Now, I’m not saying you have to move to Los Angeles. I’m saying we all know of potential leaps we could take to make ourselves happy but maybe we avoid them. For a time, I avoided what I wanted by staying in college and doing what everyone else wanted me to do, and I hated it. But as soon as I realized how stagnant I felt, with zero drive, then, and only then, could I initiate change.
I’m young, only a quarter of the way into my life—or less!—with an endless amount of information still to learn, many things to experience, and countless people to meet and places to go. There are many bites to take out of this big wide world, and the opportunities are endless. The only thing holding you back from experiencing them is yourself and the false limitations you’ve imposed on yourself. Just you. No one else.
Big leaps take time. You don’t just wake up one day, have a huge life-altering epiphany, and immediately jump. Well, you could, but it probably wouldn’t work out. Or maybe it would. I don’t know. I just know that I needed time before translating the idea of something into reality, before being ready for it.
There was endless thinking and planning to be done before I could make the move. And even then, I was never completely prepared to proceed. It’s funny now to think about it in retrospect. In fact, how could I be fully ready? How could I prepare myself for the unknown? Sometimes you just have to leap and have faith in yourself.
Moving out and attending college felt difficult.
Moving out and pursuing a career in a different state felt like madness.
But the rewards of doing it outweighed the risks when contemplating it. I headed to LA and placed all my bets on this one trip, believing it would open a new chapter in my life. That was all I could hope for.
Getting to Know Myself
AS WE GET OLDER and those ties with our parents, siblings, and close friends from home start to slacken, we begin to better understand the meaning of independence. No longer is it a complaint of “I just want to be left alone.” No longer does it mean being shut away behind a closed bedroom door. I’m talking about true on-your-own independence that comes from venturing out into the world all by yourself.
A shiver runs down my spine at the very thought.
The biggest step for me when growing up was when I decided to attend college. At the time, I thought, YES! I’m finally going to live on my own and be able to do whatever I want! But a few weeks later, reality dawned: there was no one to do my laundry, cook meals, drive me places, or generally help me with things. THIS IS DUMB, I thought. THIS IS HARD. I was finally, to be blunt, a real person. *a single tear falls from my eye as I watch the world around me stand completely still*
There were a few phone calls to Mom—okay, they were pretty much daily—but I managed to cope with the change. Eventually I guess we all learn to adjust.
A couple of college years later and as my YouTube channel took off, I was ready to take things to the next level: move out of state and pursue a career. The time had come to leave school behind and move onto bigger and better things in California.
Moving to Los Angeles was terrifying. I didn’t have a car. I had never paid my own rent. And due to my mom’s cooking and my college’s meal plan, I’d barely had to even buy groceries before. Who knew eating could be such a difficult task?! So yeah, I was hesitant about moving to the West Coast. I had no idea what real life was like, what “standing on your own two feet” really meant. Not to mention that I once again had to make new friends, which is never easy. Yes, being alone is tough.
Making friends in school is difficult, but it seems to happen naturally as you share class, lunch, and athletics together. When you move away from all that forced interaction, socializing is completely up to you. There’s no written rule that says you can’t sit in your crappy apartment all day with no human interaction, going out only to purchase the bare essentials. It’s all up to you. The structure and discipline of school and college fall away, requiring you to rebuild your own network.
As you can well assume, I soon made friends. It helped that I moved with Jc and Ricky, who both knew several other people there. But as time went by and I got to know myself—my likes and dislikes, my habits and personality—I realized that I didn’t like living with others. I like control over my living space and its cleanliness and supplies (or lack thereof). So, I moved out on my own after sharing an apartment and house with Ricky, Jc, and Kian for nearly a year and a half.
That was when the loneliness set in.
Living alone has many ups and many downs. If there’s a mess in your place, it’s on you. If something breaks, it’s down to you to fix it and/or pay for the damages. Everything inside the space belongs to you. I know all these things are obvious, but catch my drift? Your life is finally all yours. Nothing and no one is holding you back or cramping your style. It’s an extremely liberating feeling.
But then come the downs. There were plenty of nights when I wished I had company—someone in the room next door to sit on the couch with and mindlessly surf through TV channels; someone to walk down the street with and grab a bite to eat; someone to call to pick up milk because “we’re out.” I lost those simple luxuries when I signed that one-bedroom apartment lease, not to mention that the sense of isolation is ten times worse when you work from home as well. You. Never. Have. To. Leave. EVER!
This new freedom can feel weird at first. Kind of like a new pair of socks—stiff and uncomfortable.
When I realized how alone I truly was, I called my mom, who immediately noticed a slight concern in my voice. “Everything okay?” she asked.
“I’m okay, just a bit lonely,” I said. “Like, how do you deal with it?”
“With what, exactly?”
“With being home alone all day by yourself? How do you not go crazy? Who do you hang out with? How do you not feel down from the pure loneliness?”
I accidentally let it all out, as if playing a game of twenty questions. Typical me—jumping right to the chase.
