To clarify before I get into it, I do want to say first that even though I haven’t posted in like 2 years, I have still continued to watch Sean somewhat regularly. I’m graduating from medical school on Thursday (weird, I know), so suffice to say, I’ve had less time in general to keep up with every upload and make posts/gifs/anything. I still watch every long multi-part playthrough he uploads; he is the first person I go to for those (if he plays the game of course), but watching the usual daily uploads is a little more difficult, compared to 4 years ago when I had time to watch every single one. So everything I say next is as someone who has been keeping up with him, even if my lack of posting suggests otherwise. *deep breath*

I’m glad he noticed how much he’s changed in the past 3 years because I have absolutely noticed it as well. The main difference between the 2017 and 2020 videos is best exemplified in the first 5 seconds-- no more intro and green hair. I’m not going to speak for Sean (these are just my own observations), but around that time in 2016-2017 (with his increasing popularity and the green hair becoming a staple), it felt like his online personality was becoming a caricature of himself. Yes, he is a ~loud boi~, but in retrospect (compared to how he is now), it does seem like he had to make sure he was fitting this image the internet has made of him. This is not a conscious thing, it can just happen sometimes. Even the fact that a lot more people call him Sean instead of Jack now is evidence of a shift to him being less concerned about a specific persona he has to maintain rigidly.

When he finally dyed his hair back to his natural color and started growing it out, when the intro and outro went away, and when he started wearing gauges (I only mention that because when I first started watching Sean, I wore 8g plugs, and now I'm at a size 00g...how time flies), it seemed like a great weight was lifted, and the shackles were finally off. The timeline off the top of my head is going to be wonky (apologies), but then he started streaming on Twitch whenever he felt like it, making more ambitious non-gameplay related videos, just doing whatever the fuck he wanted. He was having fun with it, and it was nice to see.

I wanted to make a comparison of his answers between the two videos, but since he admitted that some of the choices he made in 2017 were influenced by the fact he was being filmed, it seems a little fruitless to do it individually since I don’t know which answers were genuine and which were not. But I think that’s kind of not the point.

The main thing I wanted to say was that I have noticed a difference in Sean the past year/2 years (what even is time now), and I’m not going to say he seems happier because you can act happier online pretty easily.

I’d say he seems much more human.

Like, he’s no longer posting twice a day because it was slowly killing him. If he’s not feeling up to it, he won’t upload for a day. If he feels like checking out the memes on his subreddit, he’ll do it. Who cares. Instead of trying to maintain the image and persona of “jacksepticeye”, he’s focusing on Sean McLoughlin. I don’t want it to sound like he’s truly zen now and perfect, because that’s not the case (sorry, Sean). Obviously there’s always room to grow and change for the better, but compared to before, he appears to be healthier online now.

I’ve changed a lot myself in the 4 years I’ve been watching Sean (binging his videos all day everyday for 3 weeks straight in Feb. 2016 kept me from killing myself vs. attending a virtual graduation in 4 days that I didn’t think I’d be alive for), and it’s been really interesting to see us both, in parallel, become more comfortable with ourselves, in varying degrees of course (read: I’m still a mess). 

He’ll always have a special place in my heart, and I’m proud of him.

“I want something bleak and hopeless…like real life.”

but they may not be about the topic you'd expect

a quick little edit because why not

music can never be loud enough to drown it out and i don’t want it to

...now i’m sifting through sean’s tumblr to see if someone has made the posts that i now feel compelled to create

i just wanted to stop by and say that the colon and cataract surgery video was a little too real for me as i’m currently on my surgery rotation (2 weeks in, 6 more weeks to go) and have seen my fair share of colons, among other things. 

i mention this because right when i try to take a break, relax and watch some youtube videos, said “break” reminds me that i should be doing work and studying instead

let me live my life, dr. jeff 

(and i’m keeping my eye on you, dr. suzi)

i’m not particularly sure why this of all things prompted me to post something after so long....but just as quickly as i reappear, i disappear once again

*throws smoke bomb*

I’m doing okay, been attempting to study for my exams next week

uh....he....he.....hey guys...

if you want...to....you know....have the fofparty, it begins now

heh.....yeah.....so......yeah