I'm the animator behind Chipflake

a YouTube channel that is all about this cat

and also sometimes about me  but in the form of this cat.

The chipflake lore is vast and complex

however no matter what type of content i am making

i will always be haunted by this one question

that over the course of my channel

i have been asked literally  tens of thousands of times.

“are you a boy or a girl?”

now im going to put aside the kind  of worrying implication that is the  

suggestion that these are the only two  possible options that someone can be

aside for a second

and give you a plain and  simple answer to this question.

i am a boy.

well, more specifically, a man

considering im an adult

i know some of you will be  satisfied by that answer.

but others wont.

and while i do think those people  should evaluate why they care so much

i do think that this is a pretty good  opportunity to talk about some things  

that i think are kinda important  and id like you guys to know.

just a fair warning that in this video  i am going to expose things about myself

that might be kind of weird to just casually  tell a bunch of strangers youve never met.

obviously im not going to go into too much detail  because I still want this video to be accessible

but if just the mention of any  of these things makes you uneasy

don't feel bad about skipping this one.

its just that i feel that this  stuff is important to my story  

and im tired of hiding things that could be  useful to someone figuring out themselves

just because humans decided that certain  topics are weird to talk about for some reason

So, the thing is

i didnt always know that i'm a man

But this is where it gets a little complicated

because i didn't exactly  have this one moment where  

i just had an epiphany and everything changed

instead it was more like, several different  aspects of my life coming together

So instead of telling you a  story in chronological order

i'm going to split this video up into different  parts just to focus on these aspects individually.

and I hope that doesn't get confusing

Part 1

YouTube

i started this channel at the beginning of 2017

at 19 years old.

i know for a lot of big youtubers  their channel started off as a hobby  

that just happened to blow up and  turn into a job opportunity for them

but personally i always intended and hoped  for this channel to succeed and become my job.

i was severely depressed and could barely even  

bring myself to attend my one  college class 3 times a week.

the art commissions i was doing on  the side were painfully unsuccessful

but the thought of dealing with customers  made me extremely anxious anyway.

so youtube, being something i actually enjoyed

wouldnt have to leave the house for

and where i could pretty much  choose my own working hours

seemed at least feasible as a job for me

in this world where you must get a  job and earn money, or die, i guess?

i was still considering what kind  of content exactly i wanted to make

when the “storytime animation”  genre started to gain traction.

where people would talk or tell stories,  using artwork instead of a camera.

which of course seemed perfect for me

as someone who never liked showing their face  

and already loved to animate as a  hobby since i was about 12 years old.

so, then i just needed a character.

i decided on a cat as i've always  loved animals and at the time i  

didnt see anyone else using an animal  as their storytime cartoon persona

so it would set me apart a bit

and i also decided that i wanted  the design to look androgenous

so that as many people as possible  would be able to relate to them.

i worked on growing my channel  over the following months.

and eventually my audience grew from just my  friends as new people began to find my channel.

and thats when something happened.

suddenly for the first time i  was starting to experience..

frequently being perceived as  something other than a girl.

i started getting comments where  people would call me "they" or "he"

and of course the famous “are you  a boy or a girl” questions popped  

up several times every time i posted a video.

and i didn't answer them.

and i didnt correct anyone who didnt call me "she".

i specifically did not want to.

you would think this would be the  moment where i would stop and consider

“hm, why do i feel like i dont want to  correct people who are perceiving me wrong?”

but no

i did not.

you see, back in 2017

i was extremely ignorant about

Well

anything to do with gender really.

not only had i learned extremely little  about LGBT people in general from school

but back then there was a  popular subgenre on YouTube  

entirely dedicated to tearing  down arguments for women's rights

and the concept of gender outside  of the binary “man” and “woman”

among other “progressive” things.

and unfortunately

as a lonely, misunderstood

“not like other girls” 19 year  old, i was pretty deep into it.

My knowledge of transgender people at that point

was that they were people who knew since they were  a child that they were trapped in the wrong body

and they would do anything to  be seen as the opposite gender

because their body brings them so much pain.

and if that wasn't your exact experience well,

then, you're just not trans.

so no, i wasn't going to question it.

there was nothing to question.

if i was trans, i would know it already.

it would still be a long time before  i would actually start to question it

but at least within that time my opinion on gender  changed as i became more knowledgeable about it.

and all it really took

was for me to actually listen to  a nonbinary person's perspective

when a youtuber i watched invited  them onto their channel for a debate.

i guess at some point i realised that

its not my place to decide how  someone else actually feels.

