On September 20, the offTheLeftEye YouTube channel reached 100,000 subscribers! With this milestone, we’ve achieved the coveted silver status, a feat accomplished by only half a percent of all YouTube channels.
Launched in 2010 by Curtis Childs, the offTheLeftEye YouTube channel came under the umbrella of the Swedenborg Foundation in 2013, when it had fewer than 1,000 subscribers. Since then, thanks to the creativity and passion of a growing team of writers and artists—helmed consistently throughout by Curtis, who serves not only as the host of its many shows but also as the director of its content—the channel has established itself as a benchmark among spirituality shows.
Far and away the most popular series on the channel is Swedenborg & Life. Launched in 2014 as an exploration of Swedenborg’s writings on the spiritual world, Swedenborg & Life evolved into an interview show and then, as it increased in popularity, into a more highly produced series treating a wide range of spiritual topics. The main show eventually produced a variety of spinoffs, including the livestreamed discussion series Swedenborg & Life Live, the panel discussion show Good Question!, and, more recently, News from Heaven, which—circling back to the earliest incarnation of Swedenborg & Life—presents in-depth discussions of passages from Swedenborg’s writings.
In 2020, the channel continued expanding its audience through targeted marketing techniques, reaching more than a million unique viewers in the first quarter of the year and then accomplishing that feat again in the second quarter! Starting the year with 88,000 subscribers, the channel has been growing steadily and continues to expand.
While continuing to produce a number of new shows, the team also worked with the website builders at Digital Wave to produce a brand-new website, offthelefteye.com. The site is host to many of the most popular videos on the offTheLeftEye YouTube channel, which are organized by topic, with episode descriptions and recaps to help guide new viewers around the topics. You can also subscribe to a dedicated offTheLeftEye newsletter, The Quick Update, for links to the latest episodes and to downloadable art.
If you want to help offTheLeftEye reach the next 100,000, you can donate now and choose to direct your donation to Online Programming or to the OTLE Endowment Fund, where donations are invested to support the channel far into the future!