[Fast paced music plays]

Matsimus: People say to me: “Matt, you know, I really liked your videos because you’re just unbiased. The Abrams main battle tank is better than the T-80 Russian main battle tank.”

[Music ends]

Capt Adam Orton: Hi! This is Captain Adam Orton with the Canadian Army Podcast. This episode is going to be with Matsimus. He has a YouTube channel with over 350,000 subscribers, talks about all sorts of cool military equipment. He has millions of video views. And, he’s a reservist with the artillery in Western Canada. Welcome to the podcast.

Matsimus: Hello, thank you! Thanks for having me.

Capt Orton: So, you were in the British Armed Forces. And then you came over to Canada. And now you're in the Canadian Army. How did this happen?

Matsimus: Yeah, so it’s a common question that’s asked across the whole spectrum of, you know, my civilian life, my online career, my military career. It all started, obviously, from the British Army. I trained over in Suffield, which is a large CFB base here in Western Canada, in Alberta, which has a subsidiary known as BATUS or British Army Training Unit Suffield. And I was deployed here for about three or four months prior to going to Afghanistan. And I fell in love with the country—like, literally, fell in love with Canada, its people, the countryside, just the social dynamic. It was just perfect for me. I was like, I don’t really want to be settling back home in the UK.

And I decided, you know, I’m going to try to finish off my career at a natural pause in the British Army, and move over here. And it was probably the best decision I made in my life. Honestly, it was a big risk—it was a cliff jump, you know, I had no career setup for me. And when I got here, I got started off some small jobs got settled in a little bit. And then I started to realize, like, I need that military ethos; I need something to keep my brain ticking more than just doing work for work and being paid a bill. And that’s where I started looking into—hey, let’s see if I can go back into a military setting, join the Army Reserves in my local town. And I’ve never looked back since. And, you know, it’s provided me with a ton of not only, you know, morale and keeping that sort of passion going—but, also, just a whole new different side of the military that I’ve never seen before.

You know, in my British military career, being a tank mechanic, it’s totally different to being an artillery gunner. Right? It’s night and day. And the way in which our militaries work—both British and Canadian are very similar, but also very different. So it’s a new world that I'm still to this day learning a lot about. But it’s fun. And I—as I said, never looked back, since. I’ve obviously been a patriot of my home, home nation of the United Kingdom. But Canada has provided me a lot more than I could ever ask for. So it’s a good time—it’s a good gig.

Capt Orton: I really appreciate that you also mentioned that kind of experience of kind of diversity—like working in a specific field, then changing and kind of seeing the different flavours of the different militaries, but also the different trades. I really appreciate that.

Matsimus: Yeah. And it’s, as I said, for me, it’s a total night and day difference. But when I joined the Canadian Reserves, a lot of, you know, the recruitment was trying to push me to: “Why don’t you just stay as a mechanic? You know, you have that background.” Like, because I do that as a civilian. Like, I want to try something new. I actually want to get involved with a totally different trade, totally different lifestyle, and doctrine and tactics, and just totally mix it up.

And you see a totally different side of things. I mean, as a tank mechanic in the British Army, I was attached to combat trades pretty much throughout my entire career. Actually being part of a combat trade directly, you just see things differently. And see, you’re at the business end more than you are at the supporting end.

Capt Orton: So, we wouldn't be digging into the Maximus story if we didn’t talk about your YouTube channel and how you wound up within the world of social media. So, what made you take that plunge and engage in social media?

Matsimus: It was weird. It came from, originally, video games—which was strange. I moved from the UK to Canada and my love for video game playing just kind of diminished. I wasn’t playing as much anymore. But there’s one game that always stuck with me. And it was a video game known as Steel Beasts Pro, which is actually a software designed for tank crewmen. And they use it actually in militaries around the world: Germany, Finland, etc. They use it as a tank training software, and you can buy it. It’s one hundred and fifty bucks. This is an expensive software to use. It’s not a video game you would just go to a store and buy. You have to go to a website and you have to get a special USB stick just to play it. But it appealed to me because as an armoured crewman, I was like: “Yeah, this is great.” And all the other sort of low-key games that I didn’t play anymore just kind of got sidelined. And what I found was, everybody’s on this YouTube gig. Everyone was, at the time, you know— round about 2012 period, YouTube was booming. I mean, channels were exploding in views, subscribers, and the video game industry was really tailoring itself towards YouTube. And so, you know what, I’m just going to fire a couple of videos up on YouTube, see what happens, you know. What can happen from it?

