Chapter Text
I knew I needed to give myself a break. So I went outside, y'know, touched some grass... I had some blue... I tried to relax, I even played some Hypixel, b ut nothing worked! And after a taking few deep breaths, I asked myself...
Is all of this anger coming from a place of jealousy? And I answered myself YES! Yes it is, I have been making content since 2010 and I have nothing to show for it - meanwhile, this dude plays Minecraft for two years and now he has a Streamy! Did I do something wrong? Am I just unlucky?
Did I not make enough videos about Pewdiepie? Should I have kept my face hidden? If I just put a big number followed by "IQ" in some of my video's titles, would people click on them? If I just included enough pictures of me screaming in my thumbnails, would I have a golden play button by now?! I'd even be content with silver! ...And I don't want this to sound like I've only ever done YouTube for the fame or the numbers or the money but it would be FUCKING NICE! I just, I just want something to know that wasting all of this time was worth something! I just want to feel WORTH SOMETHING! Oh, wait, oh god...
Okay, so, obviously a creator needs to exist for people to start becoming fans of them and to develop any sort of community, but, but what if, at some point, it starts to become the other way around? The creator will eventually need the fanbase to propel them to higher and higher levels of popularity! And what if, what if me being so vehemently against fanbase behavior like all of the shipping and everything else - what if that's me being the architect of my own mediocrity? What if, these days, that's just the new normal? Just something that comes along with the job? And what if criticizing it ruins the chances of me ever being gifted an active fanbase?
If that's the case then - and I know this will make me look really bad but, but - I'll take back everything I said! I'll be okay with all of it, I'll even endorse it, I'll praise it all every single chance that I get! I don't care if I have to constantly lie to the people who care about me the most, I don't care about the ramifications of selling out, I don't care about having morals or values, I just want likes! I just want to feel LIKED!
Because, because you know, I have lots of fan art and I thank everyone who's ever drawn me so very deeply, but respectfully, that is not enough! I want MORE! I want to be able to make an account dedicated to my fan art and have it gain over 200 thousand followers, I want people to make "edits" of me, I want people to be unequivocally obsessed with me and everything that I do and say, I want my fans to make accounts where they post daily pictures of me or accounts where they stalk my Spotify activity and post every single song that I listen to and somehow get thousands of followers out of that, I want people to base their entire social media presence out of my face and art of me, I want to labeled as someone's "comfort person" and have people make "comfort threads" that just consist of pictures of me and my Minecraft skin, I want people to find me cute just because of my Minecraft skin, I want people to download my Minecraft skin and 3D model it to make it look like I'm twerking, I want to make knock-off Pop figures of myself and have my fans sell their stock out within minutes, I want to be able to sell ugly merchandise and still have people buy it like crazy, I want people to make xenogenders out of me and their connection to my content, I want my name to become a pronoun, I want people to kin me, I want people to cosplay as the person that I act as in a roleplay, I want people to trend every single god damn funny thing that I say on a livestream, I want people to be so uncomfortably concerned about my sexuality and overall identity, I want someone to write a fanfiction shipping me and my friend and I want the fans of that fanfiction to end up crashing the website that it's hosted on when it updates with a new chapter, and, and I want people to make hypothesize about how big my they think my dick is and I want people to write or draw out their fantasies of me fucking or me getting fucked by my friends, and you know I might legally still be a minor, so it might technically be against the law, but GOD KNOWS THAT HAS NOT STOPPED ANYONE IN THE PAST!
...But what if I screw up? What if, what if I do or say something so unforgivable that people won’t forget about it even after I tweet out an apology? Sometimes, the light at the end of the tunnel is not a light... sometimes it’s a train, and I feel like I might get ran over if I’m not careful enough. The type of people who can and will praise every single one of your actions can just as easily start demeaning them!
What if it gets so bad to the point where people start telling others to not interact with them if they support me? I could stop possible friendships, possible love , all because two people didn't want to talk to each other because their first impressions were of their differing stances on me! And what if my fanbase becomes known for being so incessantly awful that people make entire Twitter accounts dedicated just to making fun of them? I don't know what I'd do.
...Well... well to be fair, I won't even know what I need to do until I get the chance to do it. And, and maybe it just won't be bad! Maybe I'll be perfect! And, I'm better than some of the people who already made it, y'know? I've never said slurs I can't reclaim, I've never sexually roleplayed with someone many years younger than me, I'm not racist, I'm not a felon, I'm funny, I think I have a nice personality, I'm white... I meet the bare minimum for these guys, I don't know why everybody doesn't love me yet. It's not fair!
Well- maybe- Maybe it's because I haven't engaged, you know, I haven't invited anyone to do anything. I haven't explicitly consented to the opening of Pandora's box just yet. ...Y'know what? I think I finally know what I need to do first.
･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ
Aidan, about to film, is once again interrupted by his phone vibrating. It's not a text this time, though, it's from Twitter - a tweet mentioning him, featuring a clip from a livestream of his.
@justformyaidan: OKAY,,, BUT THAT CLIP FROM YESTERDAYS STREAM??? SKJDDLKDJDHG WOW AIDAN LOVES US SO MUCH AND WE REALLY LOVE HIM BACK SO MUCH MORE!!!
Aidan clicks on the video and watches himself play Minecraft and talk to his audience.
AIDAN: Uhh, thank you Karkalicious110 for the bits - uh, how's the latest chapter of- Oh oh wait, hold on, we've already reached our subgoal, I didn't even realize!
RONNIE: Oh let's go!
AIDAN: Yeah! Um, Ronnie, could you be quiet for a second?
RONNIE: Um, make me, bitch~
AIDAN: I will if you keep that up! Um...
RONNIE: Oh no, not while we're streaming~
AIDAN: I think, I think I'm just gonna mute you - how do I do that?
RONNIE: Wait what, wait no don't do that-
Aidan evidently figured out how to mute Ronnie, as he is suddenly silent. He looks directly at the camera.
AIDAN: We got it. Um, now that everyone's here watching I just want to get serious for a moment... I don't even know where to begin, just, um, thank you. I've been doing this for a very long time, you know? It's nice, it's nice to finally know that I've made it. It's nice to know that I finally, finally, have such an absolutely adoring community. And, I know that some other streamers that you might watch will look at our relationship and like, criticize it or find it weird or whatever, but honestly, I just think that they're jealous! Y'know I've never seen anyone as just a number, I see all of you as your own positively adoring fans. It's like, it's like you're all my little kittens, y'know? I pick you up, and you lick me, and we both love it and we both gain something out of it - me obviously more so, 'cause it's not like I'm sending you guys money, but still! Thank you so much, I love each and every single one of you, individually. I love you. Thank you.
As the video plays, we see glimpses into a future where Aidan is yet another creator teenagers stan, featuring such amenities like monthly selfie days and constant congratulations for doing just the bare minimum along with constant compliments even if his boring self doesn't quite deserve them by any means - but also, of course, some of the weirder things as well, including thirsting for this minor and shipping him and his best friend Ronnie together through concepts that would surely make Aidan uncomfortable if he were to ever stumble upon them.
As he views all of this, though, he doesn't care about the weird things, or what he had to do to finally get into this position or the inevitable consequences of being this famous - the only thing he cares about is that he won. It took over a decade, yes, but he has finally achieved his perfect YouTuber fantasy, even if it took sacrificing some privacy and dignity to get there.
He stares directly into the camera, and smiles the widest he ever has, and the widest he ever will.
"It's really working!"