In Real Life: My Journey to a Pixelated World

  Violence Is Never the Answer

  To this day, I’m horrified that I pushed my mom during our fight. I know that it was a heat-of-the-moment thing, but I wish I’d had more self-control. If you’re in the middle of an argument and you can feel it escalating to the point where you want to push or shove or even hit the other person, take a deep breath and walk away. Winning a verbal fight isn’t worth the damage you can cause if it’s getting you so worked up that you might strike someone. Go to your room, punch the mattress, and wait for the feelings to pass. Never be the one to take an argument to a physical place.

  New Year’s Eve Resolutions

  A lot of people promise a lot of crap on New Year’s Eve, only to promptly forget all about whatever it was they said the next day. And you know what? That’s just fine. It’s part of the American tradition. But if you’re really looking to make a big change in your life, New Year’s Eve can be a great milestone marker to use for charting progress. So instead of getting drunk, blurting out that you’re going to exercise more, and then spending New Year’s Day hungover and eating nachos on the couch, take New Year’s Eve as a time to write out a set of goals for yourself. Hang them up next to your bed or your desk so that you’re constantly reminded throughout the year of the objectives you’ve set for yourself.

  Chapter 10

  The Road to Recovery

  Once I was back at school, having a dorm room all to myself was both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, I had a place where I could be alone. On the other hand, I was alone ALL OF THE TIME. I still had no friends. Amanda had ended up transferring to another school, but Chloe was still around. Dreading the thought of another semester of eating solo, I sucked up my pride and apologized to her about the night I left her and Amanda after the party.

  I just don’t want things to be weird between us anymore, I texted her.

  Chloe accepted my apology (even though I still didn’t think I’d done anything wrong), but she also made me work really hard to get her friendship back. As a sort of punishment, I always had to escort her back to her dorm room anytime we hung out. I needed to be her little bodyguard. It was exhausting, and luckily she kept me on a leash only for the first couple of weeks before she finally loosened her grip. Socially, things eased up for me. I managed to make a few other friends. But I still hated being there. It didn’t feel like the right place for me. I felt like I was just treading water.

  I doubt it was just coincidence that Chloe started being nice to me around the time of one of WSP’s biggest successes up to that point. Toward the end of January, Brittany and I posted a video of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” done entirely in beat box style. YouTube ended up featuring it on its home page a few days later, along with three other videos from other users. Lady Gaga saw ours and tweeted about it, and WinterSpringPro exploded. We got around 20,000 subscribers in that one day alone.

  I knew that I was doing something right with my life. Chloe had to give me some begrudging respect since all the time I spent in front of my computer was amounting to something. She didn’t bug me as much after that about not wanting to go out to parties, but she wasn’t partying as much either.

  Since my plan was still to try and transfer to Emerson, I threw myself into my film classes. The only problem was that none of my previous experience making videos got me anywhere with my teacher. We were allowed to use only one kind of camera that was confusing to work with, and the final images looked awful. Worse, we were required to use an antiquated editing system, which was way more complicated than it needed to be. I’d learned how to use Adobe Premiere Elements when I was just fifteen, and I hated that I wasn’t allowed to use my own software. The process for checking out a school-owned camera to use for our homework assignments took forever, and trying to return it was just as tedious. Plus, my own camera was of a much better quality.

  There were also severe restrictions on the types of things we had to film: assignments had to be shot exactly as the teacher wanted, and they didn’t allow any room for creativity. Everything was just about setting up camera shots, getting wide angles or mediums or close-ups. There was no focus on the story, and stories were what I was interested in. Everything I was making on YouTube was way more fun. When I tried to talk to the teacher about it, he dismissed me; he didn’t want to hear about anything we had worked on in the past. To him we were all just stupid teenagers who didn’t know anything about film.

  Our big final project at the end of the semester was to shoot a documentary. I chose to do mine on a company I worked for during a summer in high school. Juniper Farms is a sixty-five year-old family-run company that specializes in home heating oil services and ice-cream delivery. Random, I know. But since I had a relationship with it, I knew I’d have lots of access and interview time. I hated the school camera and editing equipment so much that I ended up using my own instead. I figured I could export the final product to the school’s editing software system. It didn’t work, and the teacher knocked an entire grade off my final project so that I got a B instead of an A.

  I did have an English teacher who was incredibly supportive of my video work, though, and she cheered me on in my decision to reapply to Emerson. For certain assignments, she would let me create short films instead of writing papers. For example, we were supposed to write a paper on someone we considered a hero, and she let me turn in a music video I made about my sister Nicole. The video ended up being really morbid. It was a montage of me in a graveyard crying, cut with videos of us as kids, and then us getting into a car crash where she died but I survived. The class was totally silent after I played it. I think they were all really weirded out, and everyone thought my sister was dead. Even my teacher was freaked, but she still ended up writing me a glowing recommendation letter for my reapplication to Emerson, and I submitted a new five-minute film. I stuck with the horror theme, but I tried to make it more noir and spookier instead of an outright slasher film. It was about a boy being haunted by a mysterious ghost-like stranger who made him sleepwalk. I called it “Evil Insomniac.”

