Kaer Morhen

[Intro] You know, I think internet fame is actually good for people these days. I think that's a healthy thing for kids to chase after should encourage more kids to only care about internet fame. That way we'll be creating lots of healthy well-adjusted young adults. Come to think of it, I think everybody should try to be famous. It just makes sense! Ahaha! Hi, it's... Greg. If you're watching this video, it means I have 100,000 subscribers now. That... that's a big number. I am a satirist. My videos are intentionally dripping with layers and layers of irony, but I truly bеlieve that irony is a corrosive forcе. I think that, if you live in irony for too long without saying what you mean. Then, eventually you will corrode yourself. Eventually, you will forget what you stand for. What you believe. Who you are. So I'm making this video, as I do every so often. In an attempt to unmask and speak openly and honestly without irony. About how my life has been changed forever from that number going from 500 to 100,000 subscribers. And that's what this video is going to be. Me being open and honest. Haha! Just kidding! I'm gonna fuck with you some more! Unless I'm not? Haha! JK JK. Unless?... In the span of a few months, I went from essentially being a nobody, to having more subscribers than most of the people I've watched my entire life. And I know that when this happens to most people, they just don't talk about it like it's not that big of a deal. But for me, it was a huge deal. I have no idea how more people don't find this to be a huge deal. Because for me, it was easily the most significant thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life. And maybe that's sad and maybe that's not a big deal to most people, but for me it is. And so, I feel like I have to talk about it. Because now, I'm face to face with the concept that I've been grappling with my entire life. A concept that was the only thing I thought that could make me happy. And what I'm grappling with, is this: I don't want to be famous. [Part 1: But you're not] I'm aware that a 100,000 youtube subscribers isn't "fame." This isn't a video about me being famous. It's about my relationship with fame. It's about how I perceived it as a kid. How I grew to have an unhealthy relationship with it. And my thoughts on it, now that I have some form of it. This is going to be an honest video about me trying to be happy. It's also going to be a video about the internet. About my fears. About my- Hahaha! Boring! Check out these Fortnite dabs! (Airhorns Blaring) [Part 2: Idol lies] The first 21 years of my life was characterized by one thing and that is... crippling existential horror. (Airhorns Blaring) I'm aware that's a bullshit thing to complain about. I am, maybe even hyper aware that that's the case, but I'm going to talk about it anyway. Because if I'm not even going to take my feelings seriously, then I shouldn't expect anybody else to. I'm the youngest of four kids and I live in a mid-sized government town called Ottawa. I'm the youngest by a fair margin, so I got to see the "well-trodden path" play out quite a few times before it started to become relevant to me. They would go off to university, study something they were tangentially interested in. And then find a job, mostly in the government, that kind of fit that study. Then, they would complain about how what they do is meaningless and how their back hurts all the time. Now for them, they ultimately didn't mind that because they had other things they wanted to focus on. But for me, seeing that made me feel like I was on a conveyor belt. Just, slowly leading me to my death. I knew myself. I knew that that path which worked for them, wasn't going to work for me. I'm an artist. I need to create art, in order to feel good about myself. I'm never going to be happy spending eight hours a day doing something I'm not passionate about. So from a very young age, I felt that the well-trodden path for most people was death for me. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that, there was not a day that went by, that I wasn't utterly crushingly depressed by that fact. You really should have called this video "I'm a loser who can't cope with basic first world problems." I did not want to go down the path that was laid out for me, with every fiber of my being. It wasn't a first world problem. I didn't see any value in living. And you do now? Holy shit. I mean, whatever delusion floats your boat. I would do internships through my program and I hated it. I hated how people talked to each other and pretended like they were interested in what they were saying. -"Hey, did you know we're gonna start that new project in a couple of weeks?" -"Wow! I can't wait to start that new project in a couple of weeks." -"Yeah, me neither! Hahahaha" -"Yeah! hahaha" -"Does your back hurt?" -"All the time." I didn't want to complain, because I didn't feel like I had anything worth complaining about. I could always do art on the side. I put my mind into trying to escape that path, and I got nothing. I had no plans to escape. I was always going to make art on the side, and just work my job and cross my fingers and hope something happened. It was a deeply isolating and depressing experience. In my town, I knew