December 10, 2010 at 2 AM, Quebec City, Quebec: Rob

I am not usually one to complain quite this much, but this hotel Wi-Fi is just downright awful. I am still in awe of the fact that I didn't get pinged to death during the recording session because this... This is a whole new level of hell. When you have to wait fifteen minutes for a YouTube video to finish buffering, you know you are doing something wrong.

"Come on Procyon, you can do it, baby. Just a couple more videos and you can take a well-earned rest while I edit. Okay?" The laptop continues whirring, that irritating little circle of lines still spinning in the middle of the video frame. "Please?" The second-to-last bar on my Wi-Fi indicator disappears and I sigh in defeat. "Fine, fine. We can do it now. You are such a crybaby." I pause the video and minimize it before clicking on my editing software to get started on the footage from earlier, reconnecting my little Asus monitor so I can see both editing windows fullscreen. I had spent the last three hours catching up with my social media accounts, mourning my bank account, and stalking TBNRfrags on YouTube. This last mission had taken significantly longer than I had expected and I still can't really tell you anything new about him. The program finishes loading and I get to work, splicing together bits and pieces from the PVP video and popular memes until I am satisfied. I am a perfectionist and I am not afraid to admit it. If I wouldn't enjoy watching my videos, I won't subject my viewers to them.

'Now, what to do with the other one?' I still have not decided what I am going to do with the ultra-awkward parkour video and I have no inspiration on how to fix it up and make it less painful to watch. 'Was it really that bad?' I shrug and sigh, and I hit the render button for the PVP video and set it to upload on December 17th. Right now, I am leaning toward keeping it just because I am running out of time and ideas for videos to last until the 27th. Family reunions and extended holidays are bad enough, but when they happen at the same time, you go weeks without sleep. I am already getting raked over the coals for missing most of the holidays, but Wednesday the 12th is payday and the best I can do. With only two days left to grind out about twenty videos, my stress level is rising right through the roof. I check to make sure my lovely little computer friend is plugged in to charge and grab my coat, deciding to find some dinner while I wait for the Wi-Fi situation to improve. If nothing else, I could come back and sleep until the coffee shop opens and go do my research on their network.

I check my wallet for my room key card and quietly shut the door behind me, careful to leave the lights on so any potential thieves will think I am still keeping watch over my precious Mac. Even the hallway is cold, and I shiver a little as I walk toward the stairs to go back to the lobby. What a shame we can't just /hub like in Minecraft; it would save everyone so much time. The doorman nods from behind his portable TV and I wave as I head out the door to the nearby diner, grabbing a copy of the morning paper on my way out so I won't look like a complete mental case staring into space at the restaurant. For a split second I wish that one of my friends lived close-by but, then again, that would just cause more unnecessary drama.

'I look like I'm homeless.' I snort as the full meaning sinks in.

'But you are homeless.' I brace myself against the wind and step out of the doorway, spotting the warm little diner just a couple doors down, the only light on an empty, dark street. I can feel the hard snow crunching under my feet, just soft enough to send little ice crystals into my shoes. I take my time making the trip, knowing that no one will be waiting up for me at the hotel room to question where I had been and why I left in the first place. I guess it's for the better, though. I knew Vanessa's jealousy and possessiveness had been a little over-the-top and I honestly don't miss her much, but the way she left and the things she did still burn me to the core. I make a mental note to check my Facebook again to make sure she didn't create another fake account to harass me with. The last thing I need is to have to try to explain some of her accusations to my parents.

'You know they would believe you.' I am not so sure about that. She was always very persuasive, at least to me. I quietly open the door to the diner and walk in, tapping my shoes on the doormat to knock some of the powder loose. A waitress looks over from her romantic comedy behind the counter and grabs her notepad, her eyes lingering a little too long on my hair.

"What can I getcha?"