When someone has a headache we  don't demand brain scans to prove it

we just believe and support them if needed.

people dont just choose their identities for fun

especially when they often lose privileges

respect or even friends &  family because of who they are.

and eventually after listening to the  perspectives of more and more people

i finally faced the fact that  i actually related to them.

a lot.

sometimes i feel a little embarrassed and  kind of freaked out thinking about how  

easily i was drawn into misinformation  on youtube and how it took..

other youtubers for me to  realise that i needed to be  

more sceptical about the things i was being told.

but, honestly

i was still essentially a teenager.

youtube was my main source of  entertainment and information

as it is for many young people today

i wasnt talking to my friends,  family, teachers about this stuff.

while youtubers were the reason  i was lead down the wrong path

other youtubers were also the  reason why i got out of it.

thats why its important to me to make this  video and go into stupid amounts of detail

because youtube is a really important  resource for hearing people's stories

that you might otherwise  never have the chance to hear.

Its a bit weird to say outloud that youtube has  played a big role in me figuring out who i am.

But

Honestly

it makes sense that my biggest form  of media consumption would be where I  

learned about things ive never heard about before.

You just always need to keep in mind

that if you want to know about a group of people

you should get your information  from actual people within that group

and not random people who  have nothing to do with them

using them for content.

thats the double edged sword of youtube

while a lot people want to spread  knowledge and useful information

it is still a job for most of us, and sometimes  people will say things they dont even believe

to get that paycheck.

while we're on the subject

it is kind of ridiculous how  much misinformation has been  

spread about me in my own comments sections.

ive joked about this in videos before

but it genuinely happens so often  that someone asks a question

and some rando responds with  some completely false information

and NOBODY questions it.

and it kind of messed me up while  i was questioning my identity

because even though i was making the decisions  about what information about me was out there

i still didnt have control over how people saw me.

as if these randos on the internet  had the choice of who i am.

so i guess all im saying is

please either get your information  straight from the source

or make sure the person giving you the information  can verify exactly where they got it from.

Part 2

Furries

The second contender for most asked question in  my comments section is probably “are you a furry”

a question which anyone who has an animal as a  persona on youtube is going to have to deal with.

If you find yourself already  cringing at the mention of this topic

maybe skip this video if it's  too much for you to handle.

But it's genuinely an important part of my story

and some of you may already  have an idea as to why.

Side note

get used to the way i say “furry”.

Usually british people would  say fur-ie but i've always  

pronounced the adjective fur-ie and the noun furry

idk why but its too late to go back now

As a quick rundown so we're all on the same page

a “furry” is someone who's part of a fandom

similar to how star trek  fans are called “trekkies”.

Except instead of being  fans of a particular TV show

furries are basically just fans of cartoon  animals with human-like characteristics

like walking & talking.

Yes it's pretty weird that a whole  fandom was born from just a concept

it's as if there would be a  fandom about the colour orange.

But here we are.

Something most furries do is create a “fursona”

an animal character for yourself to use online.

Its kind of like a self-insert original character

but not tied to the rules  of any TV show or whatever

so there's essentially endless possibilities.

The only “requirement” is it  being in some way an animal.

And now you can most definitely  see where this is going.

I do have to say though

that Chip is not actually my fursona.

I know this kind of goes against what I just said

but this is where it gets a bit complicated

cause everyone kind of has a  different definition for the word.

Basically, to me

just like how you can like  cartoon animals and not be a furry

if you make an anthropomorphic character

without the intention of it being a fursona

then it's not one.

The reason I don't consider Chip a fursona

ties back to what I said back in part 1

about me starting my YouTube channel with  the intention of turning it into a job.

Chip was designed to be appealing, to you guys.

He is, in a lot of ways, similar to me

but his purpose of being a character for YouTube  was the main factor influencing his design

rather than my ideal image of  how I want people to see me.

So basically

by definition Chip is  technically a furry character

But

since he was created without the  furry fandom in mind at all, really

you could consider him kind  of similar to Bugs Bunny

in that he's appealing to furries

but not specifically intended for them.

So just like watching looney  toons doesn't make you a furry

neither does watching my content

if that's something you were worried about :)

While my channel is and always will  be intended for anyone to enjoy

behind the scenes I'm actually pretty  involved with the furry fandom.

And probably the biggest reason for this

aside from just being a fun hobby

is its ties to identity.

I actually have about 5 different fursonas

they're all kinda different  versions of me in a way

its just honestly really fun to explore who  you are in the form of a cartoon character

and as a big fan of character design

i really enjoy experimenting with different  colours and species and stuff