by Jen Brady
“Do you have to play Fortnite?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“What else am I supposed to do while you spend hours editing that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe . . . help me?”
“I don’t want to get in the way of genius. You’re the editor. And the director. And the screenwriter. I’m just the guy who holds the camera and buys stuff.”
“You’re the cameraman and producer,” I corrected.
“Yeah. The guy who holds the camera and buys stuff.”
“We haven’t even found music for the end credits,” I pointed out. “If you don’t want to check YouTube comments, you can scout out some royalty-free music.”
“Ooh, let me see the credits,” Mya requested. “My name’s first, right?”
“No. Megan’s is,” I answered automatically. I realized half a second too late the repercussions of that answer.
“What?” Mya stood straight up, dumping Ted’s feet off the end of the couch, which jostled the rest of him, me, and the laptop. “No way! I’m the female lead. My name should go first. It goes me, Ted, then Megan and everybody else. The female lead, the male lead, the villain, the rest of the cast.”
“Right, but you aren’t the female lead. You’re the much-less-important love interest for the male lead. Megan’s the female lead.”
“But—”
“It’s called The Witch’s Curse. Not The Fair Lady Zara’s Curse. And I don’t have time to argue about this. We have to check the comments from the mall video and film Ted eating hot sauce.”
“I still say I won,” Ted complained. “My time was way under yours pre-lame-penalty.”
“You deserved every bit of that one-minute penalty. You got Megan a toaster for Christmas.”
“Which will be very handy at college next year,” he argued.
“That dumb sorority she wants to pledge to probably already has a toaster in its house. Now be helpful and check recent comments.”
“Fine,” Ted muttered. He called up our YouTube notifications on his phone. “But a toaster is a perfectly acceptable gift for any occasion. Everyone knows that.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes as I blended the audio of Megan’s lines with the close-ups of Ted’s face in the big reveal scene in which Megan/Witch tells Ted/Roderigo that she’s caused Mya/Zara/Fainting Chihuahua Chick to fall into a deep, unbreakable sleep for a hundred years.
“When it goes back to Megs, her words don’t go with her mouth,” Mya so helpfully pointed out from her new spot, perched on a stool behind the couch.
“I know,” I said, resisting the urge to grab the pillow out from underneath Ted’s head and fling it back to whap her in the face. I’d take Bethany or Megan mouth-breathing behind me like a creeper over Mya any day. “I’ve been working on it for an hour.”
Most people would have enough common sense to notice the frustration in my voice and let it drop. Not Mya. She leaned over my shoulder as the clip played again. “She looks like a Japanese anime that’s been dubbed over in English.”
That was it. I wiggled my leg out from under Ted’s head, snatched up the pillow, and turned. Mom was working another shift at the hospital, so she wasn’t here for Mya to go tattling to. Neither was Megan, who babies her even worse than Mom. Which meant Mya was getting the whack in the face she deserved.
I wound up, and Mya put her arm out to shield the blow, but before I could let her have it, Ted jumped up.
“What the heck?”
I whirled around, the pillow still poised. “What? You know she deserves it.”
“No, look at this! Who the heck is Bhaerly Believable?”
“What?”
He turned his phone around in his hand so I could see the screen. Mya hopped off her stool and ran around between us. She grabbed at the phone, trying to turn it to get a better angle. I tightened my grip and yanked it back toward me.
Ted had scrolled to a comment on one of our videos from before Christmas. We’d had so much going on with the holidays and our movie that we’d neglected to run through comments for a few days, so I hadn’t seen it before. Underneath a long ramble about how Ted and I should date (ick), was a comment by this Bhaerly Believable, whose avatar was a large letter B with clip art of an old-school camera behind it:
Ran into these dummkopfs at Concord Crossings. Got in the way of my one-chance shot. You’re not the only YouTubers around, you know. Next time common courtesy, please. Some of us have more than useless drivel to film.
