Twelve months ago, I stood in my living room and told you all that I wanted to be more
visionary.
[whisper echo] Vision! ♫ dream sequence harps play ♫
I'm always working on something, doing something.
I'm always busy with something.
But why?
What is it doing?
And what am I working towards?
That's where I'm at for 2016.
I'm gonna be more visionary.
[whisper echo] Vision!
Instead of here trying to do all the little things that make me feel like I'm an adult,
make me feel like I'm doing grown up life correctly.
Instead of busying myself with those things, I'm going to think bigger.
Bigger.
[slow motion] Bigger.
[whoosh] About four months later, this happened.
[whoosh]
Beyonce.
Listen. Me and my girls, we're gonna book a retreat right now in the Texas Hill Country.
We're gonna wear our hair product free.
If you got baby hairs wear that.
If you got afros, wear that [Bobby screams] EVELYN!!!!!!!!
We are going to be dressed in the latest doily fashions, and you can stay mad!
And you can stay mad!
[slow motion] And you can stay mad!
[whoosh]
[Kenyan accent] What can I say, eh?!
Is that manifest?!
[laughs] Okay...
♫ soft hip-hop beat plays ♫ Hey YouTube World! It’s me, Evelyn.
Happy New Year.
I know 2016 is over and done with and we off that now, but you know, just oblige me, mkay?
A sista gotta reflect, alright?
On a public forum.
Grab a beverage.
Stay hydrated.
My only resolution for 2016 was to move with a sense of purpose.
See the bigger picture.
Not get caught up in the trap that is what I think is “adulting".
To stand firm in my knowledge of myself up until this point, so that I can say yes to
the things that I want and hell naw to the things that I don’t and can’t nobody make me
feel bad.
Y’all know that I go ghost on YouTube, alright?
I be here, and then I don't be here, alright?
But the truth of the matter is, it's not my job to make you videos.
But it's my desire.
And like a lot of desires we have, sometimes the desire cuts off, and I desire to go eat
tacos, you know what I'm saying?
I desire to have friends.
But for the past couple years, I always come back to participate in VEDA: Vlog Every Day
in April.
It's also August, but that’s my birth month, so y'all really not gon' catch me in the interwebs
while I'm celebrating my birth.
Okay?
So a few days before VEDA started in April, I literally sat down and wrote out everything
I wanted to get out of VEDA in 2016.
What content could I make that on this platform that would make me happy, make y’all happy
as viewers, and make me better at stuff, whether it's being a humorist, being an entertainer,
being writer, a commentator, you know what I'm saying, an editor, mkay?
All those things.
I am all the things.
For 30 days, I did not do anything else but make videos.
Some of y'all have just finished Vlogmas.
Some of y'all struggled through Vlogmas, didn't finish.
Y'all know how hard it is.
So for all of April, I did not go anywhere, I did not do anything, I did not see anybody.
All I did was come home after work, and in the like, five hours before midnight, I had
to write, film, edit, publish--
But I had a vision, you know what I'm saying.
There was something that I wanted to achieve within myself, okay?
Inside myself.
Because I am a self-motivated type person and y'all enjoying the content is just like,
the icing on the honey bun, you know what I'm saying, but I can only give myself the honey bun.
Can't nobody give me honey buns.
The day I went to my friend David’s house to watch Lemonade premiere on HBO, I felt
so guilty.
I was out here living my magical black life watching television instead of filming that
night's video.
Because I started VEDA with intention, because I knew what I was doing and I was working
towards it, I knew-- I know this sounds weird-- I knew Beyonce would see the video.
Because the world is not that big.
It's really not that big.
We inhabit the same world in fact, do we not?
And I feel like the degrees of separation are such that.
With the Internet being as it may-- [laughs]
So when y’all started sharing that video, and sharing it and sharing, and I noticed
it was starting to go beyond my crevice of the Internet and beyond Internet Cousins,
you know what I'm saying, I was like — bet!
But that’s where my vision stopped.
That's like, as high as I thought it could be.
That it would-- that the video would just enter, you know what I'm saying, her iris
- what is that? iris? pupil? -
- that it would just enter, bounce off the back, you know what I'm saying, into her brain.
That's as high as I thought.
Never in my wildest Reading Rainbow-ass imagination would I ever have thought...
[whoosh]
[Internet Cousin screaming] Evelyn!! That's my friend!
