Binge

by Tyler Oakley

  Conversation followed the same lines as on Grindr, with a bit of small talk as he sat on a chair near my bed. I sat on my bed and answered his questions, but with a look of Okay, buddy . . . let’s not act like you didn’t just tell me to keep my stank-nasty shoes on because you want to sniff ’em in about two minutes. He picked up what I was laying down and said with an almost quivering voice, “So, ummmm, do you want that foot massage?”

  I wasn’t quite sure what to do, so I stretched and leaned back with my arms up and hands behind my head. He came closer to my feet—eyeing them as if he were Gollum and I had on the one-(toe)ring-to-rule-them-all. He took my Adidas tennies in his hands, and although he said nothing, his eyes moaned, My preciousssssssss.

  Now, I won’t lie and say that when he started deeply inhaling the scent of my shoes, I didn’t cringe inwardly. Listen, I’m new to this, I wasn’t expecting to have my feet worshipped on a Thursday night. He slowly unlaced each shoe, holding these beaten-down shoes with as much care as one would give to a glass slipper. Then, one at a time, in a reverse Cinderella’s prince maneuver, he revealed what were to be his prized possessions . . . my rancid feet.

  Now, I don’t want to alarm anyone reading this book, but there is always something fundamentally wrong with each and every person you could potentially date. Nobody is perfect! What’s wrong with me? you ask. Well, ask any of my friends, and they’ll tell you that after I’ve been wearing shoes all day, my feet stink like something unholy. It’s not like I don’t try to fix this though! I often preemptively sneak into the bathroom upon arriving anywhere and wash my feet in the bathtub or sink. I get it, nobody wants to smell my feet, and I fix the problem before anyone sniffs and looks around. I am the first to acknowledge my gross-smelling feet, and I am sorry.

  But this guy . . . not only did he not mind . . . this guy lived for it. His entire life had been leading up to this moment, and with each deep inhalation, homeboy found new life. It was as if every breath prior to now were second-grade oxygen. The look on his face communicated it all: if my feet had a sound, my toes were his jam. If he was in pain, only my feet could heal him. If he was looking for perfection, only I could nail it. If he was giving my toes a score, he’d count each foot as a perfect ten. Enough foot puns, he was living for my feet.

  But it wasn’t just him that was living . . . I was living too. His massage was tender, sensual, generous—and I was in heaven.

  Sniffing led to a whole lot more, and although I’d never fantasized about this before, I think I found a new calling. I won’t go any further about what happened next, but I became so open-minded during that slumber party that I (after he pleaded for it) even stepped on his cheek a little? Who knew that I, Tyler Oakley, would tap-dance on someone’s face for their pleasure? God, I’m such a giver. A modern-day Mother Toeresa. (I can’t stop, please forgive me.)

  Things wrapped up as they usually do. He went to the bathroom, and I lay there on my bed silently pondering everything that had just happened. The door opened and he reappeared, all smiles. “You seemed to be into that.”

  My first instinct was to make an excuse or to get bashful or to change the subject . . . but then I realized I was in good company. I could be honest, and this guy was the one who seemed to be holding back. “Actually, yeah, that was kind of amazing.”

  Maybe we all go through life carefully constructing our profiles to say what we’re looking for, all while not saying anything that might scare people away . . . and after a time we start to believe what we’re putting out there. Our fear of people’s rejecting the things that make us happy limits how much happiness we can actually find. I guess when we’re a bit more honest with ourselves and others, we might get more of what we actually desire. Now, any nice gentleman out there want me to step on their face?

  unhappiest birthday

  FOR THE FIRST TWENTY-FOUR YEARS OF MY LIFE, the “Happy Birthday” song was tolerable. On my twenty-fifth birthday, it gave me a full-blown anxiety attack.

  I was used to celebrating my birthday at YouTube conventions. I had done so for the past few years, but this year’s conventionwas different. It was the first time I’d attended since reaching 1 million subscribers. Though I didn’t feel any different personally, my experience at the convention changed dramatically.

  YouTube conventions had always been pleasant. They’re a chance for excited viewers to come together at a convention center with the hopes of learning about the industry, meeting Internet friends, and sometimes catching a glimpse of their favorite YouTube creators. The attendance numbers get higher and higher every year, and now tens of thousands of teens arrive, hoping for a selfie with one of the hundreds of featured YouTubers.

  I’ve been attending conventions since I had one thousand subscribers, back when conventions were called “gatherings.” My first was in Toronto in 2008, and maybe sixty people showed up. I’ve since gone to every Playlist Live (Florida), and almost every VidCon (Los Angeles), with some appearances at other conventions such as Summer in the City (London), VloggerFair (Seattle), ITAtube (Italy), and FanFest (Singapore and Australia). My worst experience at a convention happened in 2014. I was going through a weird time with some of my friends, with myself, and with my content—I was trying to figure out who and what I was as a person and as a YouTuber.