We’d gotten negative comments before. They happen. So do thumbs-down clicks, spam, and fifty cut-and-paste comments in a row that mess with your stats. But this was different. It wasn’t criticizing my outfit (Seriously, what’s wrong with yoga pants and hoodies? We’re not a fashion channel!) or chastising us to “leave that nice old man in peace,” as if Ted’s grandpa didn’t have a sense of humor and would drop dead just because we put a few bath bombs in his pool.
This wasn’t a criticism of our artistic talents. This was gut-wrenchingly personal.
The fact that it was obviously from Angry Scruffy Bench Guy made it worse. I couldn’t believe I’d found him the least bit attractive the other day. He was a total internet troll. And apparently also a YouTuber. Everyone knows it’s bad form to pick a fight in another YouTuber’s comments feed. It was a total noob move.
“And what’s the deal with that peace sign emoji?” Ted sounded livid. “That’s super passive-aggressive.”
“Gimme that,” I muttered, yanking the phone away from both Ted and Mya’s fingers. I sat down on the couch, and they sat on either side of me as I tapped on Bhaerly Believable’s avatar.
It brought me to a YouTube page with forty-two videos posted. And, Christopher Columbus, it was him—Angry Scruffy Bench Guy—at the top of the screen in a clip that started playing automatically after it loaded.
“Welcome to Bhaerly Believable,” the clean-shaven, tie-wearing, dimple-showing version of Angry Scruffy Bench Guy said, “the only channel that features your amazing Boston-area neighbors who deserve a shout out. You might find these stories barely believable, but trust me, they’re true.”
The screen cut to a very well-done montage of clips from various videos he must have made set to upbeat music. Crossing guards, fire-fighters, and nurses provided one-liners designed to intrigue viewers into clicking on the thumbnails below.
And I had to admit, it worked. I found myself interested in the featured video, “Crossing Cathy.”
Crossing Guard Cathy Christiansen puts her life in danger every day. In fact, she broke her collarbone last month when she threw herself between three children and a texting driver. Hear her heroic story here.
Bhaerly Believable
103K views • 5 months ago
“Where does he get off calling our channel useless drivel?” Ted burst out. “He’s the one with a boring documentary channel about crossing guards.”
The cutting words about us flashed through my mind, and I felt my heart thump harder and my face warm.
Contrary to what Angry Scruffy Bench Guy thinks, our YouTube channel is hilarious. Ted and I pull weird and unexpected pranks and challenges and then capture people’s awesome reactions. Unfortunately, we started the channel in middle school when we were still under the delusion that the nicknames JoJo and Teddy were cool and YouTube-alias-worthy, so we’ll always, regrettably, be known to our viewers as JoJo+Teddy.
Some of our best past episodes include titles such as:
We Take a Sunday Drive in a Mustang Convertible . . . in January . . . With the Top Down
We Put 5000 Bath Bombs in My Grandpa’s Pool (what could go wrong???)
We Order One of Everything at the Drive-Thru One Item at a Time
Last to Leave the Treehouse Doesn’t Have to Eat Dog Food
We Spend the Whole Night Hiding in a Tent at Camping World
We try to upload something a couple of times a week, even though it’s time-consuming to film enough material for a twelve-minute vi
deo. But posting consistently is one of the must-do habits of successful YouTubers, so we try our hardest to keep the content coming. We also post vlogs at least twice a week: one about what’s going on with me and one about Ted, although we’ve been best friends since sixth grade, so there’s a lot of overlap on the vlogs.
We’re even starting to see a consistently growing income. Granted, it’s not nearly enough to live off of but it’s getting there. Placing in the Lights, Camera, Vance! contest would be huge. If we capture one of the top five spots, our video will be shown on Vance Sanders’s channel to all thirty-seven million of his subscribers, which basically means millions of instant subs since our bio and a link to our channel would be posted, too. It was cross-promo gold, and we needed that to boost our income enough to contribute substantially to my college fund.
Millions of New Subscribers = Way More Views = Skyrocketing Income = Joanna can actually pay for film school in a year and a half. That was the only way I’d be going. No way could my mom afford film school in New York. She could barely afford to pay the bills as it was.