I left it for a couple of months, you know, still playing in the background, didn’t play much. All of a sudden I log back onto my account. There’s like three or 4,000 views. I’m like, there’s no way—there’s no way this is happening right now. This game is like, non existent. No one even knows what it is. But there was a very small, I guess, niche that I was appealing to of the same kind of people that wanted to see the realism side of sort of tank tactics and warfare in a video game setting. And it developed from there. Like, it expanded from video games to talking about military equipment—which is primarily the focus of my channel. A lot of comedy started, unfortunately, that comedy had to be kind of trimmed, I guess. Or cut down, because the comedy doesn’t align with social media policies today. I mean, it wasn't, you know, nasty, vindictive, it wasn’t dark—but it was certainly, you know, there could be some questions raised about, yeah, that’s probably not the most appropriate way to portray a Canadian Forces soldier. But it’s good. Right? It just kind of opened your eyes to think, yeah, that's probably not appropriate. And my comedy has changed and adjusted on my channel to be more sort of, you know, correctly, and, I guess, tailored to the audience that I’m providing it to. But, yeah, it all really spawned from video games. And then just spanned from there, honestly.

Capt Orton: Can you describe your channel a little bit? Maybe, for people who haven’t seen it?

Matsimus: Yeah, for sure. So, the channel as I mentioned, you know, really just kind of came from the gaming scene. And there’s a very small amount of gaming videos that I have on my channel. But the primary function or focus of my channel, I would say about 70% of my videos relate to military equipment. So, how it works, its capabilities. Some of the tactics and functions of those pieces of equipment—like tanks.

Tanks is the main kind of focus that I have because I grew up around tanks. I was working in repairing and supporting main battle tanks. So, that was the primary function of talking about military equipment.

Capt Orton: Tanks are cool.

Matsimus: Yeah, tanks are pretty cool and a lot of fun. And, you know, one day, I’d love to get on the old Leopard 2. I’ve never actually been on a Leopard 2 before. I’d love to get into the, you know, the CAF scene and see if I can get on to you know the Strathcona’s—then jump to a Leopard 2. But, hey, never know what’s coming for the future.

And then, from there, it’s a little bit of comedy here and there and some memes. I mean, I try my best to inject some humour. Because, again, I just made content by just talking about equipment all day, and I have some fun with the channel. People get a little bored of it. And they enjoy the injection of humour here and there. Because especially in the times we’re in right now—everybody’s stressed, overwhelmed, overworked. Having some humour in the background. Especially, you know, in the times in the Canadian Forces right now, where, you know, we are having some challenges. It’s nice to have this little bit of morale boost, with a meme here and there. A respectful meme here and there, to keep, you know, people’s sanity. I guess so.

Capt Orton: And, I see also, you engage on other social media platforms. We’ve been in the same thread on the Get Out and Ruck page—which is, you know, a different podcast also. And, you know, you’re kind of out there on a lot of different platforms.

Matsimus: Yeah. And in fact, that podcast, I listen to it myself. The rucking group like that is like soul food, to me. Seeing a community of soldiers come together and actually getting involved with a fitness activity—which, I have to personally admit in transitioning from the British army to the CAF, I do find that the British Army’s physical regime or physical training, I guess, exposure is a lot more intense. You know, we have dedicated PTIs and things like that. So when I came across the Get Out and Ruck group, I was like, this is fantastic. This isn’t even a military funded thing. This is just someone who’s gone out of their way, got a bunch of people together and said: “Let’s get together.” It was fantastic.

And yeah, other platforms like Instagram—obviously, Facebook. I’m starting to broaden out from YouTube. But it’s really challenging, because I’m not savvy at this stuff. But yeah, I mean, I’m trying to get into Instagram more. I find it more it’s a quick blurb. I can fire out a picture, and it's good to go. Facebook is, I find, becoming a lot more toxic. It’s really scary actually how toxic it can be, especially to a content creator, whose name is spread quite easily. And it can be very easy for people to make your life miserable if they want to—which is a little intimidating.

I stay away from Twitter too, because I just don’t get Twitter. I don't get it. Like, I just don’t understand it. You know, the ats and the hashtags, and whatever else. I'm like, okay, cool, whatever—I’ll post a couple of videos here and there. And hopefully, it’ll grow. But it’s not something I'm investing a lot of time in for Twitter, for sure.

Capt Orton: Well, it’s interesting. You’re talking about some of the challenges with interacting with people. And we look at YouTube as an example. And it’s not like YouTube comments have their own stigma associated with them. And then there’s also like—you could have a video of children playing with puppies and having the time of their lives, and it’ll have like ten million thumbs up, and they’ll still be 100,000 thumbs down. Like, I hate children and puppies. How do you deal with that? Like, what’s your process to handle that kind of stuff as somebody who runs a big YouTube channel?

