Everyone was left pretty shook back in October 2019 when Ethan and Grayson Dolan announced that they were stepping away from YouTube. Now, the Dolan Twins have opened up about why they have to either “retire or reinvent” their entire channel.

While speaking out about their new podcast, “Deeper with the Dolan Twins,” during an episode of Logan Paul‘s “ImPaulsive” podcast, Grayson explained, “It’s just an open conversation, like I have so much s**t on my mind that I wish I could say on YouTube, but YouTube is just not the place. That’s for premium entertainment.”

Ethan added that they’re “trying to make it the place.”

“We’ve been like at a point where we just have been really confused as to what to do with the content,” he admitted. “I feel like I’ve been kind of trapped in my 17-year-old body as soon as the f**king camera turns on, because I’m like, ‘This is what my audience likes. I have to act the same way that I did when it was working.’ But I’m gonna go f**king insane. We just tried to film a video and it completely failed just because I was like, ‘I don’t feel like myself when the camera’s on.'”

For those who missed it, after uploading once a week for five years straight, the YouTubers announced during a tearful video in October 2019 that the vigorous schedule has had a toll on their mental health, and that they were going to take some time to focus on themselves. At the time, the social media stars explained that uploading weekly videos was forcing them to mask their real emotions, and that they felt like they were being fake on camera.

“I’m a 20-year-old dude and that’s who I am. But my fans are kind of the opposite, our demographic’s 70-80 percent female, they’re our age but they’re the opposite of me,” Grayson continued during the new interview. “It’s hard to find the balance between what you wanna film and what they wanna see.”

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