"Black coffee and scrambled eggs." She nods and scribbles down my order, ringing the bell to call the cook back to the kitchen. I find a booth in the farthest corner and sit down, pulling out my phone and opening the camera app to quickly glance at my face. I look like I haven't slept or shaved in a week (and I really haven't) and I have small flakes of snow melting in my messy brown hair. Nothing too surprising, nothing unexpected. I open up Facebook for a minute to see if I have any new mentions or notifications and, to my relief, it looks like Nessa might have finally backed off. This is the best news I have had in months. I open the paper and fish my ballpoint pen out of my coat pocket, skimming the headlines and the weather before I turn to the crossword on the back page, knowing before I start that I will be looking up half of the answers on Google if I decide to finish it. The waitress brings my coffee over with a grim smile and I thank her before she hurries back to her show.

I work half-heartedly on the puzzle while I dream about searching through the apartment listings a few pages back. She had taken everything, everything... Even my bank account is dry. I need to milk my sponsors on YouTube a little more and get my video views up to get a little extra cash before I can even think about leaving the Hotel From Hell with its atrocious Wi-Fi and dilapidated carpet. Even then, I know the smell will linger on in my new apartment for quite a while - it is now embedded in everything I own. I will get a little break when I leave for the holidays but I have to leave my parents' house at some point. My personal little corner of hell, the room at the Archis Inn was the cheapest place I could find short of a cardboard box. Maybe by February I can be out of there and get on with my life, and maybe start using the webcam again to get my views up. I am not ready to start using facecam in my Minecraft videos yet, not when I know the older fans will comment how much better my videos were on the first channel and about how much older I look now. I just can't deal with that load of shit hitting the fan yet. After all, life is really just a giant toilet: when someone decides to flush it, everything goes down the drain at the same time.

'At least I'm not freezing to death in my car without internet.'

'Wow, what a positive thought. You might be only one step ahead of the bear, but at least you aren't getting mauled by it yet.' Let's be honest here - my caustic humor is about all I've got left.

The waitress returns with my food and a pot of coffee before disappearing again, and I am grateful for her silence. I grab the bottle of maple syrup from the next table and smother my eggs in it before turning back to my phone, pulling up YouTube this time. I scroll through the comments on yesterday's videos, smiling a few times at jokes and highlights from the commentary. To me, this is one of the best parts of the job. Knowing that I made someone's day or helped them through a hard time does the same for me, and I know I wouldn't even be in this good of a situation without the support from my fans.

My online life is great: I have amazing friends, an awesome career, tons of opportunities, and just over three hundred thousand subscribers on my Minecraft channel. But as great as all of that is, my offline life is just as shitty. I am living in a shabby hotel room hundreds of kilometers away from family and I can't tell any of my friends I am here. I'm so broke right now that I'm beginning to regret eating breakfast at a restaurant instead of fishing a pack of crackers out of the vending machine down the hall at three in the morning when no one will see me. I haven't skipped taking my pills at all during this whole fuck fest, but I don't know if I will have enough money to get my prescription refilled next month when it comes due. I am trying so hard and I keep getting back up, but one person can only fall down so many times. And I can't keep asking other people to help me get back up and put all my shit back together for me. That isn't their job.

'This is why you don't have a job.'

'Spot on, Mitch, spot on.' I could get a job, a "real" job, if I wanted to, but I know the second I stop putting all of my effort into YouTube my channel will be over. That's how it works, isn't it? Everyone thinks being a YouTuber is all sunshine and glory, that it's easy like Sunday morning and it pays better than a winning lottery ticket. But it's not, it doesn't. It's great, don't get me wrong, but it is by no means easy or lucrative, at least not when you start out and depend on two measly sponsors to put eggs on your table. During my little stint with Machinima before all of that crashed and burned, I was the golden boy. I could take vacations and buy a new computer on a whim with just the cash in my pocket, and I could sleep at night without wondering how many more days I have left before I will be in my car in front of a grocery store, clinging to the blue Snuggy Mom bought me for Hanukkah last year as a joke.

