"Hello Laura. Hello Kennedy. Hello Joey. Hello Amber. Hello Becky. Hello Daniel. How are you all doing today?" The chat is swarmed with responses instantly. Filled with a variety of hellos, professions of love and admiration, and a series of different answers to his question. His eyes scramble to find a response to read out loud. "Jessica is crying because of University. Caroline is sleepy. Grace is zazzed. Thats a fun term. "Zazzed." I wonder where that term originated from. How does any slang term find a way to popularity?"
It was very easy for Phil to fall into his live show persona. This persona being very similar to his video one. Both of which are slightly more bright and family friendly than his normal personality. He took to waffling on for minutes at a time about a random topic mentioned in the chat. Starting on a tangent about how slang becomes common knowledge and finding purchase was a good way to start off a live show. After exhausting all possible trains of thought for that particular topic, he turns to the chat. The chat is primarily a stream of many different variations of "I love you Phil!" It is times like this that Phil turns to his predetermined list of topics that he always keeps open on his macbook.
Picking a random name off the top of his head, he says, "Janice says, 'Phil, talk about Vidcon!' Well Janice, I am going to Vidcon in America-" He says in his terrible American accent "- in June. I am currently not sure if I'll be able to go to any other conventions this year or not yet, because it is only January and I am not sure how family vacations will conflict with other conventions around the world. I will keep you updated as soon as I know anything about that," He turns to the chat, expecting to see many different exclamations demanding Phil go to a variety of different countries.
"Heres the thing guys, I love traveling. You all know that I take a yearly vacation with my family to Florida. I have always wanted to go to Japan, but it is no fun to travel alone. Maybe one of you guys should travel with me," He chuckles to himself, afraid of what some of his fans may do just to have that opportunity, "I'm just kidding about that guys. Someday, I'll find the right person to travel with, but for now, I will just travel with my family,"
Phil continues with his live show for another 40 minutes, when he finally decides to wrap it up. Before he ends his show this week, he decides to talk about one more subject, this time dictated by the chat. He glances at the chat reading the first coherent comment he can, "Levi says 'Phan for life!'" She spelled Fan with a PH. What is that about? Is that like fat with a PH? When was that popular? Was that, in like, 2003?" Phil chuckles to himself, marveling at how creative and wonderful his fans are.
He goes back to talking about popular slang and how a term becomes officially considered slang. He decides to pose an experiment. "Lets Urban Dictionary my name, shall we?" He opens a tab on his macbook and goes to Urban Dictionary's homepage. He types 'Phil Lester' into the search box and begins reading the first definition. "Actual ray of sunshine. He is known for being the nicest person on the planet and for appearing on YouTube as AmazingPhil. He is an actual angel. He has a smile of pure gold that radiates immense sunshine and happiness. He loves lions, mismatched socks, and his fans. There is so much more that I could say about him but I think this is probably too long, so, the last thing I would like to say is: Keep smiling, Phil. We love you for the sole reason that you're you. Never lose your adorable, innocent, immature, goofy personality. Never stop being you." He smiles to himself, he is so thankful for his fans, because without them, he would probably be a weatherman, which wouldn't be the worst thing, but he wouldn't be him.
"Thanks to whoever wrote that definition of me. I really appreciate it. That kinda gives me a cheeky idea for my new AmazingPhil video. You will all just have to wait and see." Phil winks at the webcam, fully expecting there to be plenty of gifs of that on Tumblr later today. "Goodbye Sarah. Goodbye Jenny. Goodbye Levi. Goodbye Hannah. Goodbye Lacey. Goodbye." He moves his face toward the camera and covers the webcam with his hands, while he ends the stream.
Phil Lester has been a YouTube "sensation" since he hit one million subscribers in 2013 and received his golden play button from YouTube. His popularity has only grown since then. Before this point, Phil had been on YouTube since 2006, his first video was filmed on a black and white webcam that he had won from a cereal box prize. He never quit YouTube, although it took him a while to find his footing, he did. And he couldn't be happier.
Or maybe he could be. One thing many people wouldn't know about Phil is this, Phil is lonely. Sure he had 4 million subscribers, sure every time he goes outside he gets stopped by a fan, sure he smiles in every one of his videos, but he isn't happy. Not really. What good is a life of fame if all you ever do is sit at home and watch anime alone.
The thing is, now anyone he meets would just be using him as a way to use his popularity. Anyone he meets is a crazy fan, over the age of 50, under the age of 18, or only want to associate with him because of his money and spotlight. Any friendship Phil has tried to make since 2009 has failed miserably. Phil doesn't know why all of these haven't worked out, but they haven't. Fate, destiny, luck? Who knows. But it seems all of these pieces of the universe are completely against Phil finding true companionship.
Phil closes his laptop and stalks his way to his kitchen. He lives in a crappy little flat with one bedroom, one bathroom, and a small kitchen that doubles as a living room. He microwaves some popcorn and returns to his living space. He sets the popcorn on the coffee table while he places his season one Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVD in the Xbox One. He returns to his popcorn and his sofa crease and clicks play. The chuckles at the familiar scene of his favorite show and falls into his similar routine: watch TV till he gets tired, pausing occasionally to pee or refill his Ribena.
