What Two Weeks of Getting Hacked Taught Me About This Hobby (and Myself!) - Ep. 3.24

<p><strong><em>After two weeks of going dark because a hacker hijacked our YouTube channel and Gmail account, we finally regained control and our brains are clearer because of it!</em></strong></p><p>Well, I’m back.</p><p>Build a better sports card collection on a real-world budget — that’s what this whole Happy Hobby world is about, and for two weeks, I genuinely didn’t know if I’d get to keep doing it.</p><p>If you missed it: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/@davidgonos">my YouTube channel</a> got hacked. Not just the channel — my Gmail too. When those two things go down at once, your entire digital life goes down with them. For a few days, somebody else <em>was</em> me. It took almost two weeks to untangle it.</p><p><em>Here’s the story, what it cost me, and what’s changing going forward for the channel, the podcast, and this newsletter.</em></p><p>How It Happened!</p><p>It was 3:30am on a Friday — June 12th, a date that’s now burned into my brain. I have trouble sleeping sometimes, so I got up, sat down at my computer, and started going through email. There was a message from someone wanting me to join their advertiser network — connect your YouTube, they match you with sponsors, that kind of thing.</p><p>This wasn’t unusual. As the channel grew past 9,000 subscribers, I’d been getting more outreach like this. I’d used legit tools before — VidIQ, Opus Clip — that ask for the same kind of YouTube access. So I Googled the company, found a real-looking website, started signing up, and connected my YouTube.</p><p>Within 60 seconds, I was locked out of everything. Gmail, YouTube, gone. It was instant, and I knew immediately I’d made a mistake.</p><p>Whoever did this didn’t just lock me out — they changed my recovery email, my recovery phone number, everything. Fast, practiced, methodical. </p><p>This wasn’t his first time.</p><p>This wasn’t just a stolen email — it was stolen identity. A police report had to be filed, in case further issues develop with our credit, bank accounts or tax information.</p><p>It was a nightmare!</p><p>What I Lost</p><p>Almost everything tied to that Google account, which I’d had since 2011:</p><p>* 15 years of Gmail and contacts</p><p>* Google Keep — where I kept <strong>100+ video and article ideas</strong>, years of sports card history research, website plans, podcast season plans</p><p>* Google Sheets — every spreadsheet I had (and I love my spreadsheets!)</p><p>* Every account I’d ever signed into with “Continue with Google”</p><p>* The backup codes I’d saved for account recovery — which, ironically, I’d also stored in Google Keep</p><p>That last one still makes me laugh. Write your passwords down somewhere safe that <em>isn’t</em> tied to the account that just got stolen. Use different passwords for different things. I know how obvious that sounds. I learned it the expensive way anyway.</p><p>My YouTube channel got fully shut down a couple of days later for “violations,” which actually turned out to be a small blessing — the hacker could no longer use my channel, and he’d already posted a live stream of an Elon Musk SpaceX video with a sketchy QR code in the corner. If you ever see something like that: don’t scan it. Apparently that’s exactly how this kind of thing spreads further.</p><p>Give Me Back My Channel!</p><p>After days of thinking I was done with sports card content creation (I wasn’t going to start over!), I got some hope via X/Twitter!</p><p>I tweeted <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/teamyoutube">@TeamYouTube</a>, explained what happened, and they walked me through a recovery form — though even finding my own YouTube ID (different from my handle) took digging through old emails I could barely access.</p><p>Our buddy <a target="_blank" href="https://substack.com/profile/206781767-patrick-imhoff">Patrick Imhoff</a> — the VP of the Happy Hobby world, and someone I’d given limited posting access to once while I was traveling — posted a video for me explaining the situation to you all, then deleted his own access afterward so the hacker couldn’t use him as a backdoor. That was a genuinely selfless move and I owe him for it.</p><p>Slowly, things came back. Gmail first, which was the biggest relief because it unlocked Keep and Sheets and everything else. Then, a few days later, YouTube flipped back on — at 11pm on a Friday night, of all times, which meant two videos I’d spent a long time on got auto-posted back-to-back and basically wasted (see The Dandy Dozen Vintage Baseball video below!).</p><p>You can’t plan for everything.</p><p>The Community Made This Bearable</p><p>While all this was happening, <a target="_blank" href="https://substack.com/chat/1332612">I told the Substack readers in the chat</a> what was going on as soon as I could. The response was honestly overwhelming — people reaching out, people sad to see the channel possibly gone for good, people just being kind. </p><p>It felt like writing a eulogy for something that wasn’t dead yet, and that’s a weird feeling. But it also reminded me why this whole thing is worth doing. This is a genuinely good community. People are kind to each other here. That’s not nothing.