I will come; it's a dream. I am a YouTuber doing various things in Spain, a comedian doing stand-up in Mexico, the son of Seong-ho and Myeong-hee, the husband of Yoon-joo, and the grandfather of Luna. Nice to meet you. The photo in the thumbnail is from a recent festival where I went to shoot for YouTube, and I took it with my daughter Luna. This is the current appearance of Kim Byeong-seong, the YouTuber Comico. Now, let's get straight to the point. I am starting a YouTube membership because I need money. Yes, being direct and straightforward is my style, but this might come off as rude, right? So, let me try to wrap it up emotionally and elevate your spirits. It has already been two years since I moved to Mexico. Wow, two years! I never thought I would live here, but as time has passed...

Before I knew it, a routine had formed in my life. During the day, I film and edit for YouTube, and at night, I go to comedy stages, accumulating scripts. I believe my plans are progressing quite well. However, one thing that has gone off track is money. Stand-up comedy, being an area without boundaries, has led to an increase in content warnings on my channel, which already had its share of them. Still, I managed to get an average of one warning per month. However, there was a time when I suddenly received two warnings in a row, which was quite shocking in terms of revenue. Additionally, I wonder if it’s because my content is considered too explicit, as I hardly get any advertisements. I've been on YouTube for six years, and when I checked, I found only six ads—one per year. So, I guess it’s about time for some to come in. Why?

The last time I advertised was 10 months ago. Yes, I heard that Seven Knights is shutting down, so thank you for that. I have uploaded 685 long-form videos on YouTube, and out of those, six are 100-minute advertisements. Now, in Korea, I have quite a bit of recognition. I am also a YouTuber with over a million subscribers, and since I am involved in broadcasting activities, I have gained recognition and get invited to many events, which also means I can charge a higher fee. However, here in Mexico, my recognition is, oh, I really feel it's lacking. So, just like in Korea, I am using the same 100-minute rate for my stage appearances. But there's nothing I can do about it because this is my choice; I didn't come here to complain. I came here to pioneer new paths for a brighter future, and I am grateful for that. I have always lived the life I wanted and walked the path I desired, so it’s fun. But just because it’s fun…

There’s no law saying it shouldn’t be hard, right? Yes, it is tough. The process is always difficult, but when I look back now, it seems fun and beautiful. However, while I was in the midst of it, it always felt challenging. Thankfully, when I look back on that process, there were always people who supported me and helped me survive. I started my career as a comedian in 2013. From 2013 to 2014, as the youngest member, my seniors helped me out by giving me extra roles, and I earned some money. In 2015, I gained some stage experience, which allowed me to do some events and earn a bit more. Then in 2016, I finally became a lead in a segment on the comedy show Gag Concert, which allowed me to sustain my life. In 2017, I went to Spain during a very tough time, but I was able to use the money I had saved from Gag Concert. Then in 2018, I started YouTube, but at first, nobody watched my comedy videos. No one.

I watched the review of Lee Kang-in, and I was able to celebrate my life. From 2019 to 2021, even though COVID-19 came, I created really beautiful content, and through various collaborations, I generated some income during that time. After that, from 2022 to 2024, I am now in Mexico, where the money I saved up and the income from YouTube have combined, allowing me to live like this. Throughout this journey, I have been a comedian for 12 years now, living without any discomfort. Initially, I was involved in the comedy show Gag Concert, then later in Spain, and now on YouTube, with my location changing to Mexico. However, I have maintained my identity as a comedian without losing it. Another change in my life has been the arrival of family. Now that I have a family, I am experiencing a new life.

It opens up a miracle where one mouth becomes three. Thankfully, my wife believed in me and followed me to Mexico. So, I have to keep my end up, right? That's only natural. However, I realized that just relying on my family is not enough. Therefore, I needed additional income, and while thinking about various options, I came up with the idea of a membership. I will explain the benefits in detail, so you can understand what I was thinking. This is quite profound, and I believe that once you resonate with it, you'll be convinced to join my membership.

Now, let me explain the membership. There are two types. The first is the Precious membership, which costs 3,990 won, close to 4,000 won. When you sign up for the membership, your precious 4,000 won will come to me every month. Think of it as a sponsorship.

I'm going to support you from now on, so you can grow more. I really appreciate this kind of sponsorship, but it might be a bit burdensome for me. Therefore, I must provide benefits in return. I've thought a lot about this, and what I plan to offer is not just things like leaving comments, watching live replays, or previewing videos two days in advance, or members-only videos. In my opinion, these are all things that a YouTuber should naturally be able to do. When you leave comments, I do respond to them if I find them interesting. However, since there are a lot of comments, I sometimes just use hearts as a substitute. But I can definitely reply to them. 

Secondly, for live replays, those who have already seen the live stream can access it anytime because it’s hidden for them. Those who attended the live can watch it again whenever they want. And I also upload it separately later.