In some ways I am glad that all of the drama with Mike and Nessa is over, and realistically there was no way I would be able to face the guys at Machinima after all that crap went down. I guess for now I will just be content that no one can see how I am living right now and finish churning out videos for the next couple of weeks. Videos feed my channel, fill my bank account, and help me escape from reality. What better drug can there be?

I drain my coffee cup and leave a couple of dollars on the table before I go to the counter to pay the bill. I try not to cringe as I slide my debit card and punch in my PIN, feeling every last cent of that nine dollar meal drain out of my account like blood from my veins. I thank her and let her return to her movie, tossing the newspaper in the trashcan on my way out. I won't have time to finish the puzzle when I get back to my room: I have too much work to do.

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December 10, 2010 at 2 PM, Fort Worth, TX: Preston

"I swear, if I have to read Romeo and Juliet one more time before I graduate, I'mma slap a itch," I groan, throwing my English textbook into my backpack and slamming my locker shut. I can't even tell you how much I hate the week before winter break. Like, what even are you? You serve no purpose!

"Wouldn't it just be better to scratch it?" Kenny asks, sliding his backpack on and walking backwards away from me.

"Scratch what?"

"The itch?" I glare at him and his stupid grin. "Okay, okay, I'm not funny."

"You're just now figuring that out, you noob?"

"Hey, you're just jealous Hanlon liked my rendition of Beowulf better than yours."

"At least mine didn't sound like a presidential speech."

"You need to project your voice when you speak in a room full of real people. You can't always just sit there and spit into your microphone."

"Yeah, thanks Obama."

"Pfft, whatever dude. I'll catch you tomorrow?"

"Yeah, see ya. Don't forget about trig on Wednesday, got it? I know you're gonna forget again and I can't always be there to save your butt."

"Nah, man, my butt's good. Bye."

"Bye." I dig my keys out of my pocket and head out to the parking lot along with everyone else in the school. I hurry over to my car and jump in, but I don't make it in time to hightail it out of there. A huge line has formed to escape from the lot and here I am, at the back of the line. "Curse you, Kenny."

Since I'm trapped in my parking spot, anyway, I might as well check my texts and e-mails and stuff. Kenny sent me a stupid picture two hours ago, Mom tagged me in something on Facebook, four of my videos finished uploading, two videos were published, eBay wants me to update my PayPal info again... Nothing from Mitch.

Maybe he isn't home yet. Montreal is only an hour ahead of me so he might still be at school or something. Since there's no real rush to get home, I can stop by Target and get some batteries and grab something to eat before I try to suffer through Shakespeare Spark Notes and polar coordinates. I nod to myself and take the ugliest selfie in the world and send it to Kenny while I wait for someone to let me out of my spot. It takes a while but I finally find a nice person and speed out onto the main road. Thirty minutes, a pack of batteries, some beef jerky, and a bag of Red Vines later, I'm sitting in my car in front of Five Guys with a burger, reading through comments on my YouTube videos.

"If there was any more spam here I'd swear I lived in Hawaii..." I remove a couple more advertisements for free codes and see that a new emoji war has erupted on the YouTubez. Apparently there's now a poop emoji, and someone has smeared it all through the comment section on two of my videos. "Nice, dude. I see you just couldn't keep it to yourself this time." I laugh at my own joke and continue scrolling, seeing a few map recommendations and one really badly spelled hate comment. I reply to her and a few of the less offensive comments before moving on to Mitch's channel. He hasn't posted either of the videos from last night yet but I hadn't really expected him to.

