideas that aren't worth much when you start the process and then you pick it up at a later date.  Or you do what I did, write for a while, lose interest, get inspired by another idea and focus on that.  I worked through two previous ideas at writing a story before I settled on the one now publicly available as I had to find something that hooked me.

I had used the analogy a little bit earlier of YouTube Growth without givinhg it away as salesman-esque advice.  The YouTube platform may never see the surface of what goes into a video from the creators standpoint.  It takes time, purpose, inspiration, and effort to do what I did with that book, even blog posts on here, also making videos like I do on YouTube. 

A lot of YouTubers also post videos that initially get no traction until they are established on the Platform.  I have ran the Enneagram Talk Channel since around February 8th, of 2025.  I have aroud 106 published videos, shorts, and lives on the channel since it's creation.  I have done some videos I created with the intentions similar to my novelette, with the intention of putting my creativity "on the record", and leads to no immediate payoff. 

I have also created videos with the intention of sharing knowledge that I know others may have an interest in, for example just diving into what Types look like under stressful situations or how each Type may react to things like: job loss, death, social ghosting experiences.  I'm only recently starting to physically see, for myself, that I'm gaining trust from the Platform and the Audience.  I don't expect virality anymore since I've tasted it in Shorts via the View Count in my Analytics but also have now focused on just sharing experiences.    

I also didn't expect my writing to actually lead me to selling any in person and to my surprise it did lead to me getting a couple of in-house sales, each of the books sold that night were signed by myself.  I feel very successful from the days events and I'm glad that each of us had support not only from friends but also from eachother at the Expo. 

I have plans down the road to sharing my novelette on the 4thWall Merch page, given that my book had been published through the Story Coach's Publisher and it is housed at the Guidespring Office I'll have to work in tandem with them to get books for myself to ship out of my house and wait on publishing company as well to ship to them.  Thank you for reading this and if getting a book actually interests you please let me know.  As of right now we can discuss details and the like through the  e-mail address, brandedenneagram9142@gmail.com.   

Eventually that will probably be adjusted if the platform has a page selling it as of writing this I have to dive into it more on the platform and seeing how limited merch is different from my usual merch that I don't house and the shipper deals with the stock and sales out and I just get some of the profit from the merchandise.

Now I know how this sounds.  Are you serious?  Pokemon a kids game has a connection to the Enneagram?!  You're reaching now.  Hear me out first.  In this post I will connect how things found in PoKeMoN Games going forward from Generation 3 to now is a great analysis in the lens of the Enneagram.  (For those unaware, Generation 3 is the introduction of the Hoenn Region and included the games Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed and LeafGreen.)

Image Courtesy of Gaming Industry News (gameindustry.com)

I know not everyone is heavily interested in PoKeMoN so I'll briefly describe how the games work overall.  I'm only going to discuss the main line PoKeMoN games to keep continuity.  The basic plot of PoKeMoN games, starting from the originals Red and Blue is: you start the game as a new PoKeMoN trainer, who's a kid roughly 10-12 years old.  The Regions Professor gives you 1 of 3 possible PoKeMoN, usually referred to as a Starter PoKeMoN.  You are tasked with filling out a PoKeDex, an encyclopedia documenting the PoKeMoN in the game and collect information on all of them in the game.  To grow your  PokeMoN across the game you end up battling other mons and trainers.  Your goal is to become the Regions Champion, the highest accomplishment in the games.  You also end up having to fight against the Villains in order to protect and save the Region.  

PoKeMoN has recently celebrated their 30th Anniversary when Red and Blue version had released in Japan in 1996.  In their celebration they ended up releasing FireRed and LeafGreen to the Nintendo Switch, most of the new generation of fans growing up have likely never actually played those games on the original software, which was the Game Boy.  When  Nintendo ended up releasing the Nintendo DSi back in 2009 across the world, they had ended up getting rid of the Game Boy slot on the bottom portion of the handheld. 

Unless fans had a GameBoy Advance, GameBoy SP, or any other devices in the Game Boy line, there was no way to play those games without running it via and emulator and trying to play it on the phone; that or ending up going on selling sites like Ebay, Amazon, or other sites and spending a pretty chunk on both to actually play the games legally.  In February 2026 they had added FireRed and LeafGreen to the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 for a little more than $21 USD, with fans receiving the news with mixed results.  I purchased LeafGreen.

As I played it, I ended up making some connections to the game and the Enneagram itself.  PoKeMoN consists of Types, at the now current generations to my knowledge there is around 17 types: Fire, Water, Ground, Ice, Grass, Electric, Ghost, Bug, Flying, Psychic, Steel, Dragon, Fairy, Rock, Poison, Normal, and Dark.  Um, Brandon there's 9 Enneagram Types.  If you break it down by the Subtypes you get 27.  I know, but that's not the point.  Each Type has limitations, weaknesses or disadvantages, advantages or strength, and also can be multple Types.  No Type is inherently better than any other Type.  PoKeMoN trainers can win battles by using Items, Strategies, and Movesets in an effort to win the battle.  