Ted hooted. “Check it out!” He scrolled down to show that Angry Scruffy Bench Guy’s comment had gotten forty-two replies. “They’re roasting him!”
Sure enough, our fans had our backs and were letting him have it:
What??? You’re the one who should get out of the way! JoJo+Teddy are pure genius!
You’re channel is boring dude. I looked at it and sorry but it is.
I don’t get it. What’s a dummkopf?
It means idiot in German.
What???? He’s the dummkopf!
LOL, right?
I Can’t Even! Nobody makes fun of Teddy. He’s super-hot and my fave Youtoober.
“You guys ready?”
Ted stopped scrolling, and all three of us looked up. Megan stood at the top of the attic stairs with her jacket and gloves on, purse slung over her shoulder.
I glanced at the time on Ted’s phone. “I totally forgot,” I admitted.
“Well, hurry up. I booked it home from the Kings’ so we can make it in time for the previews.”
“We kind of have a situation here,” I said, looking back at the phone.
Ted took it from me and stood up, tucking it into his pants pocket. “Nah. Our fans are handling it for us. It’s time for a break anyway.”
I reached for my laptop, which I’d abandoned on the arm of the couch. “I think we’re going to have to pass. We still have to fix Megan’s dialogue and find a song for the credits. And clean up a couple of scene transitions.”
His hand pushed the laptop screen down. I had to yank my fingers out of the way to avoid getting them snapped.
“Nope,” Ted said. “We’re almost done. It’ll take two more hours, tops. Then we’ll be finished with the whole movie and ready to submit.”
“Plus, you promised,” Megan said from the staircase. “I have to baby-sit for the Kings every night for the rest of break. Tonight’s my only night off. Sallie already bought our tickets and everything.”
I sighed. Once I fixed the timing on the audio for Ted and Megan’s final scene, all I had left was picky stuff anyway.
“Okay.” I got up and set the laptop on my desk. “Let me back it up quick.”
Ted grabbed my arm and tugged. “No time. It’ll be fine. You can back it up later. Come on.”
Megan stepped up the final step and crossed the room, looking at Ted. “You go get your car. I’ll get Joanna going.”
Ted nodded and went to the stairs, jumping down half of them to the landing.
“Megs, I really—”
My big sister took both of my hands in hers firmly. “No. You’ve been working way too hard. You need a night off. You’ve been waiting for Sword of Serenity to come out for months.”
Her mothering might get old sometimes, but Megs was usually right when it came to insight on self-care, and this time was no exception. A night off would be good for me and good for the project. I had to fill my artistic well, as Vance Sanders would say.
I sighed again. “Okay.”
“Ooh, wait for me,” Mya said, bounding to the staircase. “I’ll be ready in just a sec!”
“Oh, no.” I’d take the break Ted and Megan were insisting on, but I needed some Mya-free hours in my life after all the critical comments and mouth-breathing I’d endured lately. I broke away from Megan and trailed Mya down both sets of stairs.
“You’re not going.”
“Yes, I am,” Mya declared, “and I call shotgun.”
That was a laugh. I was the only one who rode shotgun in any of Ted’s vehicles—and I had been since the day he got his license.
“Nope. Not happening in this lifetime.”
“It’s not fair!” she wailed like she was three instead of fifteen. “You said I could go with you the next time you went to the mall!”
Have I mentioned Christmas break wouldn’t be Christmas break without Mya being a pain in the butt?
“We’re going to the movies, not the mall,” I corrected her.
She clamped her hands on her hips. “The movie theater is at the mall!”
“That’s a huge technicality. And it’s not at the mall. It’s next to the mall.”
“They share a parking garage.”
“But the theater isn’t in the mall. They both have exterior entrances.”
“They share a common wall!”
“You’re not going, Mya, so it doesn’t even matter.”
“But Ted said next time—”
“No, Mya.”
