Ned England Launches Second YouTube Channel For Smoke Content, Vows It Will Never Mix With His Regular Videos
"My subscribers signed up for accountability. Nedsmokedout is a nature product. You cannot serve both audiences from one channel. That's how you lose everything," says England, 70, whose new channel has three subscribers, one of whom is him.
WAUKESHA — Ned England would like to be very clear about one thing: the smoke videos are not going on the main channel.
England, the 70-year-old Backslide Way resident known to the 420 subscribers of his YouTube channel Nedventuresout for lawn-chair documentation of neighborhood speeding and one specific Honda, announced Thursday the launch of a second, entirely separate channel, Nedsmokedout, dedicated to documenting the condition of Waukesha's parks and trails during this week's wildfire smoke advisory.
"My subscribers signed up for accountability," England explained from the pedestrian bridge at Frame Park, where he was filming Friday morning. "Speed documentation. Parking documentation. That is the brand. Nedsmokedout is a nature product. You cannot serve both audiences from one channel. That's how you lose everything."
Asked whether the two audiences might, at 420 and three subscribers respectively, substantially overlap, England said that was "exactly the kind of thinking that kills channels."
Ned England's regular neighborhood documentation continues, smoke-free, on his main channel Nedventuresout.
Visit @nedVenturesOut →A Three-Lamppost Event
Nedsmokedout launched Thursday with a 24-minute video titled "FOX RIVER TRAIL VISIBILITY REPORT (DAY 1)", in which England walks a section of the Fox River Trail near Frame Park in an N95 mask he purchased in 2020 and describes as "still good," narrating visibility conditions in real time. The video has 14 views.
England's methodology is his own. From the center of the Frame Park pedestrian bridge, he counts how many lampposts he can distinguish along the river path. On a clear day, he says, the number is nine.
"Thursday I could see six," England said. "That's a three-lamppost event. Friday morning I had seven, so we're trending in the right direction, but I want people to have the data, not the feeling."
"I want people to have the data, not the feeling."
— Ned England, Nedsmokedout, Day 2
The state's official Air Quality Index placed Waukesha County at 138 on Friday, in the range designated "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups." England confirmed he considers himself a member of a sensitive group, "by temperament."
He was also, this reporter observed, carrying the radar gun. England acknowledged the device "has no application to smoke" and said he brought it out of habit. During the 40 minutes this reporter spent with him at Frame Park, he clocked one jogger at 6 miles per hour and wrote it down.
"That's not for either channel," he said. "That's just for me."
The Incident
The strict separation between England's two properties has already survived its first test. On Thursday evening, England accidentally uploaded the Day 1 visibility report to Nedventuresout instead of Nedsmokedout, where it remained live for 11 minutes before he caught the error.
England deleted the video, then recorded and posted a four-minute apology to his main channel titled "ABOUT TONIGHT (Please Read Description)," in which he explains the mix-up, apologizes to "anyone who was confused about the direction of the channel," and directs interested viewers to Nedsmokedout. The apology video currently has 96 views, making it more successful than everything on Nedsmokedout combined.
"I handled it the way you have to handle these things," England said. "Immediately, and on camera."
Of Nedsmokedout's three subscribers, one is England's own Nedventuresout account, which he says exists "for cross-promotional purposes only." He declined to identify the other two, citing their privacy, but said he has "a strong suspicion one of them is Linda."
The Roadmap
England has planned content through at least Day 5 of the air event. Saturday's video will cover the Glacial Drumlin Trail trailhead. Sunday he intends to film at Retzer Nature Center, "assuming the visibility holds, or ideally doesn't."
Asked what happens to Nedsmokedout when the smoke clears, England consulted his spiral notebook, which now has a second spiral notebook clipped to it.
"The channel ends when the air clears or when it hits 100 subscribers, whichever comes first," he said. "I've set that rule in advance so it stays clean. That's what separates a channel from a hobby."
He looked out over the river, where the far bank was visible in a general way.
"Seven lampposts," he said, and marked it down.
Before leaving for Frame Park on Friday, England confirmed, he checked the street in front of his house. The Honda was parked in its usual position.
"Still too close," he said. "But that's channel one business."