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catcreatesstuff · 2 months ago

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A few (hundred) words about the closure of Team TripleJump

About five years ago I was playing Jackbox on a Discord call with a few friends, and we got to chatting about work. At the time I had a secure, well-paying job, but I wasn't feeling at all creatively fulfilled by it, and after a bit of a whinge, I half-jokingly asked my pal James Jenkins, who at the time was working for a favourite YouTube channel of mine, if they had any jobs going. He said they didn't at the moment, but if anything came up, he'd let me know.

Fast forward a few weeks and I get a message from him telling me the channel, TripleJump, were in the market for freelance scriptwriters, and linking me to the job description. I read through it and was filled with excitement; this was exactly the sort of thing I was looking for, and so I began plugging away at a spec script on the subject of the Batman: Arkham games.

About 500 words in though, the imposter syndrome began to creep in. I hadn't written anything aside from PowerPoints since I'd left university, what the Hell was I thinking applying for this job? There was no way anything I wrote was going to be any good, so why was I even trying? I set the script aside, and pretty much put the whole thing out of my mind.

Shortly before the submission deadline, I got another message from James asking me if I'd applied in the end, and at that point my guilt over causing someone the inconvenience of getting them to keep an eye out for a job and letting me know about it trumped my imposter syndrome, and so, over the next few hours, I knocked out what I thought was a fairly poor script and sent it to the channel.

Well, it turns out that script wasn't so bad after all, and sometime later I was offered the opportunity to write one Top 10 script per week for TripleJump. I was introduced to Philip Reed, the channel's Senior Staff Writer, and with his guidance and mentorship, I quickly settled into my new freelance role.

Alas, instead of being a creative outlet to balance the stresses of a corporate job, my time freelancing for TripleJump only made me more unhappy with my career, something which I expressed to Philip on multiple occasions. "I wish I could do this full time," I'd tell him, never actually thinking it was possible. Well, it turns out that Philip, that sneaky devil, had been relaying my wishes to the powers that be at the channel, and around nine months after I started freelancing, Adam Pacitti was on the phone offering me a full time job.

To some, leaving behind a steady, secure role to write jokes about video games in the notoriously fickle world of YouTube might have seemed insane, but it was the best thing I've ever done.

I've written literally hundreds of scripts, from serious pieces on why people still think video games are to blame for real-world violence to utterly bonkers joke videos that claim that the Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner was the hunkiest video game boy of 2020. I've also gotten to write and act in a video game, attend Insomnia Festival as a member of the press, and GM a game of Dungeons & Dragons on a livestream for hundreds of viewers.

Of course, my experience working for TripleJump would have been nothing without the amazing, talented, wonderful people I got to work with day in, day out. Ben Potter, Peter Austin, Ashton Matthews, James Jenkins, Ciaran Henry, Alex Winters, and the late, great Philip Reed have been the best colleagues, friends, and mentors anyone could hope for. Their passion and creativity knows no bounds, and I feel truly blessed to have spent the past four years working alongside and learning from these brilliant people.

TripleJump as a channel might be over, but looking back at all we've achieved, I couldn't be more proud of us. What started as two blokes and a fuzzy walrus bemoaning awful video games has grown into a hugely popular channel with perhaps the greatest community in the industry, and I feel truly honoured to have been a part of it for as long as I have.

Had I known things would end up this way when I accepted the job, I still wouldn't have changed a thing. Most people go their whole lives never even liking what they do for work; I've been lucky enough to spend four years doing what I love with a group of people who inspire me to be the best I can possibly be, and I'm so excited to see what they all get up to next because I just know that whatever they do, they're all going to absolutely smash it.

So what are my take aways from all of this? Well, it turns out that I am a pretty damn good writer and I should probably have a little more faith in myself, and although taking risks, especially in your career, can be scary, they have the potential to lead to the most wonderful things.

To everyone in the TripleJump community, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your endless support over the years. And to Ben, Peter, Ashton, James, Ciaran, Alex, and Philip, I thank you for the best four years of my life.