#based on that one pic of chadwick boseman

[caainhurstart]

thorns

[championofravens]

So so so funny watching my relationship with Youtube change over the years. Don’t know how it was for other people in my age bracket but I was on Youtube the moment it hit. I was in 3rd or 4th grade going to my friend’s house for a play date to go on her dad’s computer to browse youtube. I watched people like Hannah Hart, Shane Dawson, Roosterteeth, Michael Buckley, Charlieissocoollike, Vlogbrothers, Lets Players like Pewdiepie and Markiplier when they were at 500k subs and still called Lets Players, on and on and on. Probably dozens I can’t even immediately recall all sectioned into little boxes based on the years I watched them. I went to the first Vidcon. And my career goals for a long time were Youtube based (not as a content creator but something back end- first an editor and then I wanted to be a PR agent if you can imagine).

Anyways, the years have been strange. I’ve felt the crushing disappointment time and time again of those I admired and respected and enjoyed the content of getting revealed to be disgusting bigots or to be sexual predators. Or they become these massive stars, huge companies, and I start to hate their content or just resent what they’ve become. And that’s already been a lot to grapple with, including my weird personal experience with the early days of Youtubers getting SnapChat and just... accepting a lot of pics from fans with no limitations or barriers and even encouraging ‘funny’ challenges of “haha its no pants friday, send me a SnapChat!!” That hasn’t exactly changed nowadays what with constant reveals of even major Hollywood/industry stars being stupid as fuck in Twitter DMs but it was still a really weird shift.

But now there’s another side of it which is the growing up part. I think everyone’s heard about Hank Green, part of Vlogbrothers and CrashCourse as well as author, getting cancer by now. The video has over 7 million views, which is kind of funny because I didn’t think that many people would give a shit. I hiccuped and cried through the whole video, feeling this strange dread even as Hank spoke of how high his chances of full recovery are and his relentless positivity shone through. Now I logged on this morning and saw Grace Helbig, a channel I watched in tandem with folk like Hannah Hart and Tyler Oakley over a decade ago, announcing she has breast cancer. And again, crying and feeling a hole open in my stomach even as she talks about her very high chances of recovery and there’s certainly no reason to begin feeling hopeless.

You just don’t get this with celebrities, not like this, at least not for me. We hear big news reports about stars being diagnosed with serious illnesses like cancer- or we don’t at all, like Chadwick Boseman. But on YouTube, you have the person wearing a face you’ve known for so long even if you haven’t touched their videos in years telling you personally what’s going on. And it feels so much more real. It also draws your attention much more sharply to time passing and aging. I’m very grateful to be currently stable in my handling of universal inevitabilities like that but y’know it doesn’t change the impact in the moment. As you watch these cool adults that held a position in your mind like a distant cousin suddenly announce these very serious concerns that crop up as you get older, it’s easy to get caught up in recognizing your own passage of time and really the unfairness of these things.

Immediately after watching Grace’s video I tabbed over to watch a more recent video from Hank about his journey going through cancer treatment, which has been... every video since his announcement, obviously. That is his life now. And I was surprised how much it soothed me, despite no major difference in Hank’s attitude and arguably with it being more obvious the effects of cancer are having on him like his chemo making him lose his hair. Hank talks in the video I’m watching about how the number one thing he and other cancer patients he polled on Twitter desired during their time of sickness was social interaction, hanging out, the presence of other people. And it hit me then that, for me at least, these videos were once that for me. And should I ever unfortunately become diagnosed with similar illnesses to Hank or Grace, these videos will be that for me tenfold. I haven’t consistently watched these two in forever but that switch in my brain that gave me that connection I once had to their channels flipped on again watching their videos after these announcements.

I’m growing up with so much mounting hatred for Youtube. As a platform, a company, but mostly nothing to do with that and everything to do with feeling like my youth was based on a really rotten core. More than TV, movies, Hollywood, anything, Youtube was my big media world until I was 18 and it felt like that was just all wasted time. Time spent giving my love and energy to creeps and money grubbers or to those I grew out of with a lingering bitter taste in my mouth. But in the wake of these tragic personal events being shared with me, I’m given a strange sense of comfort and hope that the ‘magic’ lives on in other ways. There is value in what I had growing up and the connections I made to these people online, and the value may have changed or waned over the years but I still reap the positive benefits in the most unlikely of ways. It feels selfish and strange to talk about my own personal security and joy in rediscovering these Youtube channels during their time of hardship but this is why they made these videos ostensibly.

Because the old cliche is true, the same line I heard in so so so so many videos growing up before a friendly face told a personal anecdote or bared their soul to an audience of millions: “Maybe someone out there needs to hear this.”