Things need to change

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]I feel what's happened is that I've drifted from what really made this channel special, which was making it not just the Lloyd Evans channel, but essentially the ex Jehovah's Witness channel. Inevitably, I'm going to be repeating the same topics over and over again, the same arguments over and over again, and it gets boring for me. gets boring for me to find new ways of saying the same thing that I've been saying over the last 14 years or so.

[00:00:36]But what does change and what is different are people and people's stories. Because even though there may be common threads between different people's experiences, things that people can relate to, everybody is different and everybody has a different story to tell.

[00:01:13]Hello there. I'm Lloyd Evans. Welcome to the upper room. And before we get started, let's deal with the elephant in the room. Let's get the awkward stuff out of the way. Yes, I realize my beard is missing.

[00:01:28]I shaved it off the other day in just a moment of frustration because sometimes it just gets too long and it starts to itch. I just got really frustrated and shaved it off and I am immediately regressing the decision.

[00:01:45]So, I will be growing my beard back.

[00:01:47]Don't worry, the beard will return.

[00:01:50]Apart from my lack of facial hair, the second thing you may have noticed is the filming setup. I'm experimenting. I am building a new setup that's basically a homage to the bunker.

[00:02:07]So, in the upper room in my new space, I have plenty of room to play with.

[00:02:14]And up until now, whenever I've been filming a video, I've just been kind of cobbling it together a little bit, bringing out the camera, bringing out the lights, creating an angle that I'm relatively happy with, and filming my video. And that way of doing things is no longer working for me. Because what happens is it creates this psychological barrier whereby if I want to make a video, I know I need to get my equipment out, set it up, shoot the video, and then put my equipment away again.

[00:02:51]What I really really miss is the way things were back in the bunker days and to a degree in the attic days as well where I had this filming setup and I literally just needed to sit down, switch on one or two lights and start talking. Everything was set up exactly how I needed it to be. And I've just reached the conclusion I need to have that back again. I need to recreate essentially the bunker but in the upper room space that I have. So, I've bought some cheap shelves from IKEA and I've started loading them, as you can see, with what's left of my watchtowwer collection. I'll get to why it's a little bit depleted later on. But there's something else I wanted to talk about today. I wanted to frankly celebrate the fact that I'm still here doing this job.

[00:03:59]Four years on from the incident, four years on from a certain kind of group of individuals just throwing everything at me in terms of like online abuse and uh trying to get me cancelled because I went through a breakup. And that breakup was really cruy sensationalized and turned into entertainment and turned into an opportunity to cast judgment. People really pounced on a really traumatic period in my life and made it 10 times more traumatic by by how they actively sought to destroy me and ruin me.

[00:04:52]And I'm really proud of myself actually for still being here four years on with a following with subscribers and supporters who believe in what I do, who know that my motives are pure and have always been pure, who understand that I'm just trying to provide resources that will help people out of cults, specifically one cult, Jehovah's Witnesses.

[00:05:30]And I honestly don't believe that it would have been possible to make it through the last four years if not for those who were supporting my work financially. I'm talking, of course, about my patrons and my YouTube channel members. They have made it possible for me to carry on making the content that you've been watching over the last four years. Without them, I just wouldn't have been able to do it. Now, it's just the nature of being a content creator that every now and then you need to remind people to support your work. All content creators do this.

[00:06:17]need to do this, including ex Jehovah's Witness content creators, which is why so many of them have Patreons and have YouTube memberships. I'm very, very fortunate in that my Patreon has is the largest.

[00:06:37]Currently, I'm on over 700 patrons in total. And of those, I have currently 269 paid members. When you add the YouTube members, you get to approximately 350 who are consistently pledging money every month to keep the channel running.

[00:07:00]And again, I get it, especially for those of us who've been raised in the Jehovah's Witness faith. It's a really ugly thing to talk about money or do or say anything that can be construed as begging. But again, it's just a reality of doing this job of creating content.

[00:07:25]The content's there for people to watch.