Um wait, if PoKeMoN are the Enneagram Types, then what is the Trainer?  You play as the Trainer who controls how the battle happens Brandon.  I am aware and that is what had held me up for a bit.  I asked ChatGPT what it would say trainers are, it gave me 3 options: The Conscious Self, Life Circumstances/Enviroments, or Self-Awareness.  While each option has merit, I think if we imagine the trainer as Self-Awareness it helps us get a more precise metaphor in the bigger picture. 

We, the fans, are the trainers.  We started as new fans, unaware of how PokeMoN works in battles, ignoring moves that don't deal damage in favor of hitting pokemon for damage and the bigger number the bettter.  If  I have a Charizard and come across a Rte 1 encounter, Flamethrower is overkill but child-self had made a good decision with that.  As we grow up, we learn that sometimes dealing damage isn't the best approach when we can use strategies, items and different moves to fight the opponent.  Now a lot of people are interested in seeing how 1 PoKeMoN may fight against the entire game, or can a singular type fight and survive through the game.  Remember me saying no Type is better than another?

PoKeMoN are Enneagram Types but how else are they different?  In the games, we see Statistics, Abilities, Movesets for each PokeMoN.  You can catch two of the same PoKeMoN, such as Pidgey on Route 1, and none of the PoKeMoN are exactly identical.  Think of those as the hidden aspects of the Enneagram Types.  Statistics are like the Types Tendencies, Abilities are like Instincts in the Enneagram.  Movesets are how the Enneagram Types choose to Cope, i.e. their Coping Strategies.

Statistics are what most trainers look at and that is what we look at too usually for Type Tendencies.  Type Tendencies are how we usually look to people on the outside, think of how the Enneagram Types are portrayed in the Literature and Media.  I'm a 4, I tend to be Melancholic, Creative, Withdrawn.  Statistics also are how every PokeMoN is perceived, i.e. Jolteon, an Electric type has been known as a very Speedy PoKeMoN versus Gyarados, a Water/Flying Type, has a high attack stat and Blissey is known as a "Tank" meaning that they can take a lot of damage from both Physical/Special Attacks.

Abilities are also how each PoKeMoN present in battle or in the actual world in PoKeMoN.  An example of how the Abilities look is Psyduck.  Psyduck has 3 abilities, Damp, Cloud Nine, or the Hidden Ability Swift Swim.  Swift Swim Psyduck is faster when the weather effect is raining.  So it's faster than the average Psyduck.  Damp Psyduck can fight against moves that lead to self-explode and their ability prevents them from occuring versus the Swift Swim Psyduck would be vulnerable to getting attacked by those moves.  A Cloud Nine Psyduck also ends up getting the weather effects negated.  A notable example is that in Generation 4, in Pearl, Diamond, and Platinum the Route to Snowpoint City has constant Hail.  A Cloud Nine Psyduck negates the affects of that effect so instead of Psyduck taking Damage if it had a different ability, it is going to be only affected by the moves used in the battle itself.

And finally Movesets are coping strategies.  In battles, the moves are how we fight against other PoKeMoN.  Some moves are offensive, some are defensive, some deal damage, others do not.  Some moves are multi-turn.  Some moves don't directly affect the opponent immediately.  In terms of the coping strategies we employ, we deal with life in a similar situation.  Unlike real life that each Enneagram Type can use any strategies, in PoKeMoN movesets are selective.  Ekans, a Poison type, can not use the move Fly, a Flying Type.  

I've talked long enough though, there is so much I could add into this.  l'll probably end up breaking this blogpost down into smaller peices so I could talk more versus doing a book length blog at this rate.  Thanks for looking at this and I hope you join me for more.  I may also down the road transform this blog into a video for my YouTube Channel, Enneagram Talk with Brandon.  The Enneagrm is a great tool at personality profiling and understanding more about yourself. 

Hello if you didn't realize this.  Fourthwall does allow ceators to post content as well as merchandise, on their own page.  While I have my YouTube channel linked and my videos are shared on here as well, if there is interest I may make some videos for on this platform. I may make it Members Only and probably end up adding the perk across all my membership tiers so no one pays twice on my platform to get access to them if they already are a part of Consumer Corner which is moreso allied with my merchandising aspect of the page.

I'll try to make a consistent post schedule on here, something about like 1 a week and alternate between the everyone can see style my posts while also at times locking other posts behind members only paywalls.