Matsimus: It’s a bitter pill to swallow as a content creator, because I hate to say this, but we as a generation—or I think generations of today—they like to see content that’s short, sharp, fast. and easy to digest. Right? So, you know, a cat meowing for ten minutes really loudly gets twenty million views. I spent four hours discussing the intricacies of a main battle tank, which clearly isn’t going to appeal to ninety percent of YouTube’s audience, getting maybe ten thousand views. But that’s something you have to expect when you come across a platform like YouTube that is so diverse that is so fast spread. Age groups demographics are so varied, you kind of have to just accept it. I try and advocate for YouTube as much as possible, even though at times it causes me a lot of problems. I tell people that you should definitely try the platform, but be cautious. Be cautious of the dark side of YouTube as well. You mentioned about comments in the comment section, it really doesn’t take much to be dragged into the toxicity of YouTube. And, you know, I do advocate for YouTube. I think it’s a great platform—but it has a lot of dark side to it that people just don’t see.

And then people say: “Hey, man, I really want to start a YouTube channel. What do I do?”
And I say, well, you can do this, do this, do this. And in fact, recently, I did a presentation to MFRC, our Military Resources Family Centre here in Alberta. And a few people showed up to a presentation—they wanted to learn about YouTube, and I told them: “Yeah, you can make money off YouTube; it’s great to create a community; it’s very positive overall. However, the dark side, if you really expose the darkest sides of YouTube, it can really affect your mental health, your social standing, and also potentially your career or your job, especially as a CAF member.” So, for me, I try and take as much as I can, with a pinch of salt. If I’m not getting a lot of views, it’s a little disheartening. I will safely say YouTube is an addiction for me now, honestly.

Capt Orton: Yeah! [Laugh]

Matsimus: Once you start seeing potential funding coming in from a revenue like YouTube, you start to think I could either go to the gym for an hour, or I could spend a couple of hours making some content and potentially make a good bit of money. But, I always try and reinforce that, if you’re going to try and start YouTube to make money, you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. And you’re going to struggle. You have to have a passion behind making content because if you don’t, people, A, will see right through you, B, you’ll get dry and bored of doing the same thing. And you’ll hit writer’s block pretty quick. So you’ll, you know, you’d be making a few videos here and then you’d be like, I’ve run out of ideas. You have to have some passion behind—if you’re just going to start a channel to make money, and a lot of people are successful, but I find that's not the motivation or the sort of key function that I have with YouTube.

I just—I like entertaining people. I like seeing people messaging me and saying: “Hey, Matt, I actually am going to apply for the U.S. military Coast Guard, because I watched one of your videos that talked about being able to be functional as a fitness soldier.”And all this sort of stuff. So, right, that soul food to me. I keep saying the soul food, but that’s how I kind of work. It’s things that motivate me, you know, not just my brain, but like, keeps the passion of something going. I certainly wouldn’t be doing it for just the money because it doesn’t pay very well—especially as the content creator that I am.

Capt Orton: What would you attribute the success of your channel to?

Matsimus: I think most of my success comes from those people who just want to learn about military equipment or tactics, and I’m certainly not a subject matter expert. One thing you know, that my PAO—and, by the way, a big shout out to my PAO, I’m sure he’s listening.

Capt Orton: Public affairs officer?

Matsimus: Yeah, he’s been looking after me for a long time. He’s been a huge advocate for me and my channel, including my chain of command. So, you know, I think for the most part, the success comes from that. And, as I said, people want to learn about things and I’m not a subject matter expert. So, I have to make that clear. My PAO tells me: “Please make sure if you’re gonna make content, especially on Canadian Armed Forces equipment, you tell people you are not a driver of a LAV 6, you are not a CF 18 pilot. So stay in your lane, make sure that you’re monitoring what you’re doing, and which is important with our social media policies. But, on top of that, like, have fun with it.”

Like, if you’re talking about a military tank from say, Russia—I mean battle tanks, say like the T 14 Armata, which is a fairly modernized tank—have fun with it, enjoy it. But remember to initiate that you are not a subject matter expert of this equipment. The opinion that you’re giving is just kind of an informative research background. And I think that’s what people like is the unbiased opinion. I get a lot of comments on my channel—Russia, China, Germany, from all over the world. It’s incredible. What people say to me: “Matt, you know,” in the comment section, “I really liked your videos, because you’re just unbiased. You’re not saying, you know: “The Abrams main battle tank is better than the T 80 Russian main battle tank.” I don't do that competitive thing. And a lot of people push me to do it, because it’s—I call it junk content. They wanted to see people making drama, right about equipment. And I think it's ridiculous.