"Not big surprise." I pull up Rob's channel to see if he posted our videos, but he hasn't uploaded anything today. I hadn't actually had a chance to check him out last night because Dad had started pounding on my door in the middle of my editing, before I'd had a chance to watch any of his videos. After an initial Google search I'd learned that his name is Robert Latsky and that he lives somewhere in Quebec, Canada, but that's about it, other than the obvious fact that he makes videos. Unlike some of the other YouTubers I've met, Rob's pretty secretive about his private life. My quest had ended at his channel Facebook page, where the only pictures tagged to the account were either fan art of his Minecraft skin or group photos of other YouTubers, most of the captions saying they wished he could've been there or joking that he wasn't invited. It sounds weird to be so interested in what someone looks like, but when you work in a community that's so focused on visibility and being relatable, it's surprising to find someone with a lot of subscribers who hasn't really put themselves out there. And Rob has quite a few subscribers - even more than me.

Mitch said something about Rob's webcam breaking so he must've used it at some point. I wonder if he recorded with it?'I search for "Woofless facecam," "Woofless cam," and "Woofless face reveal" to no avail. I settle for watching a couple of his newest videos with other Minecrafters I know, and a video with Jerome and Rob singing the song from the old He-Man meme makes me choke on my food. In the course of my life on the internet, I've seen a lot of trolls, but those two are two of the biggest trolls I've ever seen. Gamers like them make videos less about the video game and more about the commentary, which makes the whole thing ten times better and makes you want to keep watching even after the games've gotten dull. This is the kind of stuff memes are made of and there's no way I can come up with this kind of gold by myself. I need to start recording with other people more often and people like Mitch, Jerome, and Rob are exactly the kind of people I need to make that happen. Plus they take a lot of the boredom and self-consciousness out of making videos. I need these people in my life.

I close the window on my phone and consider messaging Rob while I finish my burger. Would it be too soon if I just met him yesterday? I mean, I don't wanna look desperate but I don't wanna blow him off, either. What's the etiquette for this kind of thing, anyway? Should I wait until he publishes the videos we recorded or do I just go for it? Maybe I should wait for Mitch to message us then try to talk to him? I decide to go with this plan and to spend the extra time trying to learn more about this guy. Does he usually do collabs or is it just an occasional thing? What if he doesn't record Minecraft a lot and he just wanted to record with Mitch a couple times? Mitch is in both of his videos that I've seen and in the ones we recorded last night. Would he even want to record with me again if Mitch isn't in the video, too? Does he even do one-on-one recordings or does he just like doing group recordings with a bunch of people? Would anyone else want to record with us? Does he like parkour and PVP maps or does he just do those because Mitch picks them and Mitch is Mitch?

For gosh sakes, you're not marrying the guy! Just message him and ask him to Skype or something. It isn't that big of a freaking deal. But there's still the problem of whether or not he would actually acknowledge me if I did message him. When he said I could DM him, did he actually mean it or was he just trying to get away from the awkwardness? There aren't that many YouTubers who are willing to record with people with smaller channels and... I guess I could've been nicer to him yesterday. I was just really disappointed that my long-awaited plans had been ruined at the last minute by some guy I'd never even heard of. Things would've gone much better if Mitch'd let me know ahead of time there was gonna be someone else in the recording so I could look him up real quick and see who I was dealing with. This sucks. The anticipation is already killing me and I haven't messaged him yet. Why can't this whole thing be easy like it is for Pewdiepie or Sky or Mitch or the other big people? I sigh and crumple up the wrapper from my burger and stash it in the cup holder next to my pop.

"Guess I better get going. Math doesn't do itself." I can't help but chuckle at that. I crack myself up sometimes.

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December 10, 2010 at 6 PM, Fort Worth, TX: Preston

'great banter last night dood. up for another round on friday?' I pounce on the keyboard so fast my math paper flies off the desk, but I don't care. This week just might be the best week my channel has ever seen. Like I'd turn down an opportunity to record with BajanCanadian!

'sounds good, time?'

'same time, same place. is that good for you?'

'ofc, see you there!' Should I ask about Rob? Or would that be too weird?

"I'll just ask him to record again this week and if it matches up, it matches up. Don't wanna be inviting people without Mitch's permission." I nod and decide to finish suffering through my homework before I try contacting Rob. I could use a little more time to do detective work on him, anyway. "Just fourteen more problems to go, then I can pretend to have a life. Heh."

