But actually it started only in 2013. At that time, I created my own YouTube channel which was originally named “yourobonatic”. Why on earth did I choose this name? My idea was to describe the content I intended to create with the channel's name. You have to understand, the first video was about a little program I wrote for my Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 robot.

Of Minecraft blocks and Lego pieces

Though, the name was not long to stay. Soon, I began uploading Minecraft videos instead of robot content. What followed was the extra-ordinarily creative word chain DerMinecrafterMarcel (“The Minecrafter Marcel”). Later I dropped Der from the name, so my channel was called MinecrafterMarcel from 2014 onwards.

Following my initial attempts to “cut” my videos with Windows Movie Maker, I started employing Sony Vegas Pro late 2014 to improve the video quality. Though, my younger I didn't understand that the quality only stems from the tools used. The thumbnails were a product of the wonderful open source software Gimp.

The next year, I dared to try even more professional video editing software. That is: Adobe Photoshop for the still awful thumbnails and Premiere Pro for cutting. The remaining programs included in the Creative Cloud Suite played a minor role at that time. By using those software, I gained a lot of knowledge about designing and video editing.

The never-ending forest of 1s and 0s

Around the same time in 2015 I also intensified my efforts to code. Although I had experimented with Python a few years earlier, I concentrated on Java from the on. Later it developed into a versitile interest of programming in general.

By the way, 2015 was the year with the most video uploads ever. Those included besides Minecraft especially Clash of Clans, Happy Wheels and more which all were series I already started in the beginning of 2014.

Quality over quantity

2016 in turn was significantly emptier regarding videos. Somehow it was a time where I tried to rediscover what I loved about making videos. On the one hand, I didn't enjoy producing one low quality gaming video after the other. On the other, I didn't know what to do instead and had no idea how I could improve quality. It took until the end of the year that more videos appeared again. Another gigantic project accompanied my time in 2016: a website for my channel. After multiple updates and reworks, this is also the place where you're reading this text.

Eventually, I settled on a new theme for my channel when I started making knowledge videos in 2017. Those focussed on the topics coding and politics. Also, I put more effort into the video production of a single video while I learned AfterEffects and Illustrator.

The next year mostly continued like the year before: however I uploaded videos less frequently. Instead, I concentrated on other personal and professional projects - particularly software projects. They took over an ever increasing part of my leizure time so that my available time for creating videos grew smaller. But by doing all of this, I learned a lot about various programming languages and developer tools.

Also, 2018 was the fifth anniversary of my YouTube channel KingOfDog. My own present to this occasion was the re-release of the website you're looking at right now. First named kingofdog.eu, later kingofdog.de, offered more features and content than ever before.

Next stop: way too long

Sadly, the trailer for the aforementioned website marked the beginning of a total lack of videos on my channel that definitely lasted to long. For more than two years I didn't upload a single video. That was surely not caused by a lack of ideas or motivation - those were abundant. As you might have guessed, I spent the majority of my free time on coding projects, leaving not enough time besides my everyday chores to produce any videos.

One of these projects was a learning platform for school offering students the option to help and get help from other pupils. More information about the platform is available in the corresponding project entry.

Caused by a period of unusual boredom, I started learning Norwegian in the summer of 2019 using Duolingo. What started as a spontaneous activity to get time to pass, lasted long enough for me to complete the course after a little less than a year.

At exactly that time, in the middle of 2020, another iteration of re-developing my website was initiated. My goal was to expand my knowledge of web development by employing modern standards and technologies. Among others I used Vue.js and Go.

And so it remains to be seen what the future will bring.