Transcript of the above video: 

I have got to be honest, the ether of YouTube, the ether of the internet if you will, is giving me nothing but fodder to make new videos. Some weeks I go through weeks where it is like I really have to dredge up something to kind of talk about.

Recently that has not been an issue, especially this past month where we had so much going on at the border. But now, I don't know what it is, I think people are using AI to compress the years of videos that I have made and then like regurgitate them back out using AI voiceovers to then make videos that are basically saying stuff I have said or analysis I have done in the past, and then they kind of spin it in this weird way. I also think, as I have discussed in other videos, I think there is this weird kind of cold war going on in the travel industry in Southeast Asia where different countries are sending out their own YouTubers to make Thailand look bad. It is a credit to Thailand that Thailand isn't sending anybody out to do the same thing, and I genuinely don't think that anybody is. I don't see these hyper-negative videos on other jurisdictions, and I am not even going to name any other jurisdiction, but I just haven't seen them where it is sort of like, it is framed as, "this place is terrible, but check this out." I have seen a lot of that anti-Thailand, and one of the latest ones I have seen, I am honestly starting to question the numbers too in terms of view counts and things regarding some of these videos where it is like hundreds of thousands of views over a niche video regarding retirement in Thailand. Maybe I am naïve, maybe I just don't have the viewers and the audience, and I do appreciate the audience such as it is. I never intended to ever have an audience per se on this channel. I never thought of myself as a YouTuber frankly. That is not how this thing came about. I viewed myself as sort of like a used car salesman or something doing promotional videos on public access when this thing started some nearly nine years ago at this point, I have been doing this. But I am seeing all these phenomenon kind of percolating up and it is just odd.

And the latest one I saw is there is some fear mongering video out there about retirement in Thailand where some huge percentage - 92% or whatever it is - of retirees lose everything in Thailand. It is like, what are you talking about? Yes, there are always going to be what I call the Thai Visa forum stories or the Stickman stories - tip of the hat to Stickman, I love you man - but I have read your blog over the many years I have been here. You were kind of the go-to when I first got here; now you are definitely Primus inter pares among the sort of expat bloggers but there are now many other voices out there. And I've read that stuff for years where you read the horror stories about a guy that comes here and does; oftentimes it's because of making bad decisions. I am not necessarily saying it's always over a woman or a significant other, it’s also, sometimes it's just not a good idea to make certain investments and things like that in any context, okay? You can say the same thing if you were talking about the Florida Keys as opposed to the islands in Thailand or something; it's just sometimes people make bad decisions regarding lifestyle choices or investment decisions in any jurisdiction. 

The point I am trying to make though is look, if you are looking to be a retiree in Thailand and just come over here, basically you should pension, use your savings; if you are on like some sort of Social Security kind of payout pension type scheme, and just be here and enjoy oneself and - I am not saying not have a good time or not interact with the local culture - you don't have to come over here and be a recluse, but this notion that these guys are just, “oh my God, you come over here and it ruins your life!” It's just ridiculous. And again, negative news tends to sell over positive. You are never going to, I don't even know how I would craft a video about ‘expat man comes to Thailand and has wonderful experience as a retiree and then passes away’. I mean how would you make that video? You just wouldn't make that video. But meanwhile, it's pretty easy to make the video of “Guy meets girl in the wrong place; guy puts house in girl's name; girl runs off or turns out girl had another guy the whole time”, whatever. Those are easy fodder for high view count videos. I question whether or not some of these videos these days have as high a true view count as they are claiming because I have been doing this long enough to know what the genuine audience for this type of content looks like, and I really question anything that goes into the hundreds and thousands of view counts. Now I'll probably get burned in the comments, “well that's because your content isn’t any good, that is why you don't get any views!” Well okay, fine, fair enough.

That said, I just wanted to make this video if no other reason than to dispel this notion that the retirees just come over here like some kind of Venus Fly Trap and are immediately suck dry of all their wealth and spit back out. It is really nonsensical. The vast majority of retirees, and by the way depending on what stats you read, there are probably between 85,000 probably 125,000, total expat retiree and depending on those numbers because some numbers factor in guys that are on Marriage Visas, some don't; some sort of factor in folks that are not necessarily here on a Retirement Visas per se, but are using other types of visas to maintain status and things. Again, it's a large number and the vast majority of retirees here in Thailand, I would say overall have a pretty good experience.