The biggest choker, the worst Pokémon pronouncer, the cringelord — there are many things I'm known for. I'm certainly one of the Showdown players and YouTubers of all time, and I do plan to hold that title for quite a while.
I'm Carter, a freshly graduated guy out in the Midwest who enjoys journalism, sports and video games. I'm also both an avid YouTube consumer and YouTuber myself (of course). Here's the timeline of my YouTube journey so far.
My thumbnail from a Minestrike (Minecraft x Counter Strike) video showcasing my Dewott skin. The video premiered April 24, 2016, and has since been privatized.
Dec. 20, 2014 — Joined YouTube
I created my channel in December 2014, and my first video — a Minecraft Hunger Games video — premiered Jan. 13, 2015. I started my channel in middle school when I was still a squeaker, hoping to become a famous Minecraft YouTuber like the many popular ones during the day.
Despite my channel not having anything to do with Pokémon, I found an awesome Dewott Minecraft skin and decided to incorporate that into my name — hence 502 (Dewott's National Pokédex number).
I didn't do just Minecraft videos — the list even before I graduated high school is longer than I care to admit: Crossy Road, Smashy Road 2, Bloons Tower Defense Battles, BTD5, Clash Royale, Cops N Robbers Jail Break, Pokémon Go, The Escapists, Team Fortress 2, Five Nights at Freddy's 2, Geometry Dash, Rocket League, Star Wars Battlefront, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Fortnite and Brawl Stars. I also did occasion vlogs. But what really took off on my channel was Battle Run.
March 13, 2015 — "Battle Run!"
From the creators of "Beat the Boss," Battle Run was a multiplayer racing game with different characters, pets and power-ups. (I thought the game was abandoned, but turns out it is still around.)
It was a really silly video: I did a short intro of who I was using, played the cliche YouTuber 3D text intro, and did a few races with Godhead's cover of "Eleanor Rigby" and The Proclaimers' "I'm On My Way" playing in the background.
It was a nothing burger of a video, but my first vid playing it got over 1,600 views by the end of the year. It was a big deal for Kid502.
My thumbnail from "Battle Run!" Before going private, the video earned 2,220 views.
After a few years of inconsistent uploads and too-varying content, the channel hadn't gone anywhere and I decided to take some breaks — some long and some short. My haters were, in fact, smoking that 502 pack.
My final video of the Kid502 era. Interestingly, it was not from my POV but my friend's. The video has been privatized along with the rest of the Kid502-era content.
Feb. 25, 2018 — Final upload
My last upload before graduating high school dropped on Feb. 25, 2018: a Fortnite video of me and a high school friend trap-killing the final player. Nothing glorious, nothing noteworthy, and my channel was supposed to never be seen again.
I privatized all my videos sometime after. It didn't mean much at that point — I had my fun, and the ridicule would be forgotten in my next leg of life. It didn't mean a ton, it was simply goodbye for what I thought would be forever.
Thanks to COVID-19 kicking off my freshman year of college and making it the most boring semester of my life, I played the only game disposable on my high school Google Chromebook: Pokémon Showdown. Izzy had wanted me to play it for a while, and during one of our phone calls I finally gave it a shot.
I thought I knew Pokémon pretty well, but Showdown was a whole 'nother beast. EVs, optimal move sets, team synergy, SINGLES? I reached top 5,000 in VGC Season 10 of Sword & Shield, but I didn't have much of a clue for what I was doing in Showdown.
But I finally had a gaming laptop (second semester), too much time on my hands and a lot of inspiration from other Showdown YouTubers.
"You could not live with your own failure. Where did that bring you? Back to me." —Thanos, Avengers: Endgame
Jan. 26, 2021 — First Showdown Vid
After watching a ton of The Garbodors, I finally had the guts to make my own video with my own editing spin on it. The tag team of Polteageist-Piplup drew from barchun's two-team sweepers vids, and I had editing inspiration from Albino to naturally split the vid in three parts: intense intro, slower but still gripping middle, and a slow and epic closer.
I had a ton of fun with the vid, but hanging with friends and CS:GO with the boys took over. I wouldn't upload again for a while.
July 31-Sept. 15, 2021 — 11-video stint
My channel's second resurgence was under way, this time fully taking inspiration from The Garbodors. I had a fun intro, broke the team down, and then got into battles which I later added edits to. The 11th video — a Fortnite video edited NoahsNoah-style — did pretty poorly, and I was about to enter a very rough year of my life. I took another few months off before reemerging once again.
Jan. 20, 2022 — Return of the king
After a long, refreshing winter break (despite a disastrous ending), I had the energy to put the defibrillators on my channel a third time. This time I managed to stay, putting less pressure on myself and saving editing time taking after Lord Emvee, pokeaimMD and blunder. I started doing what they did: record for 30-60 minutes, throw some music in during editing, add an outro and call it a day.
March 10, 2022 — Beginning of my shorts
I saw shorts as another growth opportunity, and I got bored enough one day to take a stab at it. I ended up making two that same day because the first one (a short on Manectric missing 6/7 Thunders) did so well. Shorts expanded my audience quite a bit, and I saw and still see a surge of new subscribers every time I upload one. They also are the most helpful with trickling subscribers and views many months after they premiere.
April 14, 2022 — Hit 1500
Fifteen-hundred ELO in OU may not be a big deal to most, but to me, it was the turning of the tide that I had finally gotten decent at the game. While I had only been recording for a few months, I had been playing OU for over a year, and hitting this milestone was cause for celebration.