***

I breeze through the problems like a tornado, but the stress from doing homework quickly turns into stress over talking to Rob. I really don't know much about this guy or his channel, except that he lives in Canada and we know a lot of the same Minecraft YouTubers. I don't know anything about his career goals or his reputation, and that scares me. Any strikes I get against me now'll  lose me subscribers and they'll also be thrown in my face longer and harder than they would if I was a bigger YouTuber. You don't see as many people going off on Mitch for accidentally cussing or saying something offensive as you do people like OmniMC, but when they do, there're even more people defending them.

Everything'll be so much better when this isn't so stressful and when everything comes together. If I could get a million subscribers I would be set for life. After that, the channel grows itself and I just have to prod it along a little bit instead of spoon-feeding it every three seconds. I wonder how Rob got so many viewers... Mitch did Hunger Games with Jerome tagging along and they roped a couple other people along for the ride but I'd never heard of Rob before yesterday. He hasn't done that many collabs with bigger YouTubers (at least that I know of) but he has three times as many subscribers as me.

And I went ham as soon as I hit ten thousand when people would talk to me. What's up with this guy? I slam my math book shut and jam it into my backpack with my paper still wedged between the pages. This is what's most interesting about MrWoofless. Where did he even come from? I return to the Google tab I'd left open last night, but the only page that seemed to have any further information was a Wiki page.

"And we all know how reliable those are." I remember browsing through mine one time and seeing Keeley's name listed as 'Kelsey,' and it'd only recently been updated to 'Kiley.' I search his name one last time, but the fan-made Wiki page I found last night is the only thing that pops up and it has more information about some other guy he used to record with than about him. But he knows how to speak some French.

"Okay, that's it!" I close the window and push my chair back from the desk in frustration. Two hours. I've spent two hours of my life stalking this guy online and I can't tell you anything important or interesting about him. He has to be doing this intentionally. It feels like he's hiding something but I have no clue what it could be. It's really unnerving to rely on someone you don't know anything about to market your channel. "Now the real question is: can I trust this guy?" I haven't found anything negative about him - or positive. There's just nothing. And he's in character in all of the videos on his channel, which doesn't give you any idea about who he actually is.

You're driving yourself crazy over this. Just message the guy and see what happens. Maybe you can talk to him for a little bit before you record and you can learn about him from him. There's no point in putting it off any longer. I roll back over to the computer and pull up his YouTube channel. Clicking the message icon on his channel page feels like opening that mystery report card you get right before summer where you don't really know what it says and it just might get you grounded for four months. Just chill out. It's just a DM, for gosh sakes!

'Hey, it's Preston from the recording yesterday. Are you still up to record again? Hit me up with some times so we can work it out. Thanks!' I send the message at 7:14 and I sit there and wait. And wait. And wait. At about 7:30 Mom group texts us that Dad'll be bringing take-out home and she's gonna be a few minutes late. I glare at my monitor for a couple more seconds and decide it'd be in my best interest to just go downstairs. Mom's guilt trip mind game is the worst game in the world.

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December 10, 2010 at 11 PM, Quebec City, Quebec: Rob

The battery is dying and the beep scares the absolute holy shit out of me. I jolt awake at the table and stare stupidly at the computer for a second before panicking and grabbing my phone. Luckily I had only lost about four hours to sleep. The wave of relief immediately mixes with stress before it comes crashing down on my head. How can my life be so dull but still feel like a roller coaster?

"How is it going there, babe? Are you done yet?" The laptop keeps on whirring, and I feel like it would be rolling its eyes at me if it were alive, saying 'Of course not.' It beeps again and I plug it in before it can threaten to shut itself down in protest. I swipe the touchpad and see that seven of the nine videos have finished rendering and that today's videos have finally been posted. "I guess YouTube got over its tantrum. Are you still mad at me, too?" Procyon keeps working, oblivious to my question. "Fine, then. See if I defrag your drives on Saturday."