I will upload the third video two days earlier. As soon as I finish editing, I will upload it right away. I'm going to edit this as soon as I shoot it and upload it immediately. I'm not someone who can hold onto videos for two days as a strategy. For the third members-only video, I am already showing my subscribers the best content. However, if I want to show them a members-only video, the quality here must be exceptional. I don't want to discriminate against any of my subscribers. I believe I am doing my best to provide good quality content through my videos, so I don't have the confidence to produce a quality beyond that. I've been contemplating what additional benefits I can offer, and initially, I thought about a certain option, but I found out that it's not possible in Korea. So, I'm thinking again about what benefits I can provide.

I thought of two things. First, when you join my membership, a badge appears next to your name. It’s a cute chili pepper-shaped badge that starts off white and changes to green, yellow, and then orange. After maintaining it for a year, it turns into a red chili pepper. From the moment you acquire this chili pepper, I will provide you with the benefit of being able to watch my performances for free. 

Let's think about this: if you multiply 4,000 won by 12 months, that’s 48,000 won. Currently, my performances average between 30,000 won and 50,000 won. So, isn’t that a pretty good deal? And in a year, I will have grown more, and the price of my tickets is likely to go up. So, I think it could actually be a benefit for you. Some might say, Hey, you're in Mexico; how can I see your performances? I perform Korean pop every year, and well, I...

As the level rises, I will be performing in various places, so if you meet me in that world and you only have that red pepper, you can watch my performance for free. That's the first benefit. The second benefit is a bit profound. It comes from some deep thoughts I had earlier, so please listen carefully. 

In fact, my thoughts about membership did not start from additional income; it was about living rightly. What does that mean? After my second attempt at the college entrance exam, I have been writing a diary continuously. I don't write every day, but I've been consistent enough to have about 15 diaries now. Those are my treasures, and they are the seeds of my ideas. When you watch my videos, you might wonder how I come up with such thoughts; it's because I have those treasures that I can think in that way. And in reality, comedy is something I do all the time.

You need to think and write every day. This is our duty. We always plant seeds in our notebooks, and when we go up on stage at open mic events, we can break down and have fun with our jokes. In my current situation, these notebooks and journals are very precious to me because stand-up comedy is something you do alone; you have to confess to yourself. Additionally, since I am in a foreign country, I have close colleagues in Korea with whom I can hold meetings, but here, I am not yet at that level. I can engage in light conversations, but that's about it. So, my journal becomes my partner, and I continue to plant seeds there. That is the strategy I am using. Through this strategy, you will see me struggling on stage at open mic events, where I can showcase the seeds I have planted.

I just created a script for about 30 minutes, trying to make people laugh. It all started with the seeds of that fruit, and I'm showing you that it has been verified. That diary is incredibly precious to me, but at some point, I became neglectful of it. Last year, in November 2023, I was very sick. My whole family went through illness. I got sick first, then Luna got sick, and after that, my wife became very seriously ill. She was extremely sick for about three weeks; it was truly a nightmare. During that time, while I was sick, it felt like I was going through it all over again, and Luna was sick too. We were both unwell for almost a month and a half, and I became neglectful of my diary. Fortunately, we have recovered now, but it has been a hassle to get back into the habit. You know how inertia works, right?

As I kept putting off writing for about half a month, I realized that I wasn't doing it. There's nothing to plant in terms of crisis factors. So, every day I open the same mark, the same jokes. I'm verifying the same jokes, but what's the point? They've already been verified, which is contradictory. Ah, that's why it doesn't work. I need to impose a stronger obligation on myself. So, the first idea that came to my mind was a newsletter. What is this newsletter? It's a system where I write and send these writings to my subscribers while making money. Anyway, since this is a money-making system, if people subscribe to me, I will inevitably have to write. So, to impose that obligation, I thought about charging people while doing the newsletter. But isn't this a bit of a flawed idea? I mean, is it fair to those who pay me?

I'm not trying to give you a benefit; I'm using your money to recover my correct habits. It sounds a bit strange, doesn't it? I had a similar experience before. I wanted to improve my Japanese, so I signed up on a tutoring site. I registered as a Japanese instructor. At that time, I thought that if I registered as a Japanese instructor, people who wanted to learn beginner Japanese would apply to me. Since I would have to receive payment from them, I would need to be better at Japanese than they are, and to teach them, I would have to study a lot. Then, my Japanese skills would improve, right? There's that saying that the best way to learn is to teach others. Isn't that right? It has to be right; otherwise, it's a scam. It really is a scam. I naturally abandoned that thought. I was thinking of doing something similar with this newsletter. You know, even though you wrote a diary since your second year of high school, you haven't been writing one lately, have you?

