There are a couple of smaller content creators that I feel is now the right time to highlight because I believe they each will find “success” in their own individual ways. To be clear, my definition of success isn’t always in relation to the actual numbers (like large amounts of followers, viewers, etc). My definition is in relation to their goals and what they want to get out of it. Yes, there are times when some of these smaller content creators become that large content creator, but my advice if that ever does happen, is to never forget your roots (even though there are other challenges that come with that other territory where there is obviously more “management” involved).
With that said, the first one is an American ex-pat named Jason (from the US state of Oklahoma) who has been living in Japan since 2016 when he booked a one-way ticket to the country (he always responds to how that all happened when people ask him during his livestreaming, and I prefer to redirect people to him so that they can hear the story for themselves from the source where it is far more interesting). He goes by the nickname “Sensei Martian” on various platforms including Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, and YouTube, and has been in the process of walking across Japan (starting in mid-April 2024) from the southernmost part of Kyushu (Cape Sata) to the northern most part of Hokkaido (Cape Soya).
What impressed and resonated with me early on, is the reason he is doing this walk. The short part of it is that he read Alan Booth’s “The Roads to Sata”. Booth himself moved to Japan (after visiting/wanting to learn about Noh theater in 1970) and did a walk across Japan from Hokkaido (Cape Soya) to Kyushu (Cape Sata) in the 70’s which served as an inspiration of sorts since Booth did it at the same age that Sensei Martian currently is. Like Booth, he wants to see the parts of Japan that he is walking through with his own eyes and to experience the human connection of being able to meet and talk to those individuals that he encounters along the way. He’s also not doing this for fame. He is doing this to challenge himself and to see what meaning this walk will have for him once he completes it (all while also working in the morning, and then later in the early evenings). The reactions he gets when the people that he talks to learns of this little fact, is often times priceless.
Doing this where the desire for fame isn’t a driving factor resonated with me because I personally dislike that kind of attention myself. I like to do things because I take some form of personal satisfaction from it. This leads to side story time (which is still relevant to the main topic): there is a price that comes with fame and that is your personal space/privacy and potentially time (we all have this limited time on this planet which puts perspective on the whole quality time aspect). And if wealth is also part of that equation (which it normally is), then you have to deal with way too many who want a piece of that in some form. Part of this avoidance of attention for me comes from being involved in Silicon Valley (with all of its “rock star” executives with compensation and lifestyles to match). Steve Jobs was one of those complex anomalies given that his net worth was in the billions of dollars, yet he lived a relatively modest lifestyle (no crazy mansions in multiple locations) with one of his excesses being the Mercedes that he drove.
Myself, I “learned” from Guy Kawasaki (one of Apple’s earliest employees) that you can “skate for a very long time” (basically a dollar can go a longer way) on your employee stock options/investments if you live that modest lifestyle (financial freedom is determined by that discipline of not blowing all your wealth up by buying everything that you can afford). Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak also shunned the social status/fame and chose to live a modest lifestyle (because that other flamboyant sort of lifestyle didn’t match his personality type); he also became a teacher not because he needed the work (I mean his early Apple stock secured him financial freedom early on) but wanted to teach young people (the “giving back to society” aspect that is very rewarding for some). I knew of many multi-millionaire types that chose to “live under the radar” in this manner (including unseen philanthropy), resulting in a higher quality of life as time went on. Let’s just say I had (and am very thankful) for the number of great mentors I had along the way. おかげさまで (okagesama de) is a Japanese saying that holds a lot of value/meaning to me in that regard.
Digressing, one of the stories that Sensei Martian also told that struck me early on, was the one that he mentioned about how he accepts coin change with both hands cupped open. He explained that for many people (to be clear, I am paraphrasing off of memory), such loose change is like an afterthought of “unimportance” because they tend to be a small amount for many. Most of us just take that change and chuck it into our pocket/wallet without much thought. For him though (especially in the context of this journey/adventure across Japan), every small amount helps and adds up. So, he is incredibly appreciative of that “small change”, and thus accepts it in this very grateful, respectful and humble manner. I believe he also mentioned that his significant other recognized this quality when she observed him doing that (stating to the effect that she knew he was a good person when she watched him accepting change in that manner).
This blew me away. It’s the little things/gestures that we often times take for granted in life. Stopping and slowing down to appreciate those things is key to grounding oneself and regaining lost perspective (another reason I had to just take this break from the whole IRL livestream viewing that I am writing about; no one needs to tell me about burnout because I had that with my prior experience in tech; I know when it is time to do what I need to do to fix it for myself). For someone who is in their early-30’s to have such wisdom, is really a wonderful thing to hear/see. Sensei Martian is definitely someone who is high on my list of wanting to at least meet in-person so that I can repeat what I’ve written to him in chat before about “why I like his attitude/approach” of not just this walk across Japan, but also his life outlook in general. To be clear, this isn’t something I normally partake of because I don’t even have that desire to meet those big famous names (because of what I mentioned above). With regular, everyday people that have those qualities that resonate with me like Sensei Martian has, it’s a completely different thing. These are the kind of folks who you can have an actual lasting conversation with. Anyone like this can achieve their goals in life (it may not be a straight line up because life does have ways of throwing curve balls at you; how you respond and deal with them is what matters).
What he has walked so far, is already a different form of “wealth” that many don’t have. Part of that “wealth” is the many different connections, conversations, and experiences with people along his route (some of whom have seen him walking days earlier, where they stop, talk, and give things to him days later). The other is seeing the actual locations and views that many sort of take for granted. Much of that connection, experience, and views is something you cannot put a price tag on. Once he completes this adventure/journey, he can parlay the entire experience into whatever he wants to. As the saying goes, “the skies the limits”.
Unlike Booth, Sensei Martian has the modern-day tools of mobile internet that allows him to document and livestream his walks while bringing viewers from all over the world along in vicarious fashion (where there are always people to connect with in chat). A large part of me is grateful that I logged back in to Twitch earlier this year to actually come across someone like him doing this walk and being able to chat with him on numerous occasions. Ironically (as another side note), my taking a break from actually tuning in to these livestreams has allowed me to perform this reflection and to look at writing about the few quality content creators (what I consider quality) that I want to continue having this engagement with going forward (thus the quantity purge of channels that I did a few days ago along with spending time away from it to reset).
One of my personal mottos has long been quality over quantity, and that was getting lost in this new hobby. While I am a moderator for two different channels, that aspect has nothing to do with taking this break to reset. It’s the following: I enjoyed being able to support many (knowing how tough content creation can be), but I realized that the quantity was turning into “couch potato” chain viewing without me even realizing it had turned into that (this is the downside when you no longer have to actually work for a living; you can keep doing things you enjoy and forget about the time even though I know that moderation is key). Disconnecting is also signaling to me which channels I am actually missing having meaningful dialog with (there’s a process to all this). Again, this style of writing has long been a form of therapy for me because I can just “dump” out what is in my head in “stream of conscience” fashion and then realize what I needed to address in the process (it unfortunately turns it into long posts like this though).
The “too long, didn’t read it” (tl;dr) summary of the above (for anyone who comes across this) is to go and search for “Sensei Martian” (the more detailed reasons for why are qualified above). I could just directly link his profiles, but I would prefer people to click through what the search engine throws out and discovering the content on each of those platforms in whatever order that one chooses.