'Are you flirting with a laptop? Has it really come to this?' I can't tell if it's more funny or pathetic, but this gorgeous, glowing silver beast has become my new best friend. I can feel my desktop computer glaring daggers at me from the corner, but I have no physical internet connection here I can use to titillate my primary PC, my other true love. I gently wipe away the dust that has collected on Procyon's screen and check to see how much longer the last two videos will take. 'That is at least forty-five minutes. That means I have at least forty-five minutes to kill before I can call it a night.'

After spending eleven hours grinding through a new modded "Let's Play" to air over my fifteen day absence, I can see Minecraft blocks when I close my eyes. It haunts my dreams, too, and I spend all of my life mining through cave systems and killing Creepers, whether I am awake or not. I love it and I am grateful for it but... Thank God for the holiday season. I really, really need a break. I switch back over to the game and check my supply grinders. When four hours only gets you a fraction of the materials you need, you know you are using creative mode. I spawn in a couple extra stacks of cow hide and white wool and rearrange the chests to make it seem like the droppers placed them there. There is only so much I can do before I'm running on Mitch Time - and Mitch Time only works for Mitch.

'At least the cactus grinder works.' The chest is almost halfway filled with cacti, which is ten times more than I need. 'It looks like our base is going to be green... Maybe we can do a flower theme?' I can't help but grin at the inevitable comment war that is going to ensue on this video, just like it has on so many others. It will be all-encompassing: girls, boys, fans, haters, body parts, name-calling, love, hate, religion, philosophy, trivia, thumbs-up wars, emojis, spam, pixel art... Some of these people don't even bother watching the videos anymore. Regardless of their conclusion (if they can even reach one this time), I can rest assured that the whole thing will be absolutely hilarious. 'The best part is that not one of them knows the answer, either. They are all fighting over something none of them can prove because it only exists in my head where I am the only one who knows and controls the truth.' The internet is such a strange and fascinating place. Where else can you find hundreds of people squabbling over some guy's sexual orientation without him ever actually talking about it? 'It feels like I'm back in a really bad classic literature class.'

I tab back over to YouTube and watch the little green bar creep slowly to the end goal, but it is just too depressing to watch. I grab my phone and check my Facebook accounts and my e-mail, and there I find the most interesting thing I have seen all day: a PM from PrestonPlayz. Mitch had messaged me earlier on Skype to apologize for yesterday's recording session and asked if it was alright for him to use the videos on his channel. I think that Preston and I might be cool now, but this was a whole new level of unexpected. Now he wants to be friends and record together?

'This guy goes zero to a hundred real fucking quick. He was glaring at my Minecraft character yesterday like it would give him an insta-kill. What is going on here?' My paranoia might be setting in a bit here but people don't usually do a complete one-eighty like this overnight. This is unsettling. 'Is he screwing with me?' I open a new tab on my laptop and pull up his channel to see if he posted yesterday's videos. I watch both of them all the way through and read through the descriptions and comments, but I don't find any derisive jokes or suspicious edits that might indicate ulterior motives.

'Could he really just want to record with me?'

"What do you want, man?" Procyon keeps humming right along like I am not even there. I consider all possible sides of the conundrum and I can't see any signs of him trying to screw me over. Even if he tries, what is the worst thing he can do? He has no way of knowing my address or phone number, I have no massive skeletons in the closet he can use against me, and he has no financial control over me. The worst he can do is spread a rumor about me or make a hurtful video, but I don't really care about that. My fans will do more to him than I could, anyway. In this game of YouTube war, I control the nuke. I click on the reply button and tell him I am available tomorrow afternoon to record and I ask if we can record games on Hypixel so I can unlock more kits. This way, I can scope him out without giving him direct access to my computer or my location. "Check and mate, bub."