What's up my friends? Welcome to Sadnessville School. This is Chris Gehlago.

Yesterday's story about the Fire Protection Engineer came in hot. Today's story is lit as well.

It's not really about fire this time. It's just a good story. That's what I mean. It's lit.

We'll have to change our metaphors as we go along.

In this story, a university professor manages his depression by sharing a gift for gaming and community building on YouTube.

Racking up millions of views and earning a good side income in his alter ego form.

It's really an awesome story in all the ways. Lots of good detail here as well, just like yesterday's story.

And if you would like to get started with YouTube or any similar medium, but don't have a lot of followers,

don't have a lot of platform here. Like, man, I really love the idea of doing this, but these people have been doing it a long time.

How am I even going to get people to subscribe? Well, listen, I'm going to give you a strategy for doing just that.

In fact, the strategy is right in this episode, but to be super clear, I'll break it down a bit more at the end.

So get excited. Professor starts marvelous YouTube channel. His coming right up.

Shane Hoffman leads a double life. Each morning he gets up, puts on his clothes, and drives to his job as a multimedia journalism professor at Oklahoma State University.

He loves his work and his students love him. But once the day is over and the sun sets on the city of stillwater,

he transforms into a character known as Prof Hoff, a game playing Oreo reviewing dad joke cracking YouTuber with over 12 million views.

Much like Peter Parker and a plethora of other superhero alter egos that came before him, Shane has an origin story with pretty humble beginnings.

Back in 2017, he found himself at one of the lowest points in his life. He just broke an off in engagement and was fighting an uphill battle against depression.

He felt like he'd spent all his time and energy on the wrong things. So he wanted to focus on something he enjoyed, and he wanted to help people.

Most of his free time was spent playing a strategy based video game called Marvel Contest of Champions.

In the game, players assume the identity of a Marvel superhero and go to battle against other people the world over.

He was pretty good at it. One day, he was chatting with his twin brother, who suggested that he try turning his gaming into a YouTube channel.

He would give him something creative to focus on and bring him closer to a wider community.

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