I believe that I can continuously charge people for the subscription fee. So, I made a promise to myself: starting from January 2024, if I write a diary every day for 100 days, filling one page without missing a single day, then I will start the newsletter. This way, I will develop a good habit, and the commitment will be reinforced. I thought that with this 100-day challenge, I would be more motivated to write diligently. 

As you can see, I really wrote every day without missing a single day for 100 days. Now it's April, and it's time to start the newsletter. There are two things I need to pay attention to: first, promotion, and second, taxes. For promotion, since I have a YouTube channel, I can use my YouTube community or videos to let everyone know that I’ve started a newsletter and invite those who want to read my writings to subscribe.

It seems that when I asked the tax office about taxes, they mentioned that I would need to send out newsletters to people via email. However, if I receive payments into my account, I have to handle each transaction individually. I thought, This could lead to problems. So, I did some research and found that there are newsletter platforms available. The fees for these platforms vary, but generally, they seem to charge around 30% to 40%. Then I thought, Wait a minute, I have my own platform, which is YouTube. Couldn’t I just target my subscribers? This idea led me to consider posting regularly in my community. However, that approach lacks a sense of obligation; when something is free, people may not appreciate it as much.

Here, both the giver and the receiver are connected through the membership. At that time, it was around April, and there had been a series of incidents at the end of March to April. There were two consecutive events, and it just happened to be at that time. This led me to think about additional income, and my desire for proper habits and additional income intertwined, which is how it became connected to the membership.

So, for my second membership benefit, I will be offering a seed. What is a seed? Let me explain briefly. A seed is something that, as I read today, involves a story where Yoonju gave a piece of clothing to a person with one arm. I was curious about that scene, so I asked Yoonju, Why did you give that person something? Yoonju replied, Because they looked pitiful.

You don't give money to the rich people on the street, right? It's sad that Yoon-joo has only one arm. I thought, is it sad to have only one arm? If someone is rich but has only one arm, is that person sad? It seems like they are not missing anything. I think they might feel sad, though. Should I give that person money? Let's try giving money. A rich person without arms felt unpleasant. The lack of arms and being pitiful are not related. So, there's this kind of writing. You might not understand what I'm saying, but here I am contemplating the relationship between being pitiful and having no arms, and I can make a joke about it by raising the topic of money. That's the direction I'm going in. One day, I was walking down the street, and a friend gave money to a person with one arm. I just watched. Then, while walking, I saw someone with no arms and asked them to give money. But I asked, Hey, do you have money?

Why are you giving it? It's pitiful for my friend. Hey, right now, I'm giving it because I'm feeling down, which makes it even more pitiful. A small incident will happen here. I will follow along with my acting, and while walking down the street, my friend gave 200 pesos to someone who seemed perfectly fine, with both arms intact. So I asked my friend, Hey, this person is fine, why are you giving them 200 pesos? My friend replied, You should give it quickly too. This is probably going to be a hit in Mexico. Anyway, someone appeared holding a gun, and in this way, I use this seed to create a joke. So, I want to share this seed with you as a membership benefit. Well, I just tried to improvise a bit, but anyway, I’m a lively person. I wonder how this person can get lively kids.

Thanks to these seeds, I will share them with you. When you join the membership, I will post exclusively for members every Monday at 8 AM Korean time in the community. Initially, I thought about doing this daily, but I believe I can modify it gradually. At first, I will try it weekly, and if it seems good, and people enjoy it, and I find it fun as well, then I might increase it to twice a week and then to three times a week. I also plan to create shorts from it. I think I need to make these variations. Anyway, I will continue to research and adapt it to suit your tastes. I am confident that this will open up insights for you, more so than typical motivational posts. So, I have explained two valuable benefits of the membership, and now...

The membership fee is 600,000 won. However, to join the membership, it needs to be larger than mine, so I guess no one will be joining. Thank you. So, I have explained the membership in detail. I had made up my mind to start this membership in April, but my style is to just jump in and try things out. Since this involves other people's money, I couldn't just start right away. I pondered and pondered, and that's how I finally decided to get started. It probably won't be perfect from the beginning, but I will definitely put in significant effort since I am receiving your money, and I am sure I will do well. I believe that I have proven my abilities on YouTube, and I have been able to grow so far thanks to all of you. I hope you will continue to support me as I strive to grow even more, despite my inexperience.

I hope that one day you can brag about that. I postponed it with my membership, right? I believe that day will surely come. I am Kim Byeong-seon, a YouTuber and a dad. I will take my leave now. Thank you. Thank you very much.

유튜버 코미꼬, 아빠 김병선

코미꼬(Cómico)는 스페인어로 코미디언이라는 뜻

모든 재밌는 것은 코미디예요

같이 코미디하고 싶으면 연락주세요

이메일 comico@metacomedy.net
인스타 comicoreano