“Oh, honey. I’m kind of glad you get it!” she said. “With all you kids gone and your father at work for most of the day, I feel that way a lot too.”
Wait, what?
“It does get a little sad at times,” she added, “but I’ve learned to keep busy! There are always places I can go, people I can see or call, things that need to be done. It’s all in your head. You’re not really alone—and that feeling is only as strong as you allow it to be.”
She spoke so calmly, so matter-of-factly, and then proceeded to update me on what my siblings were up to, how the cats had been, and what local drama was going down. “Can you believe so-and-so is pregnant, and such and such are getting married?!?!”
Oh, small-town folks.
But how right she was to not make a big deal of it. The feeling of loneliness is temporary. It can easily be replaced by another feeling or action. Now, when I’m feeling down, I pick up the phone and call a friend for a chat or to meet. How can you be lonely if there is always someone to reach out to or spend time with? Loneliness really is a state of mind.
When living alone with only thoughts for company, it’s all too easy to allow them to fill the void and take you over. Now I totally understand that taming your thoughts can be difficult. It’s easy to get in your head and make the situation worse than it actually is (trust me; I’m there quite a lot). But Mom’s right—a thought is only as strong as you allow it to be. We either fuel it or release it. Same with loneliness.
I do wonder how many people avoid alone time because of the thoughts and silence they have to sit with, and I get it: living by yourself can be scary, but what big decision isn’t? Get past the fear and view it as an opportunity. You’ll be all the stronger for it. Being alone is a chance to really get to know yourself, in isolation from the influence and chatter of others. Take a breath. Take a chance. Move on and move out. You’ve got this.
The Myth of “Fame”
Scenario One: LOS ANGELES, 9:14 a.m. We’ll say it’s a Thursday. I wake up, sit at the table wi
th my computer for a bit, then decide to go for a quick walk to the nearby Starbucks. Everything is quiet. No one sees me. No one knows me.
I’m just a regular guy.
Scenario Two: ORLANDO, 9:14 a.m. We’ll say it’s Playlist Live. I wake up in my hotel room, sit in bed with my computer for a bit, then decide to go for a little walk to Starbucks. Everything is quiet. From behind me, I hear screams. I turn around. Several hundred teenagers are hurrying toward me, yelling my name. It’s a STAMPEDE. Suddenly everyone seems to know who I am.
Welcome to my topsy-turvy world, one that I’m still getting used to.
When I began this journey four years ago, sitting in a bedroom talking into a camera, it never crossed my mind that I’d ever become well known. Never in a million years did I think that this form of fame would hit me like a high-speed train. Someone like me doesn’t seek to be “famous.” In fact, it was probably the polar opposite of what I aspired to be. And yet it’s become a by-product of the career I’ve pursued. How ironic that the boy who never particularly enjoyed attention is now getting a whole lot of it as a consequence of doing what he loves.
Before I dive in any further, I would like to make clear how uneasy the word famous makes me. It is, after all, just another misleading label. Unfortunately, there is a negative connotation with this word, and I understand why. For me, it has something pretentious and distasteful about it. “What’s it like being famous?” is a question I get all the time, and it embarrasses me because I don’t consider myself “famous” at all.
I would prefer the focus to be trained on the quality of work I produce rather than the number of people viewing it. I prefer saying that I have more than 4 million people interested in my posts than say I have 4 million fans. I’m just someone who happens to be creating content for the enjoyment of others to fill the creative void within me. But getting recognized and receiving messages and tweets from people all around the world comes with this new territory. It’s something I’ve had to adjust to, because although this shift didn’t magically happen overnight, it did happen extremely, and semiuncomfortably, quickly.
I don’t think I had properly grasped the reality of how much my YouTube hobby was beginning to take off when I was still in college. Maybe the remoteness of Minnesota had shielded me somewhat, but after moving to Los Angeles, I noticed people noticing me. As the weeks went on, I started getting stopped on the street, in restaurants, and in shopping malls and began getting attention from businesses, events, parties, and award shows in the entertainment industry. My manager said I had “gone mainstream” and, yeah, that made me laugh. But suddenly a number on a screen—YouTube subscribers or Twitter followers—had mutated into real, living, breathing human beings. (When I put it that way, it sounds like some weird, twisted horror film!) Those clicks weren’t all made by some freak accident. All those strangers were out there and knew me—and I needed to wrap my head around this new normal, however strange it felt.
Life got even stranger at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2014 when I found myself standing in the middle of a Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Adam Levine triangle on the red carpet. That was a crazy experience, and thank God I’m not the type to freak out over celebrities; otherwise I would have been an utter mess—crying and asking for selfies in between sobs. But it was truly a cool moment for me, and not something I had anticipated at the start of the day.
I had woken early, probably because of the butterflies fluttering in my stomach, and thought, Today’s the day! Award show day!
In true Connor Franta fashion, I had purchased my outfit the day before: a gray blazer, nice white button-down with a unique black stripe down the middle, black pants, and my fancy, shiny shoes ta boot! Or, um, ta shoe! I looked good. I felt good.
