Hello Life!

by Marcus Butler

  It wasn’t an easy thing to do, and to figure out whether I should stick with them I had to ask some serious questions of myself, like: a) What are these people doing for me? b) What are they bringing to my life? and c) Am I hanging around with them because they’re the cool kids at school, or because I value and trust their friendship?

  My answers were as follows:

  a. They’re getting me into trouble at school (for being a bit of a dick).

  b. I’m getting grief for being in trouble at school (for being a bit of a dick).

  c. Because they’re the cool kids in school, rather than close personal friends (and I’m becoming a bit of a dick).

  That’s when I made the decision to stop hanging out with them. It was a bit awkward but I realized it was for the best in the long run. In the end I stopped messing around with them, I quit skipping classes, and a lot less trouble came my way as a result. I also decided that it was better to have a smaller number of friends who were “real,” rather than a big group of cool people who might say things behind my back, or weren’t entirely trustworthy.

  The toughest hurdle to overcome was fear. I worried I might not have any friends at all after I’d made the break. It’s easy to think that way and everyone does it, but I needed to overcome my anxiety about the future. I needed to believe that I could walk away and find new friends, or focus on the good friends I already had.

  If you’re in the same situation as I was, you can do the same, too. You have to make a change and walk away from the people who are bringing you down and negatively affecting your life. It will be weird at first. They might take it badly. You might have to spend free time at college or work on your own for a while, but that loneliness won’t last. You’ll improve your relationships with long-lasting friends. You’ll probably meet new people because the chances are you’ll put yourself out there to meet different faces (but remember your mistakes from last time).

  Even if you can’t—if you’re shy, say—new friends will come around eventually. It won’t be long before you’re thinking, Wow, remember that jerk who got me into all that trouble at school? Where are they now?

  BEWARE THE PACK MENTALITY

  It’s easy to become a bullying presence, without really knowing it. Often in a gang of people there’s one domineering voice—the one person who shouts louder than all the others. Usually they’re the person everyone follows, often because they’re the boldest rather than the wisest; they’re decision makers by default.

  That’s fine if they’re a positive force, but if they’re not so nice, they can often cause a situation, because at times domineering people can become bullies. That’s particularly unpleasant if they have an issue with you. They can turn the group against you; pushing your buttons becomes fun for them. Before you know it, they’ve brought you down in front of your friends and peers and you’re feeling crappy about yourself.

  It’s even worse, however, when they encourage you to behave horribly—to pick on someone else, sometimes without even realizing it. When a group of your friends is bullying someone, it can be easy to get dragged into that pack mentality. After all, better someone else than you, right? But think about it this way: is that how you really want to go through life? How would you feel if you were the kid being emotionally hassled all the time? I know I’d hate it.

  I don’t want to sound like your parents here, but my advice would be to step out of the situation. If you know you’re being influenced into doing bad things, stop and think, Is this right? Would I be doing this if it wasn’t for the group? Am I doing this to prove a point and be cool?

  Often the simple answer is to stand up to the domineering voice, the bully, and bring them down a notch. But sometimes that’s tricky (especially if they’re huge). Meanwhile, if the other people in the group don’t want to quit their unpleasant behavior, you might have to step away on your own. It’s a big deal, but think of the bigger picture. Your bold move might prove awkward and scary at first, but you’ll be glad you did it in the long run.

  THE FIVE FRIENDS IT’S COOL TO HAVE

  OK, so you’ve spring-cleaned your social life. You’ve brushed away the cynicism, trouble, and stress of your toxic “mates.” What now? How about looking out for a couple of the five types of people who are great to lean on in hard times. . . .

  1 THE ADVICE SPECIALIST

  The go-to person if you’re experiencing a major personal problem—a dispute with your other half, for example, or an issue at home that you can’t chat to your parents about. The Advice Specialist is wise beyond their years—like a cooler older brother or sister. Somehow they know exactly the best thing to do or say in any given situation.

  It’s not just the heavy stuff they’re skilled in dealing with; it can be the trite and trivial, too. Need to deal with a troublesome roommate? They’ll know how to negotiate the issue. Need a new pair of soccer cleats? They’ll have a tip for the best deal on the market. Brown or black as the color this season? They’ll have it nailed already, plus they also know the best places to shop. These people are the Yoda of the college common room, the Zen master of the break room. You should make the most of their wisdom.

  2 THE INFO SPONGE

  Your most knowledgeable friend, and the kind of person who should appear on a quiz show—a bar trivia champ-in-waiting. The Info Sponge is a font of all knowledge—useful and not so useful.

  In fact, random truths are their speciality. They’re the sort of person with whom you have those deep conversations about how Planet Earth formed and how we all got here today. You start to drift off and talk about aliens, galaxies, and how old the earth is. You ask: “How long have humans ruled the earth?” “Why is the sky blue?” and “What even is rain?” There’s a bit of umming and ahhing and a lot of weird suggestions and ideas. Then the Sponge out of nowhere comes up with the answer and backs it up with their scientific technical reasons. My mate Jim Chapman is the Info Sponge. I can ask him anything and he’ll know the answer. Even if he’s unsure he’ll usually be able to bluff his way through. He’s more Google than human.

  Climbing trees in Norwich (England) with Jim

  3 THE RISK-TAKER

  There are two sides to the Risk-taker: always good for fun, but only in small doses, the Risk-taker is great to hang around if you’re a thrill-seeker, but not so good if you’re of a nervous disposition or easily led into trouble. Some of the things the Risk-taker gets up to are often a bit much for the “normal” person.

  In later life, the Risk-taker is the kind of person who’ll jump into business decisions. They’ll take the financial chance that other people are too scared to consider—and they might win, they might lose. As a young person, he or she will love bungee-jumping and tequila slammers.

  I have a friend called FunForLouis—aka Louis Cole—who falls into the Risk-taker category. He travels the world doing the most insane things. Most of the time he films his madness and then puts it online for the rest of the world to see, and his stuff is full-on. One day he’s in Dubai jumping out of a plane, the next day he’s flying to Brazil and hiking in the jungle for three weeks. He lives an amazing life, living life to the fullest and exploring the world.

  4 THE JOKER

  The person who makes you laugh the hardest. They’re funny in any situation, sometimes inappropriately. At other times they’ll crack you up with a funny story, or a witty response. At times, the Joker might be unintentionally funny, but they’re always on hand in times of stress.

  I have two groups of friends: my best friends from school and my YouTube friends. Out of my YouTube friends, the Joker is probably Joe Sugg. He has his own sense of humor, and he won’t mind me telling you that it’s the weirdest thing. Joe is in his own little world most of the time and when you’re in conversation with him you never really know if he’s being serious of not. He’s known for really crappy jokes but they’re so crappy they’re funny. My attitude to Joe’s “humor”? If in doubt, laugh.

  Joe and me, with soaking wet, sad f
aces

  My friend Dave also falls into this category, purely based on the fact that most of the time he has no idea he’s being funny. It’s the things he does and his lack of common sense in group situations that almost make you laugh at him, in a fun way of course.

  5 THE BLUNT INSTRUMENT

  This is the friend who speaks their mind about everything. They rarely think, Hmm, should I say that? As a result, the Blunt Instrument won’t hold back; they’ll just tell it how it is. Of course, that won’t always make them the most popular person in the group. And there’s a good chance they’ll offend people occasionally, but most of the time they’re just saying what everyone else is thinking. The only difference is that the Blunt Instrument has the courage to say it.

  One of the first pictures from when I went traveling with Max

  I don’t mean that in a bullying way. The Blunt Instrument is the type of person who will openly question why you’re wearing cowboy bootsI as a serious fashion choice, rather than talking about it behind your back with other people. If ever you’re getting carried away, or too cocky, the Blunt Instrument can bring you back down to earth. They’ll call you out. And though what they’ve said might hurt initially, you can rest assured that they’ve done you a favor in the long run. This is my mate Max through and through. Ever since I’ve known him he’s been great at making things slightly awkward in a group confrontation. He doesn’t really hold back. Most of the time he’s saying what’s on everyone’s minds, though.

  THE INTERNET FOR OLD(ER) PEOPLE

  We all know the internet is an amazing world, but it can also be a strange and nightmarish place. And it’s almost guaranteed to blow the minds of people from a different generation. By that I mean anyone over the age of seventy—you know, old people like your grandma. Though of course I’m not being ageist here; older people can use the internet, too.

  What I’m saying is that the internet can be a bit of a head-melt if you’re not used to it. I know my mom and dad were a bit confused when I started making YouTube videos, and rightly so. There were times when people were coming out of nowhere, offering cash for advertising slots on an early working channel of mine. My parents were concerned about where it all might be heading. The papers were full of horror stories about kids getting sucked into trouble on the internet, and it was probably a bit worrying for them.

  I guess I was a bit weirded out by the attention, too. I was sixteen and being a bit naughty, uploading music clips from other websites only available in the U.K. I used to rip clips from official sites and put them up on my YouTube channel, basically so people outside Britain could see the clips, too. I used to get hundreds of thousands of hits with every new video. My head was spinning, though I don’t think my parents really knew what to make of it all.

  I can’t blame them really. I was up to all kinds of madness online. As Marcus Butler TV began to take off, I started pulling crazy stunts in front of my camera, or performing wacky pranks whenever I hit a landmark subscription number—like 1,000 subscribers or 2,000. These are small figures compared to what I have now, but back in the day they felt like a huge deal.

  Sixteen-year-old me trying to find my destiny—haha!

  I’ll never forget the time I landed my 5,000th subscriber. I was hyped, super-excited. The event happened on my final day at college and it had taken me two years to get to that number. With my exam books handed in, and a vacation with my parents starting the following day, I wanted to celebrate in style, so I decided to dye my hair pink on video.

  God knows what my mom must have thought as she saw my friend Tom in the garden, rubber gloves on, rubbing pink hair dye into my skull in front of a video camera. She probably became even more confused hearing me wailing from the bathroom an hour or so later. After five washes, my blond locks were still a fluorescent shade.

  “Er, Mom, why is my hair still pink?” I shouted.

  Mom scanned the instructions on the package. The news wasn’t good.

  “Marcus! It says here ‘Semipermanent’!” she said, not sounding too pleased. “It can last, on average, six to eight weeks.”

  I’d blown it—big-time. I spent the next two weeks looking like an absolute weirdo on vacation, walking around with a weird shade of pink hair as everyone stared at me and sniggered. Niomi was not pleased.

  When I thought it was a good idea to dye my hair bright pink and fake tan for 5,000 subscribers . . .

  Me looking very unimpressed with my pink hair on vacation

  I was unfazed by my fail, and the stunts over the next few months and years became more outlandish, more adventurous (they’re still online if you want to see them). But as my channel got bigger I was forever hearing the same stuff about my time online from family and friends:

  “What are you doing?”

  “You’re just filming yourself and putting it online and people are watching this?”

  “Hang on, this is a weird video thing that you do and you put it on the internet?”

  “Who the hell is watching this?”

  I guess some of their concerns were fair. To the older, outside world what I was doing might have looked a little nuts. Some of their worries—like whether I had scary, pervy viewers—while being natural questions for people who didn’t really understand social media, or websites like YouTube, were explained away with conversation and a little common sense.

  Your parents might have the same concerns. They might be worried that you’ve hooked up to my channel, or that you’re friends with so many people on Facebook, so over the next few pages I’m going to show you how to remove their fears. Please feel free to use the following parent-friendly explanations as a cut-out-and-keep crib sheet for dealing with any webophobic (© Marcus Butler) family members at your next Christmas party.

  1 “THE INTERNET IS SUCH A SCARY PLACE . . .”

  I’d imagine that as a parent letting your kid loose online can be worrying. The stuff you can access with your fingertips is pretty terrifying—not that I’ve looked. But once you’ve got it into your parents’ heads that the internet is a fascinating and useful tool, not only for work but for education and social media, too, they should come around. I always found it was helpful to show them what I was looking at online. Well, most of the time.

  2 “WE JUST BURIED THE CAT—LOL MOM xxx”

  Warning #1: Your parents will try to use internet slang, they will get it wrong, and it will be a bit of a cringe. So ease their pain by outlining the basic chat techniques. That way, they won’t embarrass you, or themselves, in public. So, for example: “Mom, LOL means ‘laugh out loud’ rather than ‘lots of love.’ But thanks for telling me about the cat.”

  Warning #2: You’ll inevitably become bombarded with their new all-over-the-place lingo in a series of weird texts, with added inappropriate emojis—bananas, the dreaded turd symbol, etc. Just don’t teach them too much. You’ll want to keep back a secret code for yourself, just in case of emergencies.

  3 “HANG ON, YOU MET YOUR NEW GIRLFRIEND/BOYFRIEND . . . ONLINE?”

  Any dating site is difficult to explain to someone who is unfamiliar with it, because they tend to think, How can you meet someone and build a relationship through social media? It’s a societal change some parents just can’t get their heads around, like Spotify or Twitter. For other parents, those who are single, say, internet dating might be all too familiar to them. Just try not to think about that too much if your mom or dad is single and looking for love. It might gross you out a bit.

  The way to explain it to them is this: “Mom, Dad, with online dating you can establish what you like and don’t like in a relationship so nobody’s time is wasted. You can also find out important things about the person you’re about to date, things it might take two or three dates to establish in person. And, yes, the person I’m meeting might be weird, but then a person I’ve met at a party might be weird, too. At least online I can talk to them at length to find out whether they’re nuts or not, check out their friends on Facebook, and build u
p an idea of what they’re like.”

  Just watch yourself for stalking tendencies when you’re doing your research, though. No one likes a stalker. Look at your date’s photos if they’re online. But don’t go too far.

  4 “SHOULD YOU REALLY BE DOING YOUR HOMEWORK ON THE INTERNET?”

  Oh my God, yes! I once asked Mom how she used to do her homework back in the day. The conversation went a little like this . . .

  ME: Mom, when you were studying plate tectonics in the San Andreas Fault for Geography, where did you get the information?