Carson Kelly Blogs

Happy New Year, everybody. As of January 1st, 2026 , I’m sitting here with that strange mix of emotions that always shows up on New Year’s Day. Part of me feels proud. Part of me feels tired. Part of me is staring into the future like, “Alright… what kind of year are you about to be?” 2025 was a year of learning. A year of building. A year of creating. And yeah, a year of getting hit in the face a few times by reality, stress, and the kind of mental weight you don’t always know how to explain to people. But I made it here. I’m still here. I’m still trying. And I’m still creating. And honestly, that’s the big thing I want to say today: Thank you for being here. Whether you watched a video, liked a post, left a comment, read a blog, shared something I made, or even just quietly supported from a distance, it all matters. It’s easy to underestimate how much it means when someone takes time out of their day to show love for something you put your heart into. I’ve been building a lot. ...

There’s something kind of old-school and beautiful about writing at the end of a year. You pause. You look back at the pages you filled. You notice the fingerprints you left behind in the margins, the late-night thoughts, the “I had to say this” moments, the reviews that turned into mini time capsules. And you realize: this wasn’t just content. This was a year of building. So, as we head into the holidays, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for reading my blogs in 2025, especially during a year when I really stepped into this world more seriously. Whether you’ve been here for one post or you’ve been showing up consistently, you gave my writing a place to land. That matters more than I can properly explain. This year, I got to write about things I loved, things I didn’t love, and things that surprised me. I got to dig into stories, games, shows, movies, and all the little details that make entertainment feel like more than entertainment. Sometimes it’s comfort. Sometimes it’s i...

There’s something about reaching the end of a year that makes you look both ways at once. You look back at how far you’ve come, at the projects that nearly broke you and the ones that made you feel more alive than you expected. And you look forward at the stuff that isn’t here yet, but keeps tapping at the back of your mind like, “Hey, don’t forget about me. I’m part of this story too.” Today, I want to discuss the second part. This isn’t a flashy announcement or some big “surprise drop.” It’s more like opening my journal and letting you read one of the pages about the future of Carson Kelly Publishing  where it is now, where it’s heading, and what I quietly want it to become over the long haul. Where Carson Kelly Publishing Is Right Now Right now, Carson Kelly Publishing is still very personal. It’s the home base for my stories. The universes I’ve built, the characters who won’t leave me alone, the ideas that turn into books, series, spin–offs, and whatever else my brain d...

Good morning and happy Monday. I’m kicking off the week with a real milestone for this channel, because it’s official: 2025 has become my biggest year of the entire 2020s so far in all-time viewership. Not just a strong year. Not “pretty good.” The strongest. And it makes sense, because 2025 also became the most ambitious release slate my channel has ever had. 2,100+ uploads across livestreams, Shorts, and long-form videos. That number still feels unreal to type, but it’s the truth. This year was built on consistency, momentum, and a whole lot of late nights and stubborn dedication. So I’m putting it in writing: 2025 is the greatest year in my channel’s 14-year history. To everyone who watched, liked, commented, shared, or even just quietly showed up: thank you. You didn’t have to give me your time, and you did. That means everything. This channel is a time capsule, a creative lab, and a home base. And the community around it is the reason it keeps leveling up. Now for the fun...

  I. Introduction – The Night the Delta Started Singing Some movies entertain you. Some movies impress you. Sinners got under my skin and stayed there, humming like a half-remembered hymn. I walked into Ryan Coogler’s 1932 Mississippi vampire fever dream expecting something stylish and intense – Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Coogler, Göransson on the score, that alone is a stacked enough lineup – but I didn’t expect it to feel this alive. Sinners isn’t just a horror film. It isn’t just a period drama. It isn’t just a musical. It’s all of those at once, spun together into something that feels like an old ghost story told on a hot summer night, with sweat on your back and a song drifting through the open window. From the opening images, I knew this was going to be one of those “remember where you were” movies for me. The dusty Mississippi roads, the smoky promise of a Black-owned nightclub built in the middle of a system that doesn’t want it to exist, and the slow, creepi...

  I. Introduction – The Year the Beach Called Me Back 2025 will always be the year the beach called me back. In a year packed with sequels, remakes, live-service noise, and endless announcements, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach didn’t just arrive as another big release on the calendar. It felt like a message in a bottle thrown directly at me – a quiet, haunting reminder that games can still be deeply weird, heartbreakingly intimate, and stubbornly human in a medium that often chases trends over soul. Picking up my controller and stepping back into Hideo Kojima’s world, years after the original Death Stranding , felt less like “starting a new game” and more like visiting an old, haunted town I once lived in. The names were familiar. The symbols were familiar. Even the silence was familiar. But everything had shifted – the geography, the stakes, the emotional temperature of the story, and, most importantly, the place I was in as a person. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach  was...

  Call of Duty is heading into a new era. Activision has announced that they will no longer release back-to-back titles within the same sub-series of Call of Duty meaning no more consecutive years of just Black Ops followed by Black Ops , or Modern Warfare followed by Modern Warfare . For a franchise built on annual releases and familiar branding, this is a surprisingly bold pivot. According to Activision, this isn’t about slowing down it’s about leveling up. “The reasons are many, but the main one is to ensure we provide an absolutely unique experience each and every year.” “To be clear, the future of Call of Duty is very strong and we believe our best days are ahead of us given the depth and talent of our development teams. We have been building the next era of Call of Duty, and it will deliver precisely on what you want along with some surprises that push the Franchise and the genre forward. We look forward to welcoming you in, listening to you, and moving forward together.”...