Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are talking about a new Immigration ‘vlogger’ registration in 2026? No, don't worry, everybody calm down. The reason that is in quotes is I am quoting that title from one of Bangkok Pat's recent videos he put out talking about YouTubing, 'vlogging' and things like that in Thailand. Tip of the hat to Bangkok Pat. Bangkok Pat you are one of my, I didn't really keep track of YouTube, a real confession here; this is the truth. I started doing this as a promotional thing for a law firm. I am fascinated that I have an audience in many ways; I am humbled by the fact I do. I didn't expect it. If I'm awkward in having an audience, I apologize because it wasn't my intention to have one. I am not someone who ever really sought anything akin to celebrity or fame; that is not really what I was looking to do with this thing. That said, I am not unaware of how long I have been doing it and that I have a lot of exposure as a result of it. One thing I would like to say to folks, like out on the street things, can you please not film me without my permission. It's very odd. 

That being said, the point of Bangkok Pat's posting on YouTube, I watched it, I'm going to put a link in the description below. I urge those who are watching this to go check it out. I found it rather interesting. He was talking to somebody about the history of YouTubing, or becoming, actually talked to multiple people in this thing, it was kind of a round up sort of video, and he was talking about getting going on YouTube; some of that was interesting stuff to me. I am a very atypical YouTuber. If you can't tell, we don't throw a lot of pizzazz on to these videos. I've been using the same background now for nearly a decade. We did change it out from one of the other walls here, and we did that about a year and a half in and nothing has changed since. So I am very a-typical. We don't monetize the channel. I am not looking to just follow the algorithm; we put out what we put out. I hope it's useful to the expat and tourist community in Thailand, and you will occasionally see me even chiming in on politics and things although as time moves forward, I think there's going to be a different venue where I'm going to be doing that. This channel will more be dedicated once again to legal news, legal information and immigration news, immigration information; I'll try and keep the more topical news in another place. But that said, we will deal with that in the first of the year. 

I just wanted to make this as a shout out to Bangkok Pat; I love your work sir. And also I like that he called it like a clickbait title: New Immigration Vlogger Registration, so I went ahead and made that the title so if I'm click baiting anything it is for Bangkok Pat so go watch his stuff 

But I also wanted to make this video to also thank many of the people out there in the audience out there, throughout expat land and everywhere. Thank you for using our firm, thank you for watching these videos, thank you for coming up to me on the street and thanking me and things, I do appreciate it. I am not perfect. I know there are times, there are people that have talked to me throughout this past year that I have been gruff at times. Things get hard when you are running a law practice in Southeast Asia, and if I get a little too gruff or terse at times, I do apologize to anybody I've been that way to, either in the audience or among our clients, anywhere. Many apologies, I'm sorry for that. Again I like to believe that I come by it honestly but not always. I am human and I am sorry for that. 

That being said, I appreciate that I am something of a ‘vlogger’, if a more boring in terms of subject matter ‘vlogger’ than many of the other ones out there and I am not really doing YouTube the way others do YouTube and we all to each their own. I'm very happy for all the people that have found success here in the YouTube Community in Thailand or Southeast Asia whatever, good on you folks. 

Also, I wanted to sort of take this opportunity as well to basically just kind of ring in the New Year for YouTube generally, or thinking of YouTube. Things have changed in this community, in this space. I think moving forward authorities are going to be more aware of YouTube. Again it is not part of this clickbait thing. I'm not trying to scare YouTubers or anything like that but look, the laws and the rules are what they are. And we are seeing this digitization cause the enforcement to catch up with the law itself. The people that are out there that are just getting away with it - and you know who you are - in various ways with regard to YouTube, and I'm not saying everybody is. Some folks that are doing YouTube, even if they are not work authorized whatever in Thailand, depending on the facts in their case, may be perfectly able to do what they're doing. But there are a lot of people on YouTube that really do violate a fair few rules and things, and I think are kind of a normalcy bias misimpression and think that nothing is ever going to come of that. I think those days are ending. Thai Immigration is very well aware of what is going on. Digitization has caused them to be acutely aware and to be monitoring those that they feel are in violation of the law. Most recently this arrest of this guy that was doing bird watching tours, to my mind just shows that look, things are catching up. They are doing undercover sort of surveillance on people that they think might be working illegally and things. And where you are time stamping yourself and putting it up on the internet, the fact that you may be working illegally or doing something outside of Thai Law, not a great idea; it's not going to be a great idea going into 2026. 

That said, no, there is no like registration of YouTubers per se, this is just kind of a joke that Bangkok Pat put up and I'm kind of playing along with it. If you want to call it clickbait, call it clickbait but going over and see Bangkok Pat and looking forward to people watching us in the New Year. Thank you very much. Happy New Year to everybody and we will see you in '26.