Capt Orton: Yeah, the potato chips of the internet.

Matsimus: Exactly. But yeah, I think it really does come down to people wanting to be informed about equipment. And I do make mistakes, and I’m never perfect. You know, research is challenging. Especially for equipment that’s either very, very new, or very old or secretive. I’m clearly not going to know the background behind the new main battle tank of the Russian armed forces—it’s clearly dedicated information; they’re only going to share. So you get things wrong. But I think the true success does come from being able to be unbiased about the things I talk about and being open to criticism to a lot of people say: “Hey, Matt, that’s wrong,” or, you know: “You’ve got this wrong,” or, you know: “You shouldn’t be posting this.” And I’m open to that. And my community’s very tactile to that. Like, you know: “Hey, we really appreciate the fact that you made that video about that equipment. You didn’t just tear it to pieces. We know it’s not great; we know it’s not the best in the world—but you’re very sort of cordial about it and respectful to say, yeah, here’s its capabilities. It's not great, but it's still had its day you know.”

Capt Orton: Well, it’s interesting you mentioned also the public affairs officer involvement. And, earlier on when we were talking a little bit about the dark side of YouTube, you were talking about potential professional impacts or personal impacts. When you’re developing your content, what consideration do you give for things like OPSEC, impact on your army career, or on your personal life? Do you spend a lot of time considering that when you’re preparing to release some type of content?

Matsimus: Yeah, one hundred percent. And, in fact, you know, as I mentioned before, I’m an advocate of YouTube. But there’s one thing that always plays on the back of my mind, every second of the day. You know, waking up in the morning to go into bed at night. What could happen tomorrow if something that I’ve created that I didn’t intend to be in any way either offensive or going against policy—what will happen? Like, and it is scary, it’s really scary. And I prepare myself as much as I can. You know, I validate videos that especially pertain to the Canadian Armed Forces with my PAO. He screens them, you know: “Yeah, this one’s probably not suitable.” And there’s been a few instances where I do make videos like that. Nothing inappropriate, but there’s things that you need to consider and thinking: “Does this look like something that you would stand in front of the General of the Army and say: “Hey, this is something that I want to share with you?” If they’re looking at that, and thinking: “Yeah, that’s probably not suggestible to have,” then don’t share it.

So, it’s always on the back of my mind. I would say it is stressful. If I wasn't in the Canadian Armed Forces, I would probably be doing a lot different content than I’m doing today. And that’s just a reality. We can’t just open the floodgates of whatever we want to produce when we’re in a professional work environment like the Canadian Armed Forces. We have a responsibility to make sure that we're in the public eye respectfully.

But, in the same instance, you know, you have to have some common sense about it. Right? I’m not going to hide away and shy away from facts and information that I think are useful to share. For instance, a lot of people ask me: “Matt, I really want to be in the Infantry. Or I really want to be in the Armoured Corps; I really want to be in the Air Force. What’s your suggestion?” And the first thing I asked them is: “Well, what’s your suggestion?” You’re asking a random guy on the Internet what you want to be, you know; it’s a really weird dynamic. And I tell them: “Look, I was in this trade or this trade and I'm going to tell you all the facts about I'm not going to sugarcoat it to try and make out like I’m some recruiter.” Right? Because it’s not in any intention of my channel is to go out and say: “Yeah, everybody come on and join the Canadian Armed Forces,” because, I don't think I will be doing them any justice or myself. Right? Because to try and advocate for something that’s so broad, like an entire military organization is crazy. And YouTube funnily especially in America, you’ll see a lot of channels doing that. You’ll see U.S. Infantry veteran be like: “Everyone should join the Infantry, nothing else.” I mean, like wow, like that’s—that’s really like channelling a demographic; you’re missing out on all the other cool trades. Of course, the best trade, which is the Artillery—I'm just kidding. King of battle!

But yeah, so it definitely plays on the back of my mind. But as I said, I do have a great PAO; I have a great community that looks after me as well. And, you know, they remind me and keep an eye on me. Whether it be my friends in the military, or even just random strangers— you know, they’ve been looking after me great. My dog passed away. You know, it was a close friend of mine. Couple years ago, the community kind of completely came together, sending me gifts and everything. It was incredible. So there is the dark side—there is that consideration when you’re in a professional career like the CAF to be cautious, but it shouldn’t dishearten anyone who wants to become a creator.

Capt Orton: So where do we go from here? You got this successful YouTube channel, and you’re doing the artillery thing, which is super interesting and cool in its own respect. What’s the next step?

