If you ever wanna know if a YouTuber is making a personal style video,
just watch the first three seconds. Do they leave in the clip of them turning on the camera for some reason?
Don't know why, that's a stylistic choice that signifies it's about to get real up in here. Also, you need a cup of tea
cuz when you drink tea, real stuff happens.
But what does it mean to be real?
What does it mean to be a real YouTuber?
Like, that is one of the concepts that's been just swishing around in my brain this whole week
and I don't know why, but I just wanna know, what does it mean to be real
And do you have to be real? I mean, there's people that upload videos of them eating cereal on the internet.
Just, that's fine. There's people that are making, you know, animations, or short films, or other things, or vlogs like I'm doing.
But what does it mean to be real, and is it necessary? Is that something-- The reason I ask
is because, like, I've been watching my past videos and even recent ones where I'm like, you know, this is a video
where I'm gonna sit down, have a chat, and even then, I still watch it and I'm like "why does it feel like there's something off?"
There's ever so slightly something off. And it's one of those things that's talked about in YouTube culture videos
that I never fully understood until recently because up until now, I've kind of always had the impression that
I am me, I am just myself. I don't really change for the internet.
But I ever so slightly do.
I do, because I'm performing.
That's it, right? If I'm making a video where I'm just with a friend talking about different things and different cultures,
or if I'm here making puns and doing a little pun Q&A, I'm performing.
I'm like-- It's like I'm on stage performing to an audience telling jokes and things and hoping to make people laugh
or smile, or blah blah blah. And that's not bad. That's not different, I mean, it's okay. It doesn't mean
I'm not real, it just means I'm performing and doing something.
But right now, I mean, hopefully, I hope I'm real right now.
But what does mean, like, how long did it take me to, like, put my backdrop together?
It took quite a while [laughs]. Does that mean, like, I spend too much time on that?
Maybe I'm not real. Maybe I should, like, take off the makeup off my face. I'm not-- I've never worn makeup
Except that fun time with Dodie.
Anyway, speaking of Dodie, though, I'll watch one of her videos
and she could have background dancers in it and I'd still be like "Jeez, Dodie is the realest mother-effer.
How does she do it? How does she come off so real?
I don't get it. Why do I not feel that way?"
I don't know. I mean, she has walls. I know she's got walls. Every YouTuber has walls.
You could watch a YouTuber every day. Watch their daily vlogs, watch them travel around and
have fun with their friends and you'd be like "Yeah I know them. I'm good friends with them"
But ... you don't cuz when you make videos on the internet, you only put forward the best.
Sometimes, you might get a glimpse. A YouTuber will put a very sad video
I've had to make videos like that at bad times and, you know, that's okay.
You feel, like, thankful that they're sharing that part of their lives with you. But that's the thing.
They don't always do that. You don't know if you're getting everything. It's kinda like the tip of the iceberg.
Even with me. The fact that I thought I put most of everything out there.
You don't really know what's g-- Like, for instance, I have had quite a bad month.
You know, even though it just started. It's March. [laughs] That's a good analogy
"March just started, it's already terrible." No, like, this , so far, 2016, hasn't been the best for me.
I've just had a lot of, like, bad news after bad news situations where I lost a girl that I really liked,
I lost my job, I maybe don't really know what's happening in the future with my Visa to stay in the country,
and I lost my flatmate and had to move.
That's so many different changes. Usually I can just, you know, roll with the punches
but jeez. Frick, it's definitely taken my mental health down a couple notches.
Usually, I'm known as a happy, positive person.
I get a lot of people asking me questions like
"Evan, how are you always so happy?" and "your videos make me so happy, how do you do that?"
"Lalala" um, one of my friends once came to me and said they love how much of a positive person I am online all the time
And that's such a nice thing to know,
because I feel like I'm a happy, positive person.
That's part of my "#brand".
Does that mean that when I'm not happy, I'm not myself anymore?
Cuz that's what it feels like. It feels like when I'm not happy, it's not me.
I thought I had found myself, and it doesn't feel like that anymore.
Who am I? What's going on with Evan Edinger? This is #badforbrand.
But in reality, everyone has ups and downs
And I just have to kind of wait for the thing-- for myself, for my mood, for everything to kind of ameliorate
and go back up.
And that's totally fine. And it's okay for me to acknowledge that I'm having a bum time.
And I'm still, like, right now, I come off like I'm not having that bad of a time.
That's because my bad times aren't as bad as a lot of people's.
Which, I guess I'm incredible thankful for so
Thank you, Jesus. I'm very appreciative that that's a thing. But
you know, when I get negativity when I'm at this lull, it definitely goes in.
Usually, I've got a pretty strong wall against it. Like, somebody'll be like
"You have a terrible nose," and I'll go. "Ding. No-no, I'm pretty happy with myself.
This an alright now, I mean, who knows.
But when I'm at a mental health low, people will be like "You've got a bad nose"
and I'll look in the mirror and go "Oh, my nose, I never noticed how bad it looks."