very very very few people who could relate to the kind of dread that I was feeling. I remember being deeply envious of the people who couldn't relate to my despair. I remember wanting to rip the need to create art out of my body, and just letting it die. So, I could be like them. But at this dark time in my life, there was always one concept that was keeping me going. A concept that, made me feel like if I got it, then all that angst and dread and sorrow would just, go away. And the concept was fame. [Part 3: The me of one year ago would fucking gouge somebody's eyes out to be where I am right now] I maybe, might have had a slightly unhealthy relationship with fame. I wanted to be famous. So fucking badly. But it was an impotent kind of want, because I really didn't know what to do to get it. When I was 13, I had written all these notes to my 15 year old self being like "If you're not famous by now, you're a failure of a person". And, that wasn't a good idea!. 'Cuz year and year went by and I just felt more and more like a failure. The thing with depression is, a lot of the time it's caused by rigidity of mindset. You marry yourself to a person, or an idea or an idea of a person. And then, when that idea leaves you or becomes impossible to achieve or just dissipates in some other way. Then, you fall into a depression. Almost like, your entire life was a performance for that one thing and now that you can't get that one thing, it's like you're performing for nobody. So, why bother? Ever since I was a kid doing art, people told me that I would be famous one day and that idea really stuck in my head. So that, all the art that I did was to be famous. Over the years, as I continued to be a "nobody", I started to realize that I was never going to get what I wanted. And as that ideal that I was performing for became more and more distant, I started to become sadder and sadder. And as I got sadder and sadder, I started to feel like, I wasn't good enough and I heard this voice. Just repeating all the things that I already knew. That I was never going to get anywhere. That I was never going to be happy. Because the only thing that could make me happy... was fame. I heard that voice sometimes. I heard it a lot, actually. I Hear(d) it. [Part 4: All-Consuming Jealousy] I had no positive inspirations. There wasn't anybody that was more successful than me that I liked. The only people who were more successful than me were people that I hated. It made it impossible for me to really like or love any specific artist. Because all I could think about was how I wanted to take their place. People would ask me "Oh, what artists do you like?", "Who do you take inspiration from?". And all I would think about it's just, all the fuckers I wanted to overtake. All the people I hated. All the people I thought I could do better than. It made me very bitter and resentful. I noticed you're speaking in the past tense, to distract from the fact that nothing has changed. Yeah. You got it, buddy! I actually have a list of people who I was just furious with. Whenever I saw them on, you know social media or something or saw a video of theirs go viral. I would just be, seething essentially. Because they were doing something in a field, that I wanted to do that same thing in. And they were infinitely more successful than me. Now, I'm not actually gonna like read off the list because that would be extremely self-destructive and damaging but- Savannah Brown, Rupi Kaur, Bo Burnham, Elle of the Mills? Why is Elle of the Mills on here? Her content's not even remotely similar to yours. She was from my town. Yeah, but she had like a super public mental breakdown. That was supposed to be MY public mental breakdown! [Part 5: Be very very careful about what you share online; you wouldn't want people knowing you're a person] One of the things they taught me in the program that I was studying at, was to keep your Twitter "squeaky clean". Because you wouldn't want your employer finding something that you posted, and then, firing you later. Now, this is objectively good advice. Don't get me wrong. But for me, it felt like another form of death. Essentially it was saying "You know that one part of you that's unique? "Your personality" "Well, just shut that up. Don't express yourself at all." Whenever I made a video that was even slightly edgy, or pushing the envelope in any way, or expressing any form of dissenting opinion, I would just feel this dread. That's like "Oh, shit". You know like... this could get me fired from a job. And then, I wouldn't just be a nobody. I would be less than a nobody. I would be a nobody who couldn't even follow the well-trodden path. I continued to express myself on social media and in the art that I produced, but I was never comfortable about it. But I did it anyway because, just doing it gave me that 1% more chance of getting noticed. And that percent chance was so valuable to me, that I would sacrifice anything for it. [Part 6: Death Approaches] All throughout university, I had this big calendar. And at the end of the calendar, there was a big skull and crossbones. So at the end of university, there was the chopping block. Just, it was gonna kill me. If I reach that point, I would have to enter the workforce and I would not have