When he finally gets tired, it is almost four in the morning and he has watched 6 episodes of Buffy. He clambers his way to his bedroom and practically collapses onto his blue and green checkered duvet. He peels his pants and shirt off, and crawls under the covers, wearing only his underwear. He removes his glasses from his face, having exchanged his contacts for glasses around midnight, and closes his eyes. He is asleep within minutes, dreaming of Buffy and popcorn and friendship.
~
When Phil woke up the next morning he was prepared for a barrage of notifications, as what usually happens following a video upload or a live show. He spent about half an hour scrolling through his twitter mentions, retweeting a drawing a fan did of him in the Ready Player One universe, which we rather enjoyed.
He looks at his calendar, it is Friday, which means he hasn't uploaded a video for 10 days. He has had two live shows since then, but the fans get antsy if he goes more than two weeks without a main channel video. He will have to upload a new video this weekend, in order to avoid the shit storm that is likely to begin at any moment.
Phil types up a quick tweet to his followers, "Filming a new vid today. Keep your eyes open for that this weekend." He threw in the cactus, the molester moon, the video camera, and the laptop emojis to the end of his tweet. Almost as soon as he hit the send button he was bombarded with @replies. Most of them questioning what he was doing for his new video. One person asked for an emoji hint. He replied with an emoji of a rainbow. He wasn't sure how he was going to work that into the video, but he would figure it out.
Phil made himself breakfast, frosties and coffee, before beginning his newest video. The cheeky idea he had involved taking internet quizzes about himself and other YouTubers. It would be a lighthearted fun video to keep his fans appeased while he came up with something else he could do as a more serious and creative thing.
After he finishes his breakfast he puts on a pair of black skinny jeans, and a black jumper with a rainbow dove on the chest. As a way to incorporate his emoji hint into his video. He had a glance at Tumblr earlier and apparently all of his fans got the wrong idea from his hint. They had all assumed he would be coming out. He had answered on formspring way back in 2009 that he was bi, but most often, people forget about that, which he is okay with. Mostly because he has not had a boyfriend or girlfriend in years.
He sets up his camera, facing his bed as always. He clicks record and begins his video with a "Hey Guys." He raises his left hand in a half wave toward the camera. He falls into his persona instantly, starting off with an update on how his most recent house plant is living. Phil is in his element when he is in front of a camera, it took him a while to get there, but over the last 10 years, he has really found his own. His degree at university definitely helps with his editing.
When he finishes his plant update, he moves on to the main content of his video. He starts with an AmazingPhil trivia quiz too see how accurate these quizzes are. He was surprised by how many intimate details people know about his life. He got every one right, then he moved on to another quiz about himself, this one being "What percent Phil Lester are you?" He actually only got 75% causing him to question what the other 25% is. Making a joke about him being part alien. He settles on his last quiz for the day. "Who is your YouTuber BFF? Lets see what this has to say, shall we? I'm going to laugh if it says me."
He beings the quiz with answering a few simple questions like 'What is the most important quality in a friend?', 'Where would you and your friend hang out?', 'Would you live with them?', 'Where would you live with them?', and many more along these levels. He answered as honestly as possible, truly curious to see what the results may be. After answering a few more questions he was given his answer.
"Your YouTuber BFF is Dan Howell aka danisnotonfire. Dan is an absolute meme-loving fuck." He chuckles, and makes a note in his brain to bleep that out. "He is meme trash, spends most of his time on tumblr, is an Internet cult leader, is a sarcastic little piece of shit, but also one of the best human beings ever. He uploads youtube videos which usually revolve around his awkward experiences in life which he re-enacts and uploads to his youtube channel. You and Dan have a similar sense of humor. You're looking for a kind of laid back person who still likes to have fun? Dan Howell is your guy." He closes his laptop with a laugh. "Well there you have it guys, Dan Howell is my YouTube BFF, and there is nothing he can do about it! Mwahahahaha," He rubs his hands together maniacally and busts out laughing. "Sorry about that Dan, I didn't mean to sound evil just then." He laughs and smiles that smile that all his fans love. The one where he sticks his tongue out of the side of his mouth.
"Thats all for today's video. If you liked it go ahead and tickle that like button and you will win a baby sloth! Goodbye," He says with an exaggerated drawn out bye and covers the camera lens with his hands. That video went better than he thought, and it will be very easy to edit. All he has to do is lay the camera footage and the screen capture footage next to each other and remove an awkward silence here and there.
His video is ready to be rendered within two hours and once YouTube has rendered the video he is ready to upload it. First, he has to name it and create a thumbnail. He creates a thumbnail with Dan Howell's photo next to his face, with him looking quizzically towards it. He names the video "MY YOUTUBER BFF: Phil takes quizzes about himself." He prepares his different links and social media posts and hits send.
He then folds himself into his sofa crease to resume the Buffy The Vampire Slayer marathon he started yesterday. He stays here for the rest of the day.