The Crochet Crowd was officially named and turned into a business in September 2010. However, the origin story of how this came to be started in 2005, with life on the road and lost along the way. Michael was a 'Trucker Buddy'!
In This Project
Lost in Life
Lost in life after coming out of the closet and fumbling around for a few years trying to figure out where I belonged in the world. A midlife crisis at the age of thirty and realizing I am not accomplishing anything. I feel like a slve to life, working with no sense of purpose.
Confused and possibly self-destructive behaviour, a whim of deciding to sell everything I owned on eBay. Letting the landlord know I am moving with no plan for what's next. I came to meet a man who was driving a transport truck for a living. With the countdown already in place to upend my life into the unknown, I took a leap. offairth in a brand. new relationship and put my effort into learning how to drive a transport truck.
I got to see the world around me and realize that North America isn't so big and impossible to drive. It gave. me so much perspective on the way I was living and who I was as a person.
Eye-Opening Standards of Living
In travelling throughout the USA, I had never seen poverty in a first-world situation. It was mind-numbing, and the 'fear' of living everyday life through media channels that the truck could pick up in regions while resting. I had never thought to be afraid in the regions I found myself in, but the news channels, thriving off the spectacle of only highlighting what is wrong, gave a whole new perspective on life. I appreciated home all the more and was glad to get back to Canada on each run.
When you are surrounded by fear, you feel fear, and I hated it.
Trucker Buddy Program 2005
In an advertisement in a trucking magazine I picked up, I became aware of a program that would link me to a school classroom. Through careful vetting, I was granted the opportunity of a lifetime to be matched to a Grade 5 Special Needs Classroom in New York.
My role was simple:
- Buy postcards and write a story about the environment, people or what I am seeing in the people I am meeting across Canada and the USA.
- Send the postcards in large batches, and the teacher would read my cards to the class.
The program stopped me from seeing only the fear and bad side of the United States, but it made me look at the people and environment from a positive point of view. I shared with the children the good things I was witnessing.
To my surprise, I was their writing assignment. And each month, I would get a letter from each student telling me about them. I read each one, realizing that my 'lost in life feelings' had purpose. I would write each student their own letter in return each time.
I carried on with this teacher for three years, and with the years passing, a new set of students came. tobe. I would end up having siblings of the original students from the first year. They already knew who I was and made me feel special.
The First Crafting Video I Posted
In the final year, I posted a video to YouTube of me in trouble, waiting for a load to be put onto the truck. I even filmed myself knitting in the truck waiting for toilets from Kentucky to be brought home to Canada. I didn't realize the kids didn't have access to YouTube, but others saw my videos.
Being gay in the trucking industry is a beat-up party waiting to happen. With no barriers or filtering. On YouTube, it was abusive as hell. I tried to keep my homosexuality out of YouTube, but my own mannerisms and adjectives gave me away. The only person I was kidding was myself.
I was being verbally assaulted on YouTube for the trucking videos I had posted, but on the knitting one, I was being requested to share more about it. The demographics between the two were striking.
In one industry, I was the ashes under someone's shoe; in the other, I was being asked to share more. It was so different.
Defining Moment was Oprah Winfrey
I saw a show that demonstrated that I can share what I know with the world and expect nothing in return. Knowing I had struck something with me knitting in the truck, Oprah's message sat with me instantly: get up off the couch, film more tutorials, and I did just that.
Oprah talked about the same message in her final show. The video will play you exactly what I heard years earlier.
I sat on the floor with my camera facing the sofa, using the coffee table to demonstrate. Most of the old videos are gone now.
The oldest video that I haven't deleted on YouTube was me answering a commenter on how to start a blanket. At the time, YouTube was limited to only 10 minutes of time per video. I had to rush through it.
A Fluke Chance
From the chance to show the kids I was knitting, crochet was my passion. When I put videos on YouTube back in 2008, the commenters encouraged me to put on more content. It gave me a sense of purpose and community.
I Had A Major Problem
My partner, at the time, didn't want life in front of the world. He wanted to stay invisible. I had found something I loved to do, but it conflicted with the wishes of this person.
Our relationship was already in trouble, and though YouTube wasn't the cause of our collapse, it didn't help matters.
I would come to meet Daniel Zondervan ten months after I had already been filming regular crochet demonstration videos on YouTube. Daniel, being in the music industry, leaned into this journey instead of dismissing it.
Daniel wasn't a stranger to being in front of a room or audience.
After a full year of being on YouTube by March 2009, I had already accumulated over 1 million video views. I had something magical. I had learned about monetization, so I could apply for ads to help pay for the costs of producing the tutorials and help me buy yarn to keep on going.
I vowed that once I got to the level of my real job, wage-wise, I would quit my job and pursue YouTube full time.
We were invited to be at Creativ Festival as a demonstration host. We didn't have a business name when we were invited. Daniel felt it was time to make a business and officially name the journey.
We wanted something with community but not named after either of us. Daniel officially named The Crochet Crowd in September 2010. I created our byline of Inspire, Create and Celebrate, and we went to Creativ Festival in October 2010 as a new company with 2.5 years of YouTube Experience behind us.
No one knew who we were and what our goal was. But we were a hit at the show, sparking interest in crochet, and right from this moment, the informal nature of The Crochet Crowd and our journey had begun.
I was 36 years old, and I quit my job in April of 2011 to pursue The Crochet Crowd and the future that was yet to be written.
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