enough time to work on any art and I would essentially just be dead. And eventually, I reached that skull-and-crossbones date and then two things happened: 1. I got a job offer with the place that I'd been interning at and 2. One of my videos started to do well. [Part 7: The Hardest Decision I've Ever Made] Go to high school, get good grades. Go to university, get an internship. Get a job, work up the ladder. Find a girl. Reproduce. Die. I tried working for a month, and I found myself in tears at the end of each day. Every day was... so bad. And what's funny is, you're probably listening to this story and being like "Well, why didn't you just do something else you idiot?" "If it was making you this sad, just do something else". But that's not how it worked for me. I really felt like I had no way out. I felt like, this is what the last four years of my life have been leading up to. My high school work leads into my university work, leads into this job. And to want to do something else, I would be setting myself back. So I should just focus on doing good at the job. So, I finished my internship and the day with the skull and crossbones on it came and went. And I didn't feel that much different, but I resigned myself to the fact that I was not going to be able to do what I wanted to do for a living. And I got the email that offered me the job, and as I got that email, something else started to happen. One of my videos started to do well. In one day, I went from 500 subscribers to 1,000, and then from 1,000 to 2,000, and then 2,000 to 3,000 to 4,000 to 5,000 to 10,000. And I thought "holy shit". Holy shit! HOLY SHIT! (Airhorns) And that day I had to pick between, what had felt like my entire life had been leading up to, and what my entire life had actually been leading up to. Which is to say, not the job. I willingfully/willingly chose to submit myself to the random fluctuations of a youtube algorithm, than to find a stable steady job in my hometown. And it will either end up being the worst decision of my life or the best, but no middle. [Part 8: but now everything's better] And I was right. All that anxiety, all that existential depression and angst and dread. All of that went away once my channels started to blow up. It fixed me. I used to be so sad and so depressed and so alone, and now I genuinely feel like my life is fixed. I never thought that was possible before but now, I know that it is. Everyday is a good day now. And I'm making this video to thank you. Thank you so much, you fixed me- Ahahahaha! That's funny! Uh, but that's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. See, I set up impossible parameters so you'd be unhappy your whole life. And you managed to reach those impossible parameters so very good, but you're not free. You're still playing my game! [Part 9: You can't be fixed] You're broken, you stupid fuck. You just have a 100,000 subscribers worth of masking tape around the cracks. You think you're better just because you've got what you want? You're fucking delusional. You will never be better. You will never be better. You will never be- Better. Shut up, because I'm continuing with my video. Hey-oh! On a subconscious level, I did think that this would fix me. And it didn't! But it did help immensely, and I am genuinely so grateful for everybody who's watching me right now. A lot of my angst and dread about existential things like "What am I doing with my life?" "Will I ever be happy?" "Will ever be able to do something that makes me happy?" A lot of those things, while not entirely gone, have dissipated. Like, immensely. I'm not necessarily a happy person now, but I definitely have a lot more happy moments. I feel a lot happier as a person. In small ways, every single one of you has given me a future. I'd like to think that every time you cry on camera about your "youtube success," some real youtuber who makes better content than you is just like, gonna quit. Cuz they're like "What's the point of me even trying at this point if this guy can make it and I can't?" Someone whose content is objectively better than yours is just quitting right now. Don't you ever think how talking about this kind of stuff makes other people feel? People like you? [Part 10: Isolation] The best part about being a youtuber is all the interaction I get from all my fans, online. From people talking about me, online, that I read as I Google myself ten times a day. And just end up staring at my screen more. And in reality, I don't actually talk to another human being for sometimes longer than a week. Oh! It's lonely on top, isn't it? YEAH! Whoa, what the fuck? (Phew) Moving on. [Part 11: Thick skin] I like to think that I have thick skin. YouTube comments feel to me like darts, kind of getting thrown at me. And my skin is typically thick enough to absorb quite a few of those things, without actually feeling anything bad about myself. But nowadays, I consume so much content about myself. It's almost like, I'm just eating all this slop. And even, if like 90% of the slop is good. I can have this period, where I'm like, eating a lot of negativity all at once and it makes me sick. Like before it was like "alright, I can take a dart here and there". But it's not really a matter of how thick my skin is when