A New Chapter - distantlately.
Long story short (ish)
I have been working under the name distantmedia since around 2012. Over the last few years, the ‘media’ part specifically had started to feel a bit off (more on that later for those who fancy the longer background story).
It might sound a bit over the top, but this was a long battle of back-and-forth. Should I rebrand completely? Should I just leave it and stop overthinking? Should I just give up on aliases entirely and work under my real name, Greg Howard?
I would ask my friends and family for their opinions repeatedly and scribble new names down in notebooks: most of them some variant of ‘distant’, of course. I’d then quickly talk myself out of it, dislike all the options, and ultimately decide to do absolutely nothing about it for another six months. Rinse and repeat.
Then, a few months ago, I can’t remember why, I typed ‘distantlately’ into the notes on my phone, followed by distantlately.com. I loved the dual-meaning happy accident; you have the literal emotional feeling of being ‘distant lately’, but it also works as a nod to the YouTube side of things and anything else I’m working on: a sort of "this is what I’ve been up to lately."
I sat on it for a while, as I knew it couldn’t be a fast change. It had to be something I looked at for a few months and felt good about, which I did each time, especially when I tested it as the header name on this very website.
I finally decided: this is the move. Since April is my birth month, it felt like the perfect time to draw a line in the sand.
So, here we are, in April 2026: distantmedia changes to distantlately.
As mentioned in my latest YouTube video, this is a slight rework to my "online name"—not a change in direction, video content, or anything along those lines.
My YouTube name and username will be changed to distantlately / @distantlately (if not already changed).
distantlately.com will now be the primary domain address for this website, with the old distantuk.com remaining intact as a redirect (at least until my ownership of that old domain runs out).
Along with this comes a new virtual contact email: hello@distantlately.com for those wanting to reach me, that address is better designed to filter out spam.
I should note that I’m making several updates to this website. It has been in redesign mode for a while, but it will hopefully be back up to date with current projects and new pages asap.
That is the gist of things. Feel free to read the longer, epic but boring, award-winning story below if you have time.
People always ask me where ‘distant’ comes from, why work under an alias?
distant — there’s something about the definition that just clicks with me: far away in space or time; separated; remote; apart in relevance. I guess it’s one of my favourite words (if that’s a thing).
The word and its meaning were/are a big driver for my work. It was probably a much stronger influence in my early years of photography, but it is still very much a feeling or theme that I strive to capture to this day. It always felt like it fit my personality and, more importantly, the quiet, isolated places I find most inspiring. So, although I no longer gel with the ‘media’ part... to quote my sister, Beth: "No, don’t get rid of the distant part; you’ve always been that."
As for why I don’t just stick with my real name, that one’s hard to put into words. I never have, and something about me just prefers not having Greg Howard front and centre. Going back to when I created ‘distantmedia’, it was a way to remain behind the scenes: private and quiet. It wasn’t really until I started putting my face on YouTube that I had my actual identity attached. Plus, I just think aliases are ‘mad cool’, as you’ll read below.
For those that like to read, let’s go back in the time
The distant part of my 'online name' actually started long before I ever picked up a camera. If you’re old enough (or young enough, I suppose) to remember the golden era of the Xbox 360, you’ll know that your gamertag was the most important choice you’d make as a 16-year-old. And mine: you guessed it, given it was my favourite word, was distant. No bells, no whistles, and nobody was beating me on Halo 3. Good times.
When I wasn’t racking up killstreaks online, I started teaching myself Photoshop and Illustrator. We’re talking version 7 of the programmes; which, yes, I definitely paid for and didn’t download from a dodgy website. When it came to posting 'designs' online (albeit amateur at best), I posted them under distant. Funnily enough, I even had a faceless YouTube channel called 'distant' back then where I’d share stuff I made on Photoshop. Thankfully, that’s long gone.
Anyway, eventually I grew up a bit and went off to study all things creative digital media, with a focus on graphic design and typography (by now, I was a legitimate paying customer of Adobe CS6). It was in my last year of studying that I started messing around with cameras and photography, and because I was jumping around all of these mediums, I slapped media onto the end of distant, and distantmedia was born. At the time, it made perfect sense: I was a digital jack-of-all-trades, and 'media' was the safety net that covered it all.
I must admit I was a bit obsessed with music artists, designers, and street artists who had these 'faceless' creative identities; imagine discovering Banksy as a 16-year-old kid. Actually, I still think a separate creative identity is super inspiring today, and even if one's not faceless, I just think it stands out more. Strangely Familiar, grainydays, Illkoncept, NegativeFeedback: they stick with you. Who knows if distantlately does, but here we are. Of course, using your real name is great too; that’s just never been for me.
To quote fellow 'YouTuber' Jimmy West when I told him about changing my name: "Ah, I always wondered what the media bit was all about."
Moving forward
As the years passed, my focus shifted. Photography had very much grown into ‘my thing’, and I had pretty much left graphics and typography behind. Although I went on to work with hundreds of freelance clients and even spent six years at a fashion company as an in-house editor, these were very much just pay cheques that took up most of my time; I knew photography was all I wanted to do.
Mind you, looking back, I don’t think I personally started to take photography seriously until COVID-19 hit—at least in terms of a serious pursuit. I guess this was a period in time for a lot of us where we sat and thought about life more than ever.
I still liked the name distantmedia, or perhaps part of me just didn’t even bother to think about it. Because I had been using that name for so long, a change didn’t even cross my mind. So, without thinking about it, I went on to start posting YouTube videos (actual ones of me talking to a camera, at least). It was about a year into posting videos that the ‘media’ part in distantmedia stopped making sense to me; or, at the very least, it didn’t fit me as a person. It felt corporate and sterile: things I could not be further from.
With a few views racking up on my small YouTube channel came a surprising amount of emails asking about the name. It was mainly others wondering whether they should use their real name or an alias when creating work, and what pros and cons I’ve noticed along the way. I think that opened my eyes to it even more: the fact it didn’t really fit me as a person.
I guess this is where the ‘short story’ at the start of this blog post began—and where the ongoing back-and-forth over the name change finally came to a head.
To tell you the truth
It might sound silly, as it's just a name, but I’ve been quite worried about this switch. This is mainly because I’ve never worked on anything harder in my entire life than I have my YouTube videos; that part never really gets seen or spoken about (perhaps something for a future ramble). Who knows what signals are good and bad on the back end of YouTube? What if I change my name and nobody sees my videos anymore?
What if the almighty algorithm gets confused and does something weird to my channel? As for my website, when you search for distantmedia, my site has lived rent-free at the top of Google for over a decade. That won’t be the case when my new website domain has finished indexing, as it will have to compete with a plethora of Reddit posts about ‘boyfriends being distant lately’. Which, yeah, did cross my mind every step of the way: is this a bad move?
The pessimist in me says, "Ah well, who knows how long I’ll be able to continue making YouTube videos for before I can’t warrant the trade-off between prioritising making videos and taking on more paid work again?" The optimist says, "Your channel’s going to blow up, bro; you’ll be able to afford a pro pack of Portra for your Pentax K1000 soon."
But as I thought to myself prior to my 33rd birthday a few weeks ago, and as I stated in the video you are possibly coming from in order to read this post... I either change it now and crack on with life, or never change it and have it annoying me for the rest of time.
Probably all a bit deep for just a name change, isn’t it? If you have read this far, you deserve a cold beer.
Thank you for your continued support (maybe binge watch a few of my videos back to back to help with the algorithm, wink wink)
- distantlately.