That's my friend!!
I'm gonna go dance outside!!! [laughs/cries]
Do you hear that, Texas!! [laughs/cries]
[concert crowd noise]
[whoosh]
[exhales]
That was the highlight of my 2016.
[blows edges away]
You know what I'm saying? Like, what else can I do?
The meetings and phone calls and conversations and collaborations and opportunities that
came out of that experience in 2016?
And where it's going to take me in 2017??
Bruh!
I think it was 2014 or 2015’s video that I said that I wanted to get, um, an international
trip sponsored and I was like ooo -- I didn't do it.
But this year, I was given the opportunity to go to Costa Rica, to go to Thailand.
I brought an Internet Cousin to Thailand with me.
I even went on my first cruise!
I paid for that one though.
One of my other visions for myself for 2016 was to see what it would be like to not do
this whole YouTube thing by myself.
Right now, I'm in my living room.
I asked my brother before he left Austin to like, focus the camera for me and I have not
moved the camera since yesterday.
I got two, uh, just hot, dim - really not made for video - living room lamps.
I wanted to see what it would be like to be a lil bit mo' official, you know what I'm saying?
And so Make It Work reached out to me and we were able to collaborate on a video about
a topic I really care about.
YouTube invited me to YouTube Space LA to film with YouTube!
On another occasion, I was in LA for work, but I made time to swing through Blavity and
I was able to like, slide in there for a lil cameo appearance, for a video appearance,
you know what I'm saying, shout out to Blavity.
I was part of a twitter chat with PBS, and a live stream with Al Jazeera English because
of my, um, Call in Black video.
I wrote a couple humor pieces for Manrepeller.
I talked to so many of you, um, on your podcasts.
The Prince of Wakanda knows who I am, and I turned 26.
[ding sound effect]
[whoosh]
♫ Wasn't supposed to make it past 25, jokes on you, we still alive. ♫
[whoosh]
Having a vision over my life in 2016 even extended to things like no I will not watch,
or feel the need to react to or feel pressured to publicly comment on every instance of police
brutality.
No, I will not go to your march.
I will not cosign your organization, share your Facebook post, retweet your tweet because
I don't too much know you and your politics, alright, and what you stand for.
Who you are, alright, who is you?
And I still need to wake up in the morning, and not want to jump off a building!
So peace!
You know what I'm saying, I'm going to Chipotle.
Knowing who I am now, made it so much easier to say yes and to say no.
Especially no.
[sings] NO!!
In 2016, I changed positions at work.
In 2016 I was able to value myself more and be more confident in my skills, you know what
I'm saying, in my eye, you know what I mean?
I got the juice!
I got somewhat of a juice, you know what I'm saying, not from concentrate.
I feel like.
I also think I was better at, uh, just staying quiet.
Knowing when to be quiet, you know what I'm saying.
Just be in the cut, you know what I'm saying, with a gangster lean, alright, and just let
things fail because what's not in my vision is making up for other people's incompetencies,
you know what I'm saying?
That's not what I see in my mind's eye when I open I open my mind's eye--
And I don’t let people pressure me as much or make me feel bad about still living in
Austin, or having a day job, not doing YouTube full time, um, not pubbing their stuff
on my platform...I don't get.
Me myself personally, I am proud of my 2016.
And you can stay mad.
You can stay hunkered down in your feelings all up and through the day.
[music stops] I wasn't being aggressive to you, I was just, to, you know what I'm saying, shake the devil,
you know what I'm saying.
Not you.
Just the--shake the devil.
Shake.
[whoosh]
And now it's your turn!
You know the drill.
In the comments below, I wanna see paragraphs, mkay?
Uh, how was your 2016?
Not the world, you know what I'm saying, we was all there.
We know!
Uh, I wanna know how you did.
You all have made my 2016.
If it wasn't for y'all, and the comments that be popping like, on a consistent basis...
I don't know if y'all know, the conversations I be having, everyone notices how fire my
comments section is.
That's you!
Y'all are amazing.
I don’t wanna gas y’all up too much, you know what I'm saying, get a big head or whatever,
um, but please leave me a comment.
I look forward to reading how your year went.
And uh, if you’re not sick of me by now, click the annotation floating in the atmosphere
to see my goals for 2017.
And I will see you on the Internet somewhere.
Bye!