you're consuming all that content. It's more like indigestion. [Part 12: The people who "love" you and the people who don't] Here's what I do when I've got a good mood going that I want to ruin. I open up a place where people are talking about me and then I just scroll. "Here's all the good things that people are saying about me." Yeah, just scroll right on by that and go right to the verbal abuse. Then just chow down on it like a sandwich. (Nomnomnom) Aha! Delicious. Just look out on a sea of people who fucking hate your guts and just drink it all in. (Mmm) It's all true, I know it is! I read critiques of my work, because I want to improve as an artist. But some people don't want you to improve, they want to burn you off the face of the fucking planet. But, for every one of those people who hate me. There's probably 10 others that really, really like me. [Part 13: I (don't) want to be famous] When I said "I want to be famous" as a kid, what I was really saying was "I want to be a successful artist". I want to make a living off of what makes me happy. I'm not an idiot. I know what fame does to people. I don't want a superiority complex. I don't want to overdose on drugs. I don't want a bunch of tweens to develop an unhealthy parasocial relationship with me. But at the same time... I'm an idiot. I know what fame does to people, but I want a superiority complex. I want to overdose on drugs. I want to have a bunch of tweens develop an unhealthy parasocial relationship with me. Why wouldn't I? There's no such thing as a successful artist that doesn't have some form of fame, just hobbyists. Just people who do art on the side. Those people aren't fucking artists. Most people wouldn't bleed for their craft. Those people wouldn't fucking die for it. I would. I would! And one hour of guitar a day, after eight fucking hours of shit work isn't enough. It's nothing. And just because hundreds of thousands of other people have convinced themselves that it's enough, doesn't mean that I have to too. It's not enough. It will never be enough... Enough... Enough... [Part 14: Enough] How do you deal with the need for more? I am a very conscientious person, but not because being conscientious makes me happy. The only thing that being status-oriented has given me, is this horrible anxiety that flares up inside of me whenever I'm not doing enough. I am miserable when I'm not creating, I am miserable when I'm not progressing towards something. But progressing so much, so quickly makes it difficult to really appreciate how far you've come, in such a short amount of time that it doesn't really feel like anything. So now, over the course of five months, I've basically smashed through every goal that I had set up for myself. And now I feel like the only thing left for me to do is... keep going. And that voice in my head just keeps saying... Woah. A 100,000 YouTube subscribers. Impressive. Very impressive. But, let me ask you something. Is that enough? Really? I mean, only 100,000? Is that really all you want to do with your life? Be some E-List YouTube celebrity? I don't think so. I think you should probably aim for 200,000, or 500,000, or 1 million. In fact, don't let yourself be happy until you have 1 million subscribers. How about that? How about that? How does that sound? Because if you think about it, that unhappiness is the only reason you have anything at all. That's weird. It's almost like having 100,000 YouTube subscribers doesn't have any correlation at all with me fixing deep-seated emotional trauma and existential depression. Strange, could it be that confusing the joy of the journey and the joy of the destination has put me in a situation where I can't enjoy either? Haha. No, I just need 200,000 YouTube subscribers, then I'll be happy! Ahaha! That'll fix me! That'll fix you! Ahahahaha! Ahahaha! AHAHA! HAHAHAHA! You wanna like, calm down a little bit? Oh. Oh yeah, sorry. I never, really wanted to be famous. I just wanted to be a successful artist, and in my mind, all successful artists have some form of niche fame at least. So, you chose to make personal fame your ideal. Over making good art. So, I chose to make good art my ideal! So, I chose to make both my ideal. [Part 15: Superposition] What does it mean to be superimposed? To be one. Then, the other. Sometimes, both at the same time. But never neither. Being famous sounds like exactly what I want and it also sounds like the exact opposite of everything that I want. When I'm in an ambiguous space, when I'm in a transitory space. I feel like I am both and neither and one and the other. I don't want to be famous because I know. That once I get to the top of that mountain, I'm just gonna have a very lonely view. But at the same time. What else can I do, but climb? [Part 15.5: Exploiting Parasocial relationships] If you've been watching me for a while then, you might have developed something called a parasocial relationship with me. Essentially what that means is that even though you don't know me and you can't know me, you might feel as if though, you know me. This is foundational to a lot of youtube channels. The feeling, as if you are really interacting with the person you see on your screen. But parasocial relationships can, and often are used, to manipulate people. The