[00:07:28]I'm really, really glad that anyone can watch it in any part of the world without paying anything. Maybe they have to sit through some ads, but they can get the benefit and the value of the content, but realistically that content is there because a small number of those who enjoy it are going one step further and they are pledging money on a monthly basis to help this content exist. So, in April 2023, I put out a video asking for more patrons. I did the same thing in November 2024 and both of those videos resulted in spikes in the number of patrons. I didn't quite get to the numbers I was really hoping for, but they were still spikes in patrons that allowed me to continue. And essentially what I need now is another spike. When I did the November 2024 video, I mentioned the goal of getting half a percent of my YouTube subscribers to pledge. Half a percent, which is one in 200. And I wasn't able to reach that goal, but I'm going to have to try again. So, currently I'm on around 117,000 subscribers.

[00:08:59]If just half a percent, one in every 200 subscribers were to pledge, that would be around 590 people pledging monthly to support the channel. And like I said, currently we're at 350. So, I guess what I'm asking for is an extra 200 to 250 people to step forward and say, Lloyd, I've got you covered. Doesn't have to be a huge amount per month. Just something coming through will really, really help the channel. And you might be thinking, Lloyd, you have just plucked an arbitrary number of half a percent of your subscribers. Why does it need to be half a percent? What's the math there?

[00:09:52]Well, all I'll say is 117,000 subscribers may seem like a lot, but trust me, no YouTuber with that amount of subscribers is living a luxurious lifestyle. You you you do not shut up shop and you know buy your apartment in Dubai with that many or even double that amount of subscribers. It's just not profitable to be a YouTuber in that way.

[00:10:26]The only way that you can basically run it as a business or do it as your job, which is what I'm trying to do, is to rely on things like Patreon, where instead of everything being tied to the performance of videos, which are in turn tied to the YouTube algorithms, the YouTube algorithms decide which of my videos gets seen and which don't.

[00:10:56]almost has nothing to do with the quality of information I'm presenting.

[00:11:01]It's all about the YouTube algorithms and I cannot be at their mercy. I need support from elsewhere and that's why Patreon is so useful and has frankly kept me in the game over the last four years. So you could then ask the question, well if that's the case, Lloyd, if you need this half a percent, this one in 200, how is it that you've been able to keep going over the last four years without that? Because the last time I was at 590 or so patrons and YouTube channel members was before the incident was early 2022.

[00:11:50]And basically the reason is that I have been given help by just random acts of generosity that I cannot predict, people will just come out of nowhere and just when I'm at the point where I'm like, I've got to quit. I I can't carry on doing this. It I you know, I need to do something else. I need to stop doing YouTube.

[00:12:19]just when I'm at that crucial moment, someone will come along and and give me some money where it's like now I've got to continue. This is what I need. It's it's just what I need. If I didn't know better, I would say it was Jehovah's hand. Um but yeah, it's just these random acts of generosity coming at just the right moment over the last four years that have enabled me to carry on. And I'll give you one example.

[00:12:52]Some years ago, someone approached me, one of my viewers, and said, "I would like to send on a monthly basis £40 a month. Can I have your bank details?" So, of course, I responded and said, "That would be incredibly helpful.

[00:13:10]I really do appreciate this. Here are my bank details." And ever since then, around about the 11th of each month, without fail over the last few years, I've been getting that £40 coming through. I haven't heard from that individual since then. this individual just without fail sends me that £40.

[00:13:35]And the there have been months where that has been the difference where the margins have been so fine between success and failure that the 40 has done it. And another thing I've had to do to make ends meet to keep going, I alluded to this earlier, is I have had to sell some of the collection.

[00:14:02]So once the shelves are finished, I'm going to have another one here. I think that will be all of my books just on a a small selection of of shelves. When I moved from the attic, Arthur took I would say about half of my collection uh because I I didn't feel comfortable bringing all of those books to my new place and it was just too difficult. And I I just said to Arthur, "How do you feel about taking a good chunk of my collection?" and he very kindly drove all the way from Romania and went back with the boot of his car filled with bound volumes and that kind of thing.

[00:14:48]Um, and other books that are older and more valuable I've had to sell on eBay.

[00:14:54]I've just had to. And it's broken my heart because some of those books I've just really enjoyed having like The Way to Paradise or The Finished Mystery.

[00:15:08]um, Millions Now Living Will Never Die.

