Exile Circus Launches Channel

Years ago, I never would have thought of having a channel on YouTube like having a real channel. I would have chuckled smugly and said, “Please be a dear, love, and do pass me the Grey Poupon.”

I mean NBC is a channel. ABC is a channel. Netflix and Hulu, they’re channels.

But why wouldn’t my Exile Circus YouTube Channel be a channel? They have 2.7 billion monthly active users. 5 billion videos are watched daily.

And no matter where you’re from, that’s a lot of eyeballs.

Netflix—king of the streamers—has 325 million paid subscribers. Their global audience is approaching a billion.

So I’m proud of my little channel. And my minuscule little achievement of launching my first video is groundbreaking to me.

I guess it’s all how you look at it. I looked down on YouTube for so long because I saw so many silly and inane, frivolous videos. But YouTube has also launched the careers of stars, singing sensations, filmmakers. And I’ve watched amazing tutorials there. The most consequential news reporting is now on YouTube. And of course Substack. You know I’d never leave you out, Stack, baby—now can you please give me a shoutout?

So I’m reveling in my little YouTube channel that could. That has no subscribers. And I say that with a twinkle in my eye. Because YouTube is going to allow me to do what I was never ever able to do in Hollywood.

YouTube will allow me to showcase and build the worlds of my fiction. Of my novels. Of my graphic novels. Of my future animation projects. For an audience.

You see, Hollywood and publishing companies always had the audience. You had to get through their gatekeepers to get to the audience. I spent all my time pitching and getting projects into development in LA, only to see them fall out of development several months later.

The truth is, for over twenty years, I made very little in Hollywood. And what was made was deformed beyond recognition.

This makes me think of the monologue from Cyrus in the cult hit film The Warriors: “We got the streets, suckers. Can you dig it?”

Studio Hollywood and the publishing empire had the streets—sole access to the audience. They were the monopoly.

Now everyone has access to an audience, here on Substack, on YouTube, or on any of a number of other platforms.

And I get to make silly little videos.

In the immortal words of a man who was ahead of his time, “Yabba Dabba Doo.”

If you like historical fiction, the Cold War, espionage, or psychic phenomena, check out the first episode of my Mindbender Micro-Doc Series, Psychic Spies: Secret Weapon of the Cold War.