reason sponsorships with youtubers are so successful, for example, is because when a youtuber sells you something. It feels as if your friend is selling you something and that's kind of fucked up. I'm thinking a lot about how to handle sponsorships on this channel and I've decided against doing them, entirely. As you know, I haven't had done a sponsorship since my DVD case video. Uh, so... I just don't think it's worth exploiting my relationship with you guys for cash. Remember to use promo code: MovaviBuddy [Part 16: Irony] If you're too ironic, for too long. Then, the real you gets replaced by a clone/clown, that doesn't know how to feel about anything. That has happened to me, because I let it. That hasn't happened to me yet, because I won't let it. [Part 17: Do you deserve this?] Over the past five months; you've passed countless, talented, hard-working youtubers. You really think you deserve that shit? You really think you're better than those people? Maybe, you should just let me be happy or proud or feel accomplished, for once in my life. Maybe, you should stop being afraid of- [Part 18: What are you now?] Anybody can do it! Anybody can be famous, just like you! Everybody with less subscribers than you is an objectively worse content creator. You're important! Good job participating in this very shit internet online experiment. You deserve to be where you are, and you should believe this wholeheartedly. Because if you don't, then you might have to reflect on the fact that you're only really here because it's random YouTube algorithmic fluctuations. And while your effort did play some small role in while you're here, there's really no reason why you're here. You just are. You're not put here for a purpose. You don't have meaning, you're just kind of existing and you don't have much of a purpose to your assets. You just are. You just are, you're just put here and you are and you are acting and you were doing your thing. And there's no overarching meaning to any of it, at all. And none of it makes any sense, and none of it should make any sense and you shouldn't want it to make sense. But you'll keep wanting it to make sense, because that's the only thing that keeps you going. Huh, sense? You want to make some sense? Well, good job. Good job. You made it. You made it. And all you had to do was... Capitalize on ambiguity! Call for mass killing! Abandon your morality and values! Forget everything you stand for! Sell your being as a brand! Congratulations! Congratulations, Good Job! Yes, Thank you for a brand deal! Hey, want a manager? Hey, Good Job! Congratulations! Someone's gotta manage ya! Lemme get a piece of ya! Lemme get a piece of ya! LEMME GET A PIECE OF YA! [Part 19: But (I'm Good Now)] All of these worries are essentially, in the past now. Everything turned out pretty much okay. I'm with YouTube now, and YouTube treats its creators right! [Part 20: 2-way parasocial relationships] You hear a lot of youtubers talk about parasocial relationships, which are one-way relationships. That you know, I can't reciprocate because I'm not real, essentially. I only exist as a character on your screen. But what I don't hear youtubers talk about, is that there's kind of a two-way parasocial relationship going on right now. And that is your relationship with the persona that I am portraying on your screen. And then, there's my parasocial relationship with "you" as an audience. The hive mind, that is "my audience". So the parasocial relationship goes like, both ways. [Part 21: The grief isn't gone And that's comforting] The first 21 years of my life were characterized by extreme, existential angst. The fear that I would never do anything worthwhile or noteworthy. Now, that I essentially have some kind of stability and hope for the future. I spent a brief moment, wondering what kind of person I would be. Without that same extreme angst and grief that was weighing down on me, my whole life. And I've come to realize that, I have not even experienced a small portion of the amount of grief that life has in store for me. And that's a very comforting thought. My head will go bald and I will grieve about that. My channel will stagnate or get taken down and I will grieve about that. I'll never get married and I'll grieve about that. Or worse, I will get married and I will grieve about that. I'll get cancelled and exposed and I'll grieve about that. People I love will die and I'll grieve about that. And something horrible will happen worldwide and I'll grieve about that. Maybe, we all will. I tell myself this to grieve about all my potential grief but I also tell myself this, to avoid grief. Because, if I had actually gotten to the point where my life was free from grief. Then, that would be worse than having grief in my life. That would be inhuman. It would be not right, fundamentally. Life is still pain but it's a comforting Stockholm Syndrome-y kind of pain that I've grown accustomed to. And knowing that it's gonna continue to hurt me is a nice thought. And that's why I need that pain and I need that negativity and that's why I need you. You're an integral and valuable part of me. I want you with me. Stay with me. I owe everything to you. I love you. You know that? I know that this kind of two-way thing doesn't really