[00:15:11]Those books I I really enjoyed having them because even though the information you can access it on PDF and you know you can go online and you can see the information there, there's just something about having the actual copy in front of you, even if only for research. I love just being able to look directly at the original and it's especially helpful when I've been able to show it on camera and say this is what the book looks like. I'm not making this up. Here it is. And although I've managed to keep quite a few of my older books, you can just about see um the Rutherford rainbow above me. Some books I've just had to sell because it's been more important that I I keep the channel going one way or another. And I guess what I'd like to get to is less uncertainty, less kind of famine or feast, and just more stability. Now, with all of that said, I just want to make one thing very, very clear, and I've said this before in videos where I've addressed this subject. I do not want people to send in money if they cannot afford it.

[00:16:33]It's really really important that I stress this. If you are on low income, if you are not able to work, if you are living in poverty, this video, large parts of it, just ignore, you know, apart from the stuff about my um my backdrop and my beard.

[00:16:57]But seriously, um it's really just for those who are in a position to help. And times are tough. There's huge global uncertainty. There's all that stuff going on in Iran at the moment as I'm making this video. Uh these are turbulent times. So, it's actually a big ask. Um but this is absolutely not something that applies if you just can't afford it. If you can't afford it, just enjoy the videos. Just enjoy the videos because other people have you covered.

[00:17:34]But with that said, I also need to take a bit of accountability myself and say that rather than it just being about my subscribers stepping up, I need to step up as well.

[00:17:51]This whole four years has been a very challenging time where I've had to kind of figure out what works and what doesn't work.

[00:18:01]What am I able to commit to? What can I contribute? Um, and unfortunately, one thing that's fallen by the wayside, which I really regret, are the interview videos.

[00:18:16]That was a mistake on my part. I I take full ownership of that because the interview videos were something that not every channel can do. Not every channel is able for for whatever reason to help people share their stories and make it more of a community rather than it just being about one person or one voice and what they think.

[00:18:45]And I feel what's happened is that I've drifted from what really made this channel special, which was making it not just the Lloyd Evans channel, but essentially the ex Jehovah's Witness channel where people could come and they could share their stories. Because one thing that is just not really going to change is the Jehovah's Witness religion. They're going to make little tweaks now and then. There will always be new lights.

[00:19:17]But fundamentally, in terms of control, manipulation, abuse, hurting people, the Jehovah's Witness religion isn't really going to fluctuate that much.

[00:19:31]So, inevitably, I'm going to be repeating the same topics over and over again, the same arguments over and over again. And it gets boring for me. gets boring for me to find new ways of saying the same thing that I've been saying over the last 14 years or so.

[00:19:52]But what does change and what is different are people and people's stories. Because even though there may be common threads between different people's experiences, things that people can relate to, everybody is different and everybody has a different story to tell. And that's why I am bringing back the interview videos. I now have a section on my website. If you go to the contact page on lidonline.org, so lyonline.org or slc contact. If you scroll down, there is now a form where you can submit your details if you would like me to interview you because I am doing interviews again. They're going to be livereamed, so maybe not as fancy in terms of production, although I will be doing pre-recorded interviews as well moving forward. But I want to do more live streamed interviews. I want to help you, the viewers, dictate the direction that this channel goes in because we need to know, don't we, that we're not alone. We need to realize that there's a way forward and that's possible when we can see actual stories of actual people who have overcome these challenges and who are improving and moving on. So I accept responsibility with that there will be changes moving forward. I'm bringing back the static setup that works so well in the bunker years and to a degree in the attic years and I'm bringing back interviews and I'm genuinely excited to get back into doing that. So, more interviews, more live streams. For the time being, I'm still not going to be doing the regular monthly rebuttals, but who knows if if that's what you guys want me to do.

[00:22:04]Maybe at some point I can revisit that decision. But for now, I guess I'm just going to leave things in your hands.

[00:22:14]I have various projects that I'm excited about, such as the fear brochure, which I've been speaking about so much that you're all probably bored of it by now.

[00:22:26]There's also a new book that I'm writing that I'm genuinely excited about.

[00:22:34]I'll maybe share more about that in a future video. So there are things happening but fundamentally my ability to do this job rests on you.

[00:22:46]And if we can get to or closer to that half a percent goal, it really really would make a difference.

[00:22:57]So I hope you found this video interesting. At least you've got to see what I look like without a beard. Don't forget that you can find more information on lloydonline.org.

[00:23:09]But for now, that's all I have to say.

[00:23:11]Thank you so much for watching.

[00:23:28]last one minute just to get so I keep it together.

[00:23:34]It's not forever.