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The story
In a thread titled “My Life Now, After Getting Fired From My Full-Time Job at 38 and Becoming a YouTuber,” posted on 5ch’s Newsspeed VIP board, the original poster shared an update on his situation. Six years after being fired from his full-time job, he’s still working as a YouTuber, earning around ¥130,000 a month — an amount that hasn’t grown or shrunk, and still falls short of his old take-home pay as a full-time employee. While some commenters offered optimistic takes like “won’t it grow if you keep at it?” and others asked about his subscriber count and watch time, the poster revealed that he has kept job hunting without success, sparking a debate over the gap between people who managed to land full-time jobs as new college graduates and those who didn’t.
What people said
Even after doing this for about 6 years already?
I've been job hunting this whole time, you know.
Can't help it if I keep getting rejected.
Well yeah, if you work some job-like thing that wrecks your body and shortens your lifespan, of course you'd make that much.
What kind of reaction do you get?
Just a kind of "oh, I see" reaction.
I want to make it a side hustle.
No way.
That'd just mean less money for me.
It's pointless unless you actually keep watching every single time.
Having confidence doesn't exactly boost my income though.
I'd like to get back to around ¥160,000 take-home, same as when I was full-time.
If anything, I was already job hunting back when I was still full-time, and nothing came of it.
Well, he says he keeps getting rejected, so I guess that's just how it is.
Yeah, I guess that's about right.
In the end, it seems like it only works out for people who graduated college, landed a full-time job as a new grad, and have been coasting through an easy, smooth-sailing life ever since.
where do you think they're going wrong?
Well, I'm literally that broke YouTuber, so…
Nah, plenty of regular college grads are doing jobs they love AND earning average salary on top of it.
Is that so?
I mean, there are YouTube channels I've been watching for years now.
But then again, there are also channels people stop watching.
What's your subscriber count and total annual watch time?
10,000 subscribers. No idea on total views — maybe around 2 million?
I'm 38 and driving a taxi in Tokyo, of all things.
I need to hurry up, move back to my parents' place, and switch careers.
Well, that's your own fault for choosing not to study and ending up with a low level of education, right?
It's not like you wanted to properly finish college and get hired as a new grad but got forced into truancy and a low education by bullying, like I did.
Must be nice, having an excuse like that.
Right now it's more like working away from home for extra income.
I'm actually a college grad with management experience.
I know it's rock bottom, but it's strange that it still pays better than a company out in the countryside.
Tell me about your work routine.
How many hours a day do you work? What's the breakdown between filming and editing?
How many days a week do you work?
Do you have friends?
I actually work more than I did as a full-time employee.
Editing, research — and on top of that my PC is garbage, so it takes forever just to turn things into a video.
For someone self-employed, losing your stamina is basically a death sentence.
Nope, not exercising at all — not even a little bit.
It's just roughly around that amount — it's not like it's exact.
Show us like a year's worth of your monthly earnings.
Screenshotting every single channel, uploading them, and pasting them all here sounds like such a pain.
Yeah, guess I can't do it after all.
Background and Discussion Points
A YouTuber’s earnings can’t be judged by subscriber count alone — they vary widely depending on the video’s genre, ad rates, and how watch time builds up over time. In this thread, the figure cited was around 10,000 subscribers, a kind of middle-tier level: enough to meet monetization requirements, but not necessarily enough to fully cover living expenses. The poster said he’s kept job hunting ever since his full-time days without landing anything, and it’s often pointed out across the labor market as a whole that the older workers get, the narrower their chances of switching into an unfamiliar field become. The back half of the thread turned into a clash over the divide between people who became full-time employees as new college graduates and those who didn’t — but it’s worth keeping in mind that such gaps involve more than individual effort alone; factors tied to timing, like Japan’s “employment ice age,” also play a role, making this hard to reduce to simple self-responsibility.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Newsspeed VIP) thread “My Life Now, After Getting Fired From My Full-Time Job at 38 and Becoming a YouTuber.”
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