make much sense. But I SO mean it when I say I love you, and I know you love me too, because I need you. I need you and I'm so glad that you're here. And I know that you'll stay with me because... where else would you go? And who else would I perform for? You, are my significant thing. You, are my ideal! And I know, I can't really talk to, you. But I can talk to "you" and that's all I need to be able to talk to! You're it! You fixed me. Want to know a secret? I separate the voice to make me seem like a better person, but the truth is, all those words are mine. Every. Single. One. I just put it in front of a clown face so that, I would seem nicer. You, are my intrusive thoughts and I don't know what the fuck I would do without you. [Part 22: I'm 22 now] For better or for worse, I have chosen to participate in this grand Internet experiment. I think I'm playing with fire here. I think that, this has the potential to utterly fucking annihilate people. And I think, it would be naive of me to believe that I am immune from this annihilation. My thoughts on this are fragmented and unresolved. And as a result, I am not going to be able to tie up this video nicely. And tell you things, that are going to resolve any of the things and conflicts that have brought up. Because within my own mind, they are not resolved. So instead, I'm gonna read you a poem that I wrote when I was 18 years old. When I was younger, I wrote a large number of poems about fame. An embarrassingly large number of poems about fame. I would write these poems for two reasons: 1. I would write them as a coping mechanism for never being able to be famous, and 2. I would write them as kind of a magic spell hoping that they would make me famous. I never read this one, performed this one, produced this one at all after I wrote it. Because, I never felt like there was any need to. I never felt like it was relevant at all. And now four years later, I feel like it is. It's called "I want to be famous". I want to be famous. I want the world to know what my name is. I want to be home when fame rings the phone. Doesn't matter if I'm a hero or the butt of the joke. When people at parties asks "So, what do you do?" I want to impress them with a sentence or two. "Oh, nothing too big! Just a movie or two. Best-selling poetry book, Ooh!" And a couple of other things, but enough about me. What about you? I hear you working in policy. I want to have a voice, you know? When I talk, I want people listen. I want to make a choice, you know? I want to have some agency in this world that I live in. I want to forget the expectations of everyone else. I want to follow my dreams and focus on myself. I want to inspire people. I want to light a fire in people I want people to look up to me and think "I want to get higher." People will love me And maybe that Will finally be enough to let me love people back. I want to get mentioned in casual conversation. I want my name just spread across the nation. I want to never work on my character. I want to become a fucking caricature! I want to be the person, people recognized on the street. I want people to notice me so, I can finally feel complete. I want people to say "Hey, don't I know you from somewhere?" And I'll just say "Maybe." like I just don't care. I want people to see me on the street and say "Hey, aren't you that guy from that movie?" And I'll say "Haha yeah, that's me!", but I won't In actuality, I'll snub him, because I'll finally be too good for somebody! I want to disappoint people. I want to make them say "I remember that guy from back in the day." "He used to make soulful stuff." "He was like Dr. Dre, But now, his stuff's not enough and he's lost his way." I want to be harassed. I want the paparazzi on my ass. I want to never have any privacy. I want to get stalked by TMZ. Because I've been force-fed this fantasy. Choked on the stream, Since the age of three. I want to get high, because I have low self-esteem. I want to be the envy of a 1,000 nameless teens. I want-I want so desperately to know someone, somewhere cares about me. I want to descend into a self-destructive spiral. I want to have a sex tape of me go viral! For some reason, this is appealing to me. For some reason, this is my fantasy. I want to change the world, have all the money and girls! I want to transcend tired concepts like monogamy And get anyone and anything my eyes can see! I want to have people follow me home. I want to never fucking be safe alone. I want to have people worship me. I wanna, wanna, wanna, wanna, want to be a deity. Because ever since I was young, I was told when I performed That my name would soon be heard, across the world. And that, that kind of fucked me up. I was told people would love the things that I write. And that made me grow up with all this hatred and spite. Because that's what being famous means. That's the dream of so many teens. But I don't want to be famous. I just want a place to perform, Something to love. Something to keep me warm, A creative outlet, Someone to listen to my voice. But I feel like I don't have a choice. I want a craft that I love, A craft that loves me back. Not a craft, that makes me feel like I'm snorting crack I don't even know what I mean When I say I want to be (Don't want to be) Famous.