Matsimus: I think YouTube right now is definitely on, I would say the back burner. Because I’m starting to prepare to go on courses—I’m actually going away to a course for observation post member. So, really excited towards that. And then moving on from there, it will be observation 2IC. So that’s gonna allow me to get my leaf, which has been a long time coming. And that’s how it works. You know, as a reservist, I’m sure many of you listening know that it’s a challenge in our professional work lives that we have full-time careers to try and maintain a reserve career and full-time career even part-time civilian career.

Capt Orton: Of course.

Matsimus: For YouTube, though, it’s definitely on the back burner. I put it as sort of a third job. I classify my life as three jobs, my full-time career, my military career is part-time and then my part-time YouTube. YouTube is really there as a hobby more than a career—but it does create income. So I do have to consider that you know. I’m taxed, etc.

For my military career, I mean, honestly, I’m charging as hard as I can to get back at least to the rank I was out in the British Army. Which is obviously Master Corporal or Master Bombardier. My employer, as well, is very, very good and open to supporting my military career, which is, honestly it’s a huge, huge welcome support when you get that kind of help from your employer that says: “Hey, you know, this is something you’re passionate about. I want to pick the ball up here and look after it for you until you get back.” And I’m certainly not doing a career that sort of—you know, I can disappear for four weeks and everything’s gonna be okay. I've got projects, I have team members, I’m looking after as a supervisor. So it can definitely take its impact.

But, for the long term, I think for YouTube, I’ve already discussed with some people about doing my own podcasts, you know. We’ve done a few in the past before we called them the Gun Pit Podcast. I have a veteran Canadian gunner in Ontario, and an Australian gunner, and another friend of mine who has recently transferred from my unit to another unit in Northern Alberta. So we’d like to get that moving—the Gun Pit Podcast. We talk about, you know, artillery equipment, fun stories that we’ve had the artillery, and everything artillery related, but even other things that may not be artillery related. As I mentioned to a couple of people on my channel, there’s a lot of people wanting to do podcasts with me, you know. A Leopard 2 Commander from Germany wants to have a podcast and discuss all about how he operates a Leopard 2. I mean, that’s fantastic. It’s a new kind of demographic to bring people into the German community coming together wanting to see, you know, this sort of input. So lots of developments coming. You know, military career, trying to get that leaf, YouTube developing into the podcast world, and continuing on with equipment reviews. And my civilian career, you know, just kind of plugs on, I guess. And hopefully, in the future, I’ll go to the dizzy heights of the executive. No, I’m just kidding. I don’t think I could ever do that. Honestly.

Capt Orton: I don’t see why not. But it sounds like you’re a pretty busy man.

Matsimus: Very, very busy. Very.

[Music starts]

Capt Orton: That’s awesome. I mean, I really appreciate you taking the time to tell us about your story and your experiences and what makes things tick on YouTube for you. So thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us.

Matsimus: Thank you. Appreciate it.

Capt Orton: That was Matsimus. Stay tuned to his channel for his upcoming videos and new projects. Go check it out. Super interesting stuff. And, as usual, I’m Captain Adam Orton for the Canadian Army Podcast. Orton out.

[Music ends]

[Telephone ringing]

Capt Orton: Matsimus

Matsimus: Hey, how’s it going?

Capt Orton: I’m good. How are you?

Matsimus: I’m good. Yeah, a little busy. But doing well.

Capt Orton: I heard you passed PLQ and made it to Master Bombardier.

Matsimus: I did. Indeed. I came off my observation post and made it through my 2IC course as well. So they qualified me in the artillery to get my leaf for the two stripes. So yeah, it was a long time coming. But we’re finally there.

Capt Orton: That’s awesome. How was the course?

Matsimus: It was good. It was a pretty long course. I had to do OP and then OP 2IC after one another. So it was a long summer. It was wicked. And then the promotion itself was fantastic. It’s a very humbling moment to get promoted on top of Vimy peak—which is the mountain near by us here in Waterton Park, national park there. And we’d celebrated that in honour of one hundred and fifty years of the Royal Canadian artillery’s history for UBIQUE 150. So it was wicked getting to the peak of the mountain and actually getting my leaf there. So really, really cool time in the regiment.

Capt Orton: Wow, they really pulled out all the stops for that one.

Matsimus: Yeah, exactly. It was awesome.

Capt Orton: All right. It’s awesome. Well, hey, I know you’re a busy guy and just wanted to call in and congratulate you. I thought it’d be a nice way to cap off the podcast.

Matsimus: Awesome. Thanks so much.

Capt Orton: All right. Take care.

Matsimus: Take care. Bye bye!

Capt Orton: Bye!