May 25, 2022 — First live
My computer was having some problems with its hard drive, and with no hardware space to record, all I could do was live stream. After my computer was fixed, live streams became more rare between the nature of my school job and because videos were doing better analytically, but live streaming found me some of my closest channel friends and inspired me to make a Discord server three days after my first stream.
Aug. 2, 2022 — RETRO ROYALE
Much like the trio who got me into Showdown recording, I wanted to try making a Showdown series. RETRO ROYALE was the first, taking sets from Gen 1 OU and bringing them to the Gen 8 OU metagame. The series did not see much success, but it was a ton of fun/frustration using old school techs in the newest generation.
Aug. 4, 2022 — 100 Subs
I hit 100 subs sometime in early July, and I made a video commemorating the occasion just a couple days after the first RETRO ROYALE. I released some of the custom music I use on the channel as well.
Aug. 22, 2022 — Biggest video
I struck gold with a video highlighting the lore of homophobic Ferrothorn over on the r/Stunfisk subreddit. It broke 1,000 views in eight days, and the video now has almost 10,000 views, the most popular video on my channel by far.
Nov. 21, 2022 — Premiere of Scarlet & Violet
With the new generation came new viewers. Although my first ever Scarlet & Violet movie did not do super well, my videos afterward had consistently higher view counts and interactions. It was another turning point for the channel.
Jan. 26, 2023 — Purple Wave SMP
My friends and I had our two-week Minecraft craving to satisfy, and it lasted for well over two weeks. I did some channel content over it, but I played more so for fun than I did for content. Still a fun stretch of the channel.
Jan. 27, 2023 — CLUB RAVE CLASSICS
Another new series on the channel, I wanted to engage more with my viewers, and CLUB RAVE CLASSICS was the medium to do so over. I played against my viewers, and it was a lot of fun breaking down the barrier between myself and my people. I hope to bring it back someday, but it has not gotten a lot of attention past the first original four episodes.
Jan. 30, 2023 — 200 subs and 30k views
January 2023 was an excellent month for me, capped off with reaching the 200 sub milestone. I released more music from my producer for everyone to use along with a big hearty thank you.
I had been pushing myself to do more for the channel, even as my life was becoming more stressful by the day. I decided to do 30 days of uploads to see if I could manage it and see how it would affect channel growth.
The challenge ended about as sour as it could — and it was completely unrelated to the channel. At the finish line, my pet chinchilla Whiskers died after living nearly a decade long. If you ever wonder what my Showdown background is, that's Whiskers. If you wonder why a Minccino sits on Dewott's shoulder in my profile pic, that's Whiskers. I still use it to honor her and make sure I see her every day.
Whiskers played a big part in my recordings. In my pre- and some post-high school graduation videos you can hear her in the background scurrying up and down her house. I'd have to occasionally tell her to quiet down, usually to no avail.
My forever Showdown buddy, Whiskers sits eagerly waiting for me to hand her a pretzel treat. This is the pic I have set for my Showdown background.
After a sleepless night when I got home following Whiskers' passing, I integrated her into my profile pic. Not only is the blurry background the same pic of Whiskers I use for Showdown, I also recolored and added whiskers to Mincinno (the chinchilla Pokémon) to sit on my shoulder.
In May 2023, I decided to start doing more discussion videos and news videos. The community was very receptive to them, and I started to sprinkle those throughout my upload schedule. It's one of the best decisions I've made; the vids give my channel some searchability and the vids always do very well in view count and especially comments.
May 22, 2023 — 50k views
I hit 50k views in May 2023, right before I left for my internship. The internship never slowed my roll — I did almost daily uploads for the entirety of it.
I also created a Twitter/X. I still am not sure what to do with it as it's not the most productive platform I have.
May 30, 2023 — Top 500
I cracked the top 500 of OU right after the HOME update for Scarlet & Violet dropped. It was another big milestone for me in my Showdown adventure as it meant my name got added to the leaderboard for a little bit.
June 12, 2023 — SALTY SPINBACKS
My third Showdown series, SALTY SPINBACKS upgraded recent teams I used in videos by changing movesets and adding/dropping Pokémon. I started this series as a callback to blunder's HEATAH FAJITA, and I always brought a friends to play with to really get the salt going.
The series is also fun since it gives me a chance to fix teams I thought could've been better but didn't have another chance to use.
In July 2023, I revamped my Discord server. I added more text channels — such as a welcome page — and made roles more concrete to prepare for the day I could add memberships to the channel. The Discord revamp made it catch up to what bigger Discord servers look like.
Sept. 4, 2023 — Axel Breakers
Izzy and I played a ton of Rocket League over the summer, and since we had so much fun playing it, I decided to create a dedicated channel to it — the Axel Breakers. However, after the summer, schedules got tough, and between finding time to record with one another and lack of time aenergy, the channel hasn't seen much activity in favor of continuing Mr502.
Jan. 3, 2024 — Memberships
Thanks to crossing the 500 subscriber mark, I was allowed to add memberships as a feature to my channel. It allows people to pay me a small amount monthly to receive special perks such as channel emotes and exclusive Discord channels. I'm not expecting much to come of these, I just wanted to cross it off my list of things I get to do.
Sept. 28, 2024 — 1k subs
I crossed the 1,000 subscriber mark over the night on Sept. 28. It's a goal I wanted to hit since creating the channel and it's a great measure for the growth of the channel. I've now started earning money from monetizing videos and I later released hats and did a giveaway to celebrate.
Jan. 15, 2025 — NU Crash Out
During my stream the night before, I learned from Shengineer that I became an NU meme thanks to a crash out from a Fourth of July video using Breloom. Turns out the NU higher ups, including Lord Rabia, caught wind of my rage against Diamond Realm using stall.