My car pulled up, and I stepped outside into the California heat. During the forty-five-minute journey through traffic, my mind started to wander . . . and reflect . . . and take stock as my thoughts raced back to La Crescent and those days attending a tiny college in Collegeville, Minnesota. And now, here I was in a fancy black car, on my way to a nationally televised award show, produced by MTV—and they had invited me; they wanted me there. I didn’t have to ask, beg, or even grovel. I pinched myself. That was definitely the moment when I knew the risk—the move out West—had paid off. After many difficult decisions, wide-eyed nights, and careful thinking, I had made it to a place I never thought possible. Living the life and chasing the career I never knew would turn into this.
When the car arrived at the award show, I snapped out of my reflective daydream and was shepherded through the glitzy hustle and bustle toward the red carpet. There, I was greeted by the sound of scream after scream—“CONNNORRRR!!”—and the mad flutter of paparazzi camera shutters. Incredible.
I pinched myself again.
“Ow!” I winced. Why did I do that?
Everything I’ve been through and built up to goes far beyond this award show or the “fame” associated with it. I was there in recognition of my work—and that was the reward. I’m just happy that the things I’m doing and creating mean something to my audience. In fact, I shouldn’t even be saying “I” when it’s more a “we.” We, the YouTube community, have always dreamed of receiving such plaudits. That night at the VMAs, I looked around and saw many of my peers paired with mainstream celebrities and felt nothing but pride.
It’s happening, and quickly. And it’s going to get bigger. I’m ready for this ride we’re all on. Let’s push the limits and show the world we mean business. Time to hop on that high-speed train.
Charity
I grew up volunteering my time at local nursing homes, church, food shelters, and my community in general. My parents always encouraged us to think of the plight of others, so I was no stranger to charity. But I always walked away thinking that I’d like to do much more beyond just giving my time.
Ever since my YouTube channel started to grow, I have wanted to get directly involved with a charity of some sort, but I could never put a finger on which one. The world is filled with things that need fixing and people who need our love, so how do you simply pick one? That’s a tough choice to make, but I made it in August 2014.
One evening, while scouring the Internet for who knows what, I stumbled on The Thirst Project. In a nutshell, this organization provides safe drinking water to people in Africa, with local residents hired to build wells in villages, thus stimulating the economy. What really hooked me—aside from its founder Seth Maxwell’s passion for the cause—was the understanding that water was only the start of many issues that villagers faced. If these people didn’t first have to walk all day to obtain water from a dirty stream, they could be working and their children could be getting an education. If they were able to drink safe water, they were less likely to get sick from a contaminated source. Fix the water problem; fix them all. Amazing.
After quickly bringing together a launch page and a game plan, I began a fundraising campaign using YouTube videos, tweets, and other social media one month later, on September 12, 2014, my birthday. The response blew me away. Within the next thirty days, my followers and I had raised more than $230,000.
All it takes to make a difference is an idea, a little initiative, and the determination to make it happen. I realized that I could use my influence—and large audience—to do good in one needy corner of the world. After what we achieved, I have never been prouder of my audience or myself. Giving back is a real blessing. Charity is where the heart is, and it asks us to put our personal needs, wants, and desires aside for a bit and instead place them in the hands of people less fortunate. As Mother Teresa put it, “It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.”
From the bottom of my heart, thank you to anyone and everyone who contributed. We did a good thing.
Life Doesn’t Wait
DO YOU KNOW what’s a strange feeling? Beginning to write a book.
Do you know what’s an even stranger feeling? Finishing a book.
I seriou
sly cannot believe I’ve made it this far—from blank page to finish line! What’s interesting is that I’ve never before worked for this amount of time—nearly one year now—on a project. I’m more used to thinking something up, creating it, and immediately sharing it with the world. So to craft, nurture, and sit with a project for so long without sharing it with anyone has been a test. A test of patience, drive, creativity, and, frankly, writing abilities.
To the five of you who have taken the time to sit down and read my book cover to cover, thank you. I hope you feel as if you’ve been taken on a journey of self-discovery while learning a bit more about me and the way I see the world. This world is a strange place in reality, and even stranger from my point of view.
We all have many chapters left to live, but here I am, on the final pages of this installment. So how should this book end? I’ve thought long and hard about this. Isn’t the ending supposed to be the best part? The part that sticks with people the most? The part that can make or break a story? That’s a lot of pressure! I may be getting a minor anxiety attack right now from merely typing about it.
Breathe, Connor. Breathe.
Okay. I’ve got it. Let’s wrap with the best advice I can give anyone.
Life waits for no one. Are you happy with where you are and what you’re doing? If you have to search yourself for an answer to that simple question, you probably aren’t. It’s not okay to just get by, existing day to day. Where will that get you? Aren’t we here to live? To squeeze the maximum amount of juice out of life and, at the end of the day, say to ourselves, Wow, I’m so grateful to have what I have, and do what I do. I’m the luckiest person on the planet.
A Work in Progress Page 10