Two-Year Chann-a-versary: Going Beyond the Vlog

This week marks mine and my family’s two-year journey as Youtube vloggers and it’s been one heck of a ride.

Placing a camera in front of myself, my wife, and my family, and sharing my life with the world has been life changing. Vlogging has made us laugh more, cry often (in happy ways most of the time), and even sometimes fight. More importantly, it has provided us with a chance to reach out through the veil of the screen, and interact with people from all over the world.

Since January, our Youtube audience has tripled — yes, tripled! We now have a loyal following of men, women, parents, teens, singles, LGBT, straight, and more watching us from all over the world. They tune in every week for new videos and then they actually interact with us via comments on Youtube or messages on other social media channels.

Over time, we’ve come to know many of our followers just as they have come to know us. They’ve shared their struggles and happy moments with us and often ask for advice. We thought that by sharing our family and our memories on Youtube, we would normalize LGBT families, and in some ways we have. But our purpose has grown to include being a symbol of hope for some LGBT teen and young adult audiences who need to be reminded that things will get better, and they can have as much happiness and opportunity as my wife and I have been afforded. On the other hand, our channel has also become a place of resource for prospective parents who have questions and concerns about things we’ve already been through with creating and raising a family.

Though we love helping others, our audiences and vlogging in general has taught us so much. It’s so clear to me, especially as I edit the videos, how much Susan and I have gotten closer and how my family as a whole has bonded in new ways thanks to vlogging. So though we started vlogging with the intention to help others, we have since learned that the Youtube platform and community has helped us in so many ways.

So happy Chann-a-versary to us!

If you’re interested in learning more about what we do on Youtube, we’ve put together some video highlights from the last year. Here’s one with our family as a whole:

And here’s one of just me and Susan. We hope you enjoy!: