For those of you joining me (Louis) for the first time: Grab a hot beverage, get under a blanket and settle in for a whistle-stop tour of my online escapades before the genesis of “lingualouis”.
The Early Days (2012)
The first time I recorded myself for any purpose was the 28th of August 2012, alongside my lifelong friend Ben (who I haven’t seen in quite a while). On my first laptop, an ancient Dell Latitude, we played Minecraft at 5 frames per second, poorly filmed on my iPad – it makes for quite spectacular viewing. We find a jungle temple and painstakingly make our way through – I’m on controls while Ben provides guidance and commentary, and if I remember correctly farts repeatedly throughout (sorry Ben if you read this).
During this sleepover, we also recorded our Top Gear spin-off ‘BL Gear’, where using steering wheels of coloured paper we raced around my old family apartment in Hertfordshire – I believe Ben won the challenge in the end, as I span out with my car being supposedly “tail happy”.
Our ambitions were just as high as our voices – none of these clips were ever uploaded, but rather paved the way for ‘Lemony Gluttony’, my first ever YouTube channel and online presence. This bizarre name was chosen using two random words matching my initials. Incredible stuff, it’s a wonder I never made it!
Birth on YouTube (2012-2016)
Over the years, I’ve had many YouTube channels. I actually can’t remember the chronology of these, but I believe it goes as such:
- Lemony Gluttony
- Cranium Rustler
- The599Gamer
- LouisRG
The first three of them never got beyond 30 or so subscribers, but the latter, LouisRG, actually made it far beyond what I’d ever achieved before. It was the first time I showed my face on camera, and wasn’t focused on gaming at all.
On the first three channels, I just posted simple gaming videos, mostly with my good friends from primary and secondary school. We played Minecraft, Counterstrike, Unturned, and a variety of other Free To Play games, collaborating and competing against each other. The stakes were imperceptibly low, and I have to say: I absolutely loved it.
As time went on, I developed my editing skills and even made 3D intro sequences, end-of-video cards and all sorts. I made my own thumbnails, wrote my descriptions and got absorbed in to the whole YouTube universe. I always believed I was capable of going big, despite the acknowledgement that I was one of millions doing exactly the same thing.
Ultimately, I was having fun with friends, learning new skills and testing the waters of the internet. I can’t tell you how many of those videos are still online, but I can say that there are at least a few. Find them if you dare!
Golden Age: LouisRG (2016-2018)
September 2016 marked the first video as my latest incarnation, LouisRG. I had taken a number of flying lessons (crazy, right?) and was absorbed with the idea of becoming a pilot. So, why not document the journey as I went?
I took it seriously, simply because I’m something of a nerd and I love to micro-manage the details. I reserved a notebook, made a content schedule, and created a template which I would later fill in as I published the videos. Despite my preparation, I quickly ran out of aviation-based content ideas and swivelled to a more general focus. My most popular video was of me taking about my bearded dragon, which reached over 500 views in the end.
If you went to either of Torquay Boys or Girls Grammar Schools, and were in my year, there’s a decent probability you’ve at least heard of LouisRG. My reputation was, as far as I can tell, ironically handed to me, with flashes of sincere interest from my comrades. I started, slowly but surely, to grow: 10, 25, 50, 100, 200 subscribers. It was genuinely more than I ever thought I could muster, and I was pretty chuffed.
The LouisRG era coincided with the first time I was talking to girls – having always been to male-only secondary schools, this was something of a momentous period. Somehow, the girls I talked to, and my first girlfriend, didn’t find my channel too cringeworthy, or perhaps that was the grand delusion I was living in, and everyone was just stringing me along. Either way, I think it was (empirically proven as) cringeworthy, but not completely rubbish.
After my GCSE exams in 2018, I couldn’t be bothered any more and had grown out of the idea that I would be able to make it. My optimism and ambition shrank for the YouTube project, and although I left the videos online, my posting stopped.
I’m sure I have the videos stored somewhere, but LouisRG has been condemned to the scrapheap.
Blogger Extraordinaire (2018-2022)
In the years following, i.e. from starting college in 2018 to the present day, I’ve given multiple attempts at blogging, even investing money in the hobby on multiple occasions. YouTube videos became too much effort and too exposing (in a social standing/clout sense), and blogging slowly started to align with my passion for writing and philosophy.
Particularly after moving to Vienna in August 2020, I struggled to make it stick as a part of my life. I over-researched and tried to follow along what every blogger told me to (in order to give the best chances of success, of course!). As I am one to do, I over-thought the whole lot and although I wrote well, I lacked consistency.
One day, I got a message through my blog from a well-known (relatively speaking) writer and philosopher, who was asking me if I wanted to do some writing about his upcoming project in return for a small amount of publicity. From the date this post goes out, I believe it was around a year ago.
The months dragged on and I still hadn’t written anything. My relationship in Vienna ended, and effectively the last years of chaos and blinkered living caught up with me. In the end, I never submitted a single piece of writing.
I don’t know how much this would have brought me, but that’s besides the point – I was literally handed a dream ticket, and let it blow away on the wind. Despite this disappointment (with myself), I still hold on to that thought: There was at least one person out there, a qualified philosopher and writer, who thought I was writing well.
lingualouis (Present – ???)
Which leads us to the present day. I hold on to that idea, that proof, that it would theoretically be possible for me to have people reading what I write. I love that idea so much. Regardless of this fact, however, I just need a creative outlet. Writing, and publishing whatever else I can come up with, on this website is a hobby I simply have to pursue.
Where exactly I’ll end up, what the next chapter will be on this short history of me, I’m not sure. For the time being, I’m going to give it a go here, and I would love it if you’d stick around to learn with me 🙂