  I ended up getting wait-listed. It was incredibly frustrating. I felt that I was so close to my dream, and now it was dangling just out of reach.

  I was still going home on the weekends but continued to avoid my mom as much as possible. We never discussed what had happened over winter break, but it’s not like there was ever a chance. She was still drunk a lot of the time, but Bob finally persuaded her to go to rehab. Again.

  I know it sounds cold, but I had finally hit the point where I lost all respect for her. Our relationship was broken, and I didn’t see the warrior in her anymore. She’d become a helpless person who sucked the energy out of life, and I wanted no part of it. The wall of self-protection that I’d been building was finally completed. I didn’t trust that she had any intention of getting better. She had started and stopped drinking so many times by that point that I didn’t see what sort of difference another trip to rehab could make.

  She went in for another thirty-day program, and after about two weeks I got a message from Bob letting me know that the center was hosting a family day, where the patients could be reunited with their loved ones in a big group setting. I had no interest in seeing her until she had at least a month of sobriety under her belt, but Bob insisted that showing our support was an important part of her recovery. And that is how, one warm spring Saturday afternoon, I ended up at a state park located a few towns over from Marlborough with a bunch of recovering addicts and their families.

  I saw Mom sitting at a picnic table as soon as we got out of the car. She looked healthier, with some color in her cheeks and the dark circles under her eyes gone. I had a sudden spark of hope that this would be the last time she’d be in rehab. But I also felt that I needed to protect myself from getting my expectations destroyed. My emotions kept swinging back and forth between not believing in her and telling myself not to give up hope, that it was just a matter of time before she got better for good. My sister and little brother were
there as well, and since I was so torn between my emotions, I let them do most of the talking, choosing instead to hang back. And after studying the crowd, I suddenly wanted to leave. I was uncomfortable around the other families and their junkie relatives. Watching all the tearful reunions happening around me was too raw, and I still wasn’t ready to forgive my mother. My jumbled thoughts kept swirling: I didn’t have any sympathy for her situation, but I also felt incredibly guilty for not having any sympathy.

  “I’m so glad you came, Joey,” she told me. “I want to introduce you to some of the friends I’ve made.”

  The last thing I wanted to do was meet the other alcoholics my mom was hanging out with. I was scared that instead of attending AA meetings together when they got out, I’d just end up seeing them all together at my mom’s kitchen table chugging beer.

  I think I lasted about ten minutes before I told my mom that I wasn’t feeling well and was going to sit in the car. She looked disappointed, and I tried to avoid eye contact as I gave her a quick hug good-bye. I ran off before anyone could stop me. I slumped down in the backseat of Bob’s car as far as I could. More than anything else, I just wished my mom could be normal.

  Another complication was that I had started experimenting with drinking myself, the way most other freshmen in college do. Was this where I was headed? I didn’t think so. The few times I’d had a couple of mixed drinks, I’d felt all warm and fuzzy, but never mean or out of control. With my mom, it was like alcohol flipped a switch inside her and turned her into a completely different person. If I felt myself starting to get a little messy, there was always a part of me that made me stop. I couldn’t understand why my mother wasn’t the same way. I understand now that alcoholism is a disease, and I know how lucky I am not to have it. Especially since now that I’m over twenty-one, it’s fun to go out to a bar with friends. But I still have very little tolerance for people who insist on going out drinking and getting out of control.

  When my family finally got back to the car, I asked how the rest of the visit had been.

  “Really good,” said Bob. “She wished you had stayed longer but she understands why you didn’t. Recovery takes a long time.”

  He wasn’t kidding. Mom was back at home a few weeks later and seemed fine. In fact, for about six months everything kept getting better and better. She returned to her old self, laughing and joking and being supportive and interested in what was going on in my life. I watched her interact with Jett, now three years old, the same way she had taken care of me when he was my age, swinging him around in her arms and singing. All the love that had been suppressed by the alcohol came right back to the surface, and she spread her joy around our whole family. It felt too good to be true.

  And, sadly, it was. That half-year was amazing, but out of nowhere she went back to drinking. I think this is a battle she will always be fighting. All I can do is be there for her as much as possible. Our relationship has gotten much stronger over the years. I can forgive her for a lot of what happened. I’ve also learned to not be ashamed of who she is. When I first started talking about her on YouTube, I was amazed at how much support I got, as well as how many other kids have had similar—or much worse—experiences. If I can talk openly about her, maybe it will help other kids with alcoholic parents feel a little less alone. My relationship with Mom continues to be off and on, but even during the off periods, I still hold on to that image I had of her as a child—the warrior woman, the mom who danced with me and encouraged all of my imaginary games. I now know that person will always be inside her.

  Alcoholism Is a Disease

  Alcoholism is a chronic disease, which means it will last a lifetime. Luckily, it can also be kept under control through treatment. The problem is that the alcoholic has to want to get better, and that’s usually the biggest hurdle to overcome. My mom has been in and out of rehab many times, and each time she’s been released I’ve hoped it would be the time that sobriety would stick. So far it hasn’t, but even if there ever does come a year, two, or even five that she remains sober, it’s something she will struggle with her whole life. Staying better will require constant diligence with the help of resources like AA meetings, therapy, and lots and lots of communication with family and friends.