She collapsed onto the couch next to Bethany in a huff, muttering about everything being unfair. She wanted to talk about unfair? How about the fact that she gets everything handed to her while the rest of us have to work for it? Megs has to work if she wants to buy new clothes. Same with me and filming equipment. But Mya gets art supplies whenever she wants just by whining to Mom that she wants them. See? Unfair.
Or how fair is it that she got all the pretty genes and I got the awkward, lanky ones and all the ugly freckles?
She did not want to have a debate with me about life being unfair. I’d win in three seconds, flat.
“You can choose what we watch,” Bethany generously offered, holding the remote out for Mya to snatch. She looked up and locked eyes with me. “Have fun, guys.”
“Yeah,” Mya said with a smirk. “Enjoy it now . . . because karma.”
I gave her a look of disbelief. “Karma isn’t even a real thing.”
Mya crossed her arms over her chest. “How do you know?”
I opened my mouth to fire back at her about how lame the concept of karma was, but before I could, a honk sounded from the driveway.
“That’s Ted.” Megan nudged me. “We should get going. Previews, remember?”
I didn’t care in the least about previews, but I’d hurry if it meant getting away from Mya.
I walked out the door, and Megan followed. As she closed the door, Mya called out, “Karma, baby! Just you wait!”
I couldn’t let her scream the last word. I put my hand on the doorknob to head back in, but Megan tugged on my arm.
“She is such—”
“Forget about it,” Megan said. “I finally get to see a movie that’s not animated or full of slapstick humor. Don’t ruin it.”
Megs had worked so hard over Christmas break. She deserved a carefree night out, so I tried to put all thoughts of bratty sisters and Cute Scruffy Bench Guys—I mean Angry Scruffy Bench Guys—out of my mind as I climbed into the passenger side of Ted’s truck.
6
RICK
I FIGURED THEY’D DELETE my comment as soon as they saw it, so I was quite surprised when I kept getting notifications. Their fans had jumped to their defense, and they were lambasting me. I considered deleting the comment myself, but the only thing worse than hate-posting on another YouTuber’s channel is deleting your comment and running away like a cowardly little wuss, so I left it.
Mostly, people thumb
s-downed it or commented about how wrong I was, but one lady (the screen name was MandiGirl2234, so I assumed she was female, but you never know with screen names—I’ve been surprised before) sang my praises, agreeing with me all the way:
Thank the Lord someone finally said this! My kids love these videos, but they’re so dumb!
We exchanged a couple of replies, but then the JoJo+Teddy sheeple started thumbs-downing her, too, and she crumbled, deleting the first reply and, thus, the entire rest of the supportive thread.
Not everyone chose to tell me how awful I was. I scored seven new subs within two hours of my posting. I couldn’t be sure they were due to people clicking over to my page from the comment, but there was a pretty good chance it contributed.
Since the initial flurry of activity last week, I’d received very few notifications regarding the post. I figured they’d finally deleted it or it had gotten buried under so many grammatically incorrect “your the best!” comments that they’d missed it . . . until just now, that is, when my phone buzzed.
It was a private message, which wasn’t the most common notification I got. Most people posted in the comments. Very few people actually took the time to go to my About Page, request to see my email address, verify they were human by clicking the captcha box, and send me a personal message.
But there it was:
Joanna March RE: comment – What’s your damage? I can’t . . . .
I stared at the line in my inbox for a few seconds. My heartrate had picked up, but I wasn’t sure whether it was due to excitement that she was initiating contact with me or nervousness about what she was going to say. She was probably majorly POed.
I clicked on the line, and her entire message came up. It was short but to the point.
What’s your damage? I can’t believe someone who’s been on YouTube as long as you have, appearing to be such a “professional,” would stoop so low. That was an amateur-hour move, Rick (or Bhaerly Believable, whatever).
We’re all just trying to serve our own fan bases. Sorry we got in the way of whatever big shot you were taking, but we didn’t know. You didn’t even have a camera. You were shooting with a cell phone. A *cell phone*. You can’t blame us for “getting in your way” when you weren’t even using a video camera. How would we have a clue????