We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jeremiah Jackson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jeremiah, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?
I feel there is always a misunderstanding people have with creatives because of how much time and effort creative individuals put into their work. And it’s because of our passion for our work. I’ve realized this year that I am not alone in this category of being misunderstood. Even when I wasn’t making a dime off of my work. I would still put so much time in my work because I believed in myself so much. Creatives can be characterized as addicted to their work, which in some cases can be true. But for me and a lot of us creatives, I enjoy building my brand “Kagelvltv” and making videos to where it doesn’t feel like work to me. It is something I genuinely enjoy doing. And I happen to think about it a lot. And I used to feel I was the weird one or I was wrong for being so passionate. But then I just flipped it and told myself I was unique. And began to start surrounding myself with similar people.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I got into making anime, sports, and music videos by taking a leap of faith in the Summer of 2021. At the time I was a college football player at the University of Findlay who was unsure about what I would do post-college. Because I knew it wasn’t going to be football because I lost the love for the sport I spent my whole life playing. It was a tough thing to grasp. And coincidentally I was reading the One Piece manga and was watching tons of YouTubers do their weekly reviews on One Piece. And after a while I asked myself what’s so different about them from myself. And at that point I saw myself doing what they did. And it took me a while to upload my first video because I was so nervous on what people would think but I just ended up taking a leap of faith and realized after the fact I was in my head too much in worrying about what other people would think. I made my channel to strictly talk about One Piece, but then I joined the University of Findlay’s media team and became a writer for the school’s newspaper, general manager of the radio station 88.3 WLFC, and reporter and color commentator for the basketball team. I then began to expand my content to doing podcast, interviews, and more. Which allowed me to evolve my content over the years and people around me gave me the confidence to improve my content. Right now I create weekly video review on the One Piece manga, and video essays on anime topics such as, “Why Is Anime So Short Now,” as well as videos connecting music and pop culture to the anime community with videos like, “The Kendrick Lamar of One Piece” and more. I am really most proud of myself for starting back in 2021. I initially wanted to start in 2020, but I was just talking and had no action towards it. I am so proud of myself for not waiting and just getting started in the summer of 2021, not having none of the equipment I needed, not really knowing what I was going to do besides talk One Piece, I just had a name, “Kagelvltv” and a passion for anime.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
I sort of said this before. But non-creatives will struggle to understand the level of passion creatives have and put into their craft. That’s something non-creatives will not understand. And I believe it’s because everyone is different. I’m not supposed to fully understand someone else and they are not supposed to fully understand me because we are both different. Putting so much time and effort into something even before you see any payoff from it is a part of the journey. I put over 2 years of time and effort into my content before I saw payoff from it. But honestly, I didn’t see it like that. Because every small step I took, I treated it as if I accomplished a big goal.
How did you build your audience on social media?
I believe in when you are discipline and consistent with your craft, things will pay off. I used to upload so much content, teaching myself how to become a better storyteller, video editor and graphic designer through trial and error. And I posted so much content and learned from every video I would post and apply it to the next video I created. Like I said I played football in college. So I would take my same football mindset into content creation. How I would watch film on my practice and games, I would look at my video analytics and see what’s working, where the audience would stop watching the video and why they stopped. How I can make turn that dip in viewership into a top moment in my next video. Dissecting what works not only in my videos but also in the anime community and putting my own unique touch on it. And trying my best to be innovative. But most important like I said before, staying consistent, improving and learning something new with every video, and enjoying the type of content you create.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kagelvltv/
- Facebook: Kagelvltv
- Twitter: @Kagelvltv
- Youtube: Kagelvltv
