Hello and welcome to our first creator feature for a Youtuber! This is Hazencruz and just below is an example of his work! This video honestly made me laugh because I have been at least one of these people that he talks about in the past, and likely on several occasions. xD Please give it a watch and then take a look at his interview below! I'm genuinely thrilled to have our first YouTuber on the site!!

I don't know about you, but I laughed several times through Hazen's video and it really made me think! I have absolutely been that person who obsesses over something and constantly shoves it in people's faces. Although that's not really a good thing and I have moved on from it, I think it is good to have someone call us out on our nonsense sometimes. We all have quirks, sure, but falling into one of these social pits can really get to you after a while.

Anyway! Let's move on to the actual interview of this article and explore a bit more. Although Hazen's most recent channel is on the newer side, I think he has a genuine talent for this stuff and he has been recording for quite some time! Here's what he had to say as I sat down with him for the Q&A session.

1. Please introduce yourself! Tell us about your sona, or main character, and what inspired them into your life.

I go by Hazen online! As is the case with most online personalities what you get is about 50% and act, and 50% genuine expression. Really not a whole lot more to me, I'm a simple lad.

2. How long have you been recording in the general sense?

I've been doing stupid little videos here and there, reviewing games and stuff, for ages. Likely six years or more, as well as editing videos for other, smaller uploaders; and doing some meme stuff under psuedonym/anon accounts.

3. When did you first start making YouTube Videos?

The first YouTube video I uploaded (which has since been lost due to YouTube's super accurate and very helpful DMCA system) was probably around 13 years ago. It was a YouTube poop full of CDI game stuff and old 80's hair metal. It was trash and, yes, I would probably be ashamed of it nowadays. I made around 10 different ytp videos and learned A LOT about editing in Sony Vegas back in those days.

4. What recording equipment do you use? What do you like about it?

Some little doodad walmart-tier camera I picked up for like 60 bucks. It's just there until I can get some actual dosh together for some real video capture stuff. My mic is a Lauten LA220 which is hooked up to a little Mackie soundboard. I love my sound setup and I frequently use the DSP effects on live calls/shows when I can't think of anything clever to say.

5. What brought you to the Anthro community?

I'll be giving away my age a lil-bit here, but what the hell, right? I used to love Tiny Toons and Animaniacs back in the day, as well as a plethura of old 70's-80's toons that were very much what the kids these days call "furry bait."

I kinda tried to get into anthro stuff later in life when my dirty coal miner family could afford the internet and a windows 95 PC, but dial-up was all we had to choose from. Sometimes, pictures could take like 25 minutes just to load on art sites and newsgroups that existed back then, so I never really met other people who were into this kinda stuff until I was already out of high school.

Eventually, I wanted to go to a convention at some point, too, but man I heard some weird stuff goes down at those and got real spooked. Plus a lot of people were real crazy about stuff and people were getting pushed around for not drinking whatever koolaid was the flavor of the month back around 2010, so again, I peaced out.

In the end, it was probably when I ran into the people at Vivid, particularly David Lillie, that I even remembered that I had a sort of love for this stuff. I was at their online convention they do, Couchcon, and saw a whole bunch of furry artists and stuff there and just kinda thought I'd try again. Many of those people ended up being very chill, so I just kinda stuck around.

6. Tell us about a creator that inspires you!

That's a tough one! If you're talking about videos, which I assume is the case, I'd have to definitely say the MDE boys inspire me for things like comedic timing, rhetoric, and editing stuff. My latest anime reviews are all blatant SsethTzeentach rip-offs looking back, though.

7. What are your current YouTube goals?

All I really want out of YouTube is to make people laugh. Side goals include making people self-examine and be more self-aware about things. This can be very tough to do from inside a little screen, but its the best way I have right now to execute that. I also really like finding people with similar tastes in games, movies, and shows, and putting out reviews that they enjoy and sometimes learn some history/facts about those productions. It's just cool to be where someone heard of some crazy behind the scenes story about a SEGA game or something, y'know?

8. If you could master any skill overnight, what would it be?

Definitely art. One day when I don't suck majorly at art I plan to draw a comic. The major suckage at art, as of now, is really the last hurdle I have to get over to start doing that.

9. If you could give one piece of advice to new video makers, what would it be?

Don't take yourself, or your work, too seriously! If you're all tight in the caboose about what you're doing, people subconsciously pick up on that and almost always tune out. Loosen up and keep the whole bean counting part of production in your editing.

10. What prompted you to make YouTube videos? Tell us about your first video ever!

Okay so the first video I ever made never got uploaded. Why? I'll put it like this: I spent two days making a video of my friends singing "you can't roller-skate in a buffalo heard" only to find out what RAM was when I tried to render it on windows movie maker. Spoiler: I didn't have enough of it.

I started making videos because of old flash stuff on Newgrounds and albinoblacksheep. The fanimutations were always my favorite and I wanted to make things like that.

The first time I was old enough to have a job I ordered some RAM online and started making YTP's. I uploaded them and was pretty active in the YTP community for a while, but never really hit it big enough for anyone to roll out the red carpet. With that being said, it was some of the most fun I've had making videos.

11. What advice do you have for video makers that are thinking about joining the YouTube community?

Other than loosening up, I'd say one of the most important things is to always be considerate of your audience's time. Don't be a "channel awesome" kind of uploader and make a comedy bit that should take 10 seconds to get across to your viewer go on, and on, for like 1.5 minutes, man. That only worked back in 2008 because there was just nothing else to watch other than dancing babies and kids raging about their WoW subscription getting cancelled.

12. What's your favorite thing about the Anthro community?

The only communities I really hang out in are Anthrobrand and the Dreamkeepers chats, but I do like how there's just a wide range of people there who come from all over the world. These groups have very cool stories to share at times, and the art is pretty good too.

13. Tell us a little known fact about yourself!

I talk about this sometimes, but not super frequently: I befriend my local crows and other wildlife! I feed them raw, shell-on peanuts and sometimes little chunks of cheese. I do all of this from my porch and they even come over from other neighborhoods when I call them, every now and again.

I have the squirrels and chipmunks around here so spoiled that they will sometimes take peanuts and sunflowers from my hand while I read books outside. One squirrel, on occasion, even lets me pet his tail.

14. Where can we find you online?

Right now? Honestly just check out my YouTube or hit me up on Minds.com. Those are the two places I usually let people know what's going on and I make it pretty easy to keep up with. I don't upload as often as I'd like, but that might be changing real soon.

---

Our first YouTuber feature ever is officially in the bag! I want to thank Hazencruz for participating and creating a video for us to share here on the site. I hope you all found it as informative and entertaining as I did, and that we can all start taking ourselves a little less seriously. There is so much good in the world and we have all been a little cringe at times, admit it; so learning to laugh at the silly things we do is a great start.