  Some Sobering Statistics

  If you live with an alcoholic parent and feel that you’re alone in the world, here are some figures from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism that will help put your position into a larger perspective:

  ♦ Ten percent of American children live with a parent who has a problem with alcohol.

  ♦ According to the most recent study, 17 million adults have some sort of alcohol use disorder.

  ♦ Nearly 88,000 people die annually from alcohol-related causes. It’s the third-largest preventable cause of death in the United States.

  On Forgiveness

  No matter what my mom puts me through, I will always forgive her. Forgiving someone for his or her mistakes is probably one of the most impor—tant things you can do in your lifetime, and it will make you a better, happier person. These three people summed it up better than I ever could:

  “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” —Gandhi

  “Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.” —Martin Luther King Jr.

  “True forgiveness is when you can say, ‘Thank you for that experience.’ ” —Oprah Winfrey

  Chapter 11

  California, Here We Come

  At the end of my freshman year, Emerson officially rejected me. Again. The only thing that kept me from spiraling into a deep depression was my decision to travel with Brittany to the very first VidCon, a conference in Southern California that was sort of modeled after Comic-Con, only it was billed for “People Who Love Online Media.” That was us. A lot of our online friends, like iJustine and Shane Dawson, were going to be there, so we booked a flight to go and join them. Even better, Meghan, my online crush, was going to be there too. She needed a place to stay, so we decided that she would crash with us.

  It was Brittany’s first time ever on an airplane and she was sort of freaked out. She didn’t want to go anywhere near the window and kept her eyes squeezed shut during take-off. We recognized a few other YouTubers at the Boston airport, but no one we knew personally. They were mostly the kids who posted videos about blowing different things up in microwaves (not that I was in any position to judge!).

  I couldn’t wait to get to Los Angeles. I’d never been there before, so we decided to stay an extra two days after the conference to explore the city. I pictured palm trees, an endless blue sky, and a steady, perfect 73 degree air temperature. What we got instead was nonstop rain. The city seemed gloomy and depressing, not at all like the glamorous paradise I’d envisioned. Everything seemed really dirty and ugly, just an endless stream of strip malls. Still, we were too psyched to let anything get to us. We’d booked a room at the Hyatt Regency at Century Plaza, where the convention was taking place. I was hoping that we might get to meet a few of our fans, but nothing prepared for me for the first group of girls who started screaming our names as we walked through the lobby to check into our rooms.

  “We love you!” they kept shouting and squealing before asking Brittany and me for autographs.

  “Did that just actually happen?” I asked her once they left and we made it into the elevator.

  “That was so cool,” she said. “It’s too weird!”

  We met up with Meghan after we checked in and showed her to our room. It was so bizarre to finally meet this girl whom I felt so close to for so long for the first time in the flesh. I gave her a huge hug hello and was surprised at how tiny she was under her baggy hoodie. Her almond-shaped eyes peered out from under her bangs, making her look like a little woodland pixie. I still had feelings for her, but there wasn’t any sort of physical spark. Emotionally, however, everything was great. It felt like reuniting with a childhood best friend.

>   Compared to what it’s become now, VidCon was tiny that first year. There were a few scheduled autograph-signing sessions with bigger YouTubers like Smosh and Lisa Nova, along with a few sponsor booths. But for the most part, it consisted of a lot of walking around and meeting people, many of whom we’d had a lot of contact with but never in real life. It was always crazy when someone recognized us, but for the most part, it was us freaking out over seeing other YouTubers whom we were seeing in person for the first time. There was one in particular, a musician named Luke Conard, who ended up becoming a pretty big part of my life later.

  We knew we wanted to approach iJustine since she’d appeared in two of our videos and I had become pretty friendly online. But she was still basically a celebrity to us, so we waited in a huge line for her meet-and-greet session. When it was our turn, she recognized us immediately.

  “I love you guys!” she said. We chatted for a bit longer before we realized that we were holding up the line. But then she said that she wanted to chat with us some more and suggested that we all get coffee after VidCon.

  Brittany and I exchanged glances. It was one thing to finally meet one of our idols, but to have her ask us out for coffee took it to a whole other level.

  “That would be awesome,” I said. “We’re sticking around for a couple of extra days.”

  She gave us her number, and I think that’s when everything started to really sink in. We weren’t there just as fans; we were an actual part of this fast-growing community. We belonged there.

  The moment that truly changed our lives forever, though, was meeting Lisa Nova. She was a major deal in the world of YouTube. Not only had she been the first YouTuber to cross over to mainstream television, as a cast member on MADtv, she was one of the cofounders of Maker Studios, a company based in Los Angeles where the biggest and best YouTubers got to meet up and collaborate on videos and cross-promote each other. We saw her chatting with a few people in the convention main hall, and I turned to Brittany. “We have to talk to her. No matter what.”