</p><p><p><strong>This is a genuinely good community. People are kind to each other here. That’s not nothing.</strong></p></p><p>What This Forced Me to Notice</p><p>For the first time since the late ‘90s, I wasn’t creating something every single week. No video, no podcast, no newsletter to get out the door. That’s been my rhythm since I wrote fantasy sports newsletters for my league, fantasy articles for CBS Sports, Sports Illustrated, The Athletic, and now 5-plus years of creating Happy Hobby card-collecting content.</p><p>With that pressure gone for two weeks, I unwound. I read more physical books. I spent more quality time with my wife Shelby. I connected more with my mom, who recently moved in with us. </p><p>It was a rough way to get there, but it was a real reminder that all this content creation — which I love — takes a lot out of the week.</p><p>What’s Changing Going Forward</p><p><em>I’m not starting over, and I’m not stopping. But it’s going to look a little different:</em></p><p>* <strong>Fewer, less-produced videos.</strong> Less of the heavily edited, cards-flying-in style videos, more of me just talking with you — sharing what I’ve learned, rankings, research. The podcast, video, and newsletter are converging into one combined post, which I was already moving toward.</p><p>* <strong>A rebrand.</strong> The YouTube channel is moving from “David Gonos” branding to <strong>Happy Hobby Sports Cards</strong> as the primary identity going forward. I’d wanted to do this for a while but worried about disrupting the algorithm. Well — starting from near zero now, there’s no better time.</p><p>* <strong>More tools for paid subscribers.</strong> I’m leaning into the apps and tools I’ve been building for budget collectors — things that stay valuable long after they’re published, unlike a video that has a short shelf life before people stop searching for it. Paid subscribers will start seeing more of these.</p><p>* <strong>Buddy breaks continue.</strong> We just posted one on the <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/_EUeU6-W8uE?si=uPTB7fS8YLhUfmtV">2026 Topps Series 2 Hobby Box</a>, and that’s not going anywhere.</p><p>* <strong>Selling off some of the collection.</strong> Partly a security decision — I’ve shown enough of what I own on camera, and I don’t want to be more of a target than I already am. (For what it’s worth: I sold my 1992 Stadium Club Michael Jordan Beam Team for the most I’ve ever sold a card for, which softened the blow considerably.) Keep an eye out — more is coming up for sale.</p><p>One Ask From You!</p><p>I’d like to bring in some other voices for the newsletter. If you’ve ever wanted to write something for the Happy Hobby Sports Cards Substack, let me know — email me at <a target="_blank" href="mailto:gonoscards@gmail.com"><strong>gonoscards@gmail.com</strong></a>. Pitch me an idea. Show me you can put some sentences together! Do you already have a Substack about sports cards? Pitch me an idea for an article where we all benefit — you, me and the Happy Hobby readers!</p><p>Finally, Thank You!</p><p>Thank you for sticking around, for the kindness while this was falling apart, and for wanting this thing to come back. It’s not really about me — it’s about the community we’ve built here. I’m just glad I get to keep being part of it.</p><p>I’m back. Thank you, Happy Hobby.</p><p><em>Have you ever been hacked or had something you love hijacked or stolen for a period of time? How did you handle it? </em></p><p><em>If you enjoyed this post about great baseball rookie cards, check out these posts you might have missed: </em></p><p><strong>🏆 BEST ROOKIE CARDS FROM EVERY YEAR! 🏆</strong></p><p><em>We list the best rookie cards from each flagship release in all four major sports since the 1950s.</em></p><p><strong>The Happy Hobby Sports Cards World</strong></p><p>* 📺 <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/c/davidgonos">YouTube</a>: 9.1K Subscribers</p><p>* 📬 <a target="_blank" href="https://gonos.substack.com/">Newsletter</a>: 1.6K readers</p><p>* 🎙️ <a target="_blank" href="https://gonos.substack.com/podcast">Podcast</a>: 500+ podcast downloads/episode</p><p>* 🌐 <a target="_blank" href="https://davidgonos.com/">DavidGonos.com</a> - 1K daily visits</p><p><em>Our podcasts were ranked by MillionPodcasts.com as one of the </em><a target="_blank" href="https://www.millionpodcasts.com/basketball-card-podcasts/"><em>Top 10 Basketball Card Podcasts</em></a><em>, </em><a target="_blank" href="https://www.millionpodcasts.com/football-card-podcasts/"><em>Top 10 Football Card Podcasts</em></a><em> and </em><a target="_blank" href="https://www.millionpodcasts.com/hockey-card-podcasts/"><em>Top 10 Hockey Card Podcasts</em></a><em>! And we’re aiming to get ranked among the Top 10 Baseball Card Podcasts!</em></p><p><p><strong><em>Happy Hobby! Build a better sports card collection on a real-world budget!</em></strong></p></p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://gonos.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">gonos.substack.com</a>