I never-- Frick. That's so crazy. That's insane, how, like, I am totally okay against any negativity
until I'm at a mental health low, and then everything hits me.
And everything hits me worse.
And then it makes me want to seek it out more. Like, go on videos where I get a lot of of negative
comments and then read all the negative comments and be like "Oh, man, that's true."
And I'll feel really really bad about myself because I'm listening to negative comments.
and I'm seeking them out and I don't know why.
And I've just recently decided to just not do that anymore
but, jeez that was hard. I'm just so used to getting such nice things and being able to
deflect anything negative that isn't-- cuz it's not really criticism.
It's usually like "You're a posh, specky wanker."
Or something, and I'm like "whatever" but now I'm like "Am I specky? Do I have specs on?
I do.
[laughs] I don't know why but I've tried not to take it in.
And the thing is, you can't really change negativity when it comes, you know, in your real life.
You know, if you're getting bullied in school, it's kinda hard to just turn that off.
I mean, I remember being bullied in eighth grade. Somebody pushed me against a locker and called me
a faggot. And I had no clue what to do. I'm so used to being able to take all that with, like mental bullying
But when it came to physical, like, jeez, ahhh. I remember I just ended up crying.
Cuz I was a huge crybaby all throughout my life.
And that kid got suspended.
That's good, I guess. But you can't always just cry and have things change.
My boss can't say "Evan, I'm sorry but you're not working with us anymore."
I can't just go "Yes I am." And then just keep working.
It doesn't work like a Seinfeld episode sometimes. You kinda have to just take negativity in real life.
However, when it comes to online, I at least have control of that space.
I can make that my safe space.
And that's the other part of this video. Besides being a real YouTuber, I wanna talk about negativity online.
Like, when you post negativity wh-why? Why you do-- I just-- ah,
Especially when it's a friend of mine. And I see people that I follow and their posting negativity on my Twitter feed
and that's a place that I go every day, often, to just kind of escape from the real world stress.
You know, that's my video game. That's my book. I go on Twitter. I tweet puns, and things.
That's fine. But when I see stuff there where people are posting negative things,
and shading and slating, other friends of mine, I'm like, I don't wanna see that.
Especially when it's, like, old drawn-up stuff. I'm like come on.
I-I dont-- I feel like I have every right to do that.
I've every right to kinda push that negativity away.
Now, that leads to the discussion like do I-- like, is it that big of a deal? Is it one of the whole discussions of
"if you don't have anything nice to say, you can't say it at all."
Not really. It's just I don't like the concept that some people online feel like what they make is inherently better
because of the amount of time they spend on it, or the amount of money they invest in it or lah di dah di dah.
Okay, they're making bananas; vloggers are making apples, it doesn't really matter.
We're all just fruits on the internet putting videos on a silly website.
It's-- There's no drama involved. And people that want to think they're better than everybody else because of
blah blah blah, it's one of those things where it's like, get over yourself.
You're literally just putting videos on the internet and we're all doing the same thing in a way.
And I'm just here, I'm just here to have a fun time, okay.
I miss the sunshine and rainbows.
I just want to-- what am I doing right now?! Talking to a camera, putting it online.
It doesn't matter. Life is too short to do all that. Put all the negativity away.
And that's just my thoughts. Please [sighs] man, I don't know, it feels really nice to get that out and just talk about it
I just wanna have a discussion about, like, negativity, and is it okay to post stuff online like that.
And, I mean, I embrace criticism as long as it's, like, valid.
But not just "Oh, you know what, I hate them because they suck and blah."
Yeah. That's basically this whole video. Yet again, Evan with a tea, not actually drinking it.
Is he real? No. I bet there's no tea in there. There is, okay. Just, I just do these in one take.
But, uh, yeah, please. This is a discussion video and I really would like to know your thoughts on
everything I discussed it's definitely something that it's a YouTube culture-related video
that I've wanted to talk about for a while.
And it's been stressing me out and yeah. I definitely think I'm coming out of my rut and I'm hoping to be more positive
and happy soon.
Uh, and I just would like to say thank you to anyone that, you know, posts positive things
on my channel and stuff. I very much appreciate it cuz at one point a had a really low moment two days ago
and I went to an old video and I saw a comment saying
"Evan, I just marathoned through your videos for like three hours and I just love you so much
and thank you so much for your videos."
And it got me at the exact time I needed it to kinda make me feel better.
Uh, so, just thank you. Thank you for ongoing support and everything.
Uh, I very much appreciate it.
So, yeah. If you want, join the discussion. I'd really like to kinda chat with you guys down there.
I'm in Berlin this week so if you're in, uh, Germany, Guten tag. I'll be hanging out with you.
Uh, other than that, though, I guess, uh yeah. Chat with me. I'll see you guys next week. Thanks for watching.
Goodbye.
I am dropping slowly. I do not want to spill my tea.
What do you guys think of my backdrop, by the way?
I-I'm gonna be doing a room tour next week
so thanks for watching after the outro.
[sighs] It feels really great to get this off my chest
Yeah, thanks for watching, again. Goodbye.