  It was the day before my twenty-fifth birthday, and I had already spent my entire day doing meet and greets, surprise merchandise signings, panels, and interviews. By the end of the day, I was exhausted. A small group of close YouTube friends joined me for my birthday dinner. We hired van-size cabs to take care of us for the evening. They would whisk us away from the convention hotel to make sure we had both privacy and downtime from the hustle of the weekend. After dinner, our vans picked us up and headed back toward our hotel. As our driver pulled into the hotel’s parking lot, we tried our best to explain the uniqueness of the fan situation and recommend the best route to avoid any commotion. My usual convention tactic to avoid causing a scene during personal downtime is a head-down, sunglasses, undetected flyby. It’s not that I don’t want to interact with viewers—it’s that I try to be very deliberate about when I’m working and when I need to relax—for my own sanity and health. Unfortunately, an extralong panel van isn’t necessarily easy to sneak past a throng of hyperaware superfans. We were spotted instantly.

  The chaos that ensued was terrifying for everyone. A mob of teenagers swarmed the van, and the driver began to panic. Against our desperate pleas to maintain our speed, he slowed to a halt, scared he might run over someone. Within seconds we were completely surrounded, and I felt my stomach drop. Thirty screaming fans, adorned in YouTuber merchandise and flower crowns, slapped their hands against the windows of the van on all sides, shouting at the top of their lungs. They pressed their faces against the tinted windows, and we jumped toward the center of the van, as if being attacked by zombies. As each of us were identified through the tinted windows and announced to the restless natives outside, the rhythmic pounding crescendoed.

  When they spotted me, they burst into singing “Happy Birthday.” My head spun. Our horror movie of a situation was now a . . . zombie musical? In which the undead serenade us before devouring our brains? Somehow, the effect was less silly than creepy, and to this day I still hear it in my head in a haunting minor chord. My heart raced, and my body went weak. I wanted more than anything else to jump across the seats and stomp the driver’s foot down on the pedal—instead, I sat paralyzed, terrified, and trapped.

  I never meant to snap, but when you’re pushed into a corner, it’s fight or flight. Without thinking, I slammed my fists against the window as hard as I could and began screaming at the mob. “Do you think this is fucking safe?”

  The singing stopped immediately. Fans backed up slowly, as if I were the deranged one.

  I kept screaming the same thing over and over: “Do you honestly think this is safe?”

  My YouTube friends sat in silence, gawking at me. With a wide enough berth to start
moving the van, our driver slowly accelerated forward.

  I slumped into my seat, heart racing, embarrassed that I had let myself be pushed to the edge. I just wanted to get back to my hotel room.

  The second I stepped into my room, I broke down. Conventions had always been fun before, but that was when I felt that I had control and could handle what I was signing up for. I lay on my hotel bed in silence. I felt betrayed. I had voluntarily surrendered my birthday weekend for this. I felt like a selfie prop or a collectible souvenir, not a human. Yes, I was crying and obviously being dramatic, but my emotions were rooted in something deeper than this isolated event. In my pursuit of success, was I trading away too much of my humanity? Had I lost all control? Was I even enjoying what I was doing? Was I the deranged one?

  I thought about what my life would be like if I just deleted my social media accounts that night. Would I be able to move on from my life online? I had spent the past seven years making videos and sharing every detail of my life. What would happen if I just stopped? Time would march forward. Viewers would continue to watch YouTube. Conventions would still buzz with excitement.

  While I was feeling more alone and lost than ever before, my phone vibrated next to my head. I reached up and saw a text from my friend Mamrie Hart. Mamrie is an absolute legend of YouTube. She has a show called You Deserve a Drink, and she’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. Once we went to a zombie-apocalypse maze in Las Vegas where we had to fight off actors playing the undead with paintball guns. Heartfelt and usually a bit tipsy, she’s like your hilarious aunt who spends most of her time adding puns to her dog’s Instagram. You coming to the party? she asked.

  That night, like every night at YouTube conventions, there was a party for guests to attend and mingle. Over the years, my schedules at conventions got busier and more chaotic, which made the events more exhausting to attend. While I used to go to every party, I now found bliss in the comfort of my own hotel bed with a few close friends and some red wine. But this night, I wondered if maybe the distraction of a YouTube party was what I needed. Sure, I replied.

  I made my way down in the elevator and texted one of my best friends, Hannah Hart, to let her know I was en route to the party. Hannah was an accidental YouTuber who went viral with her first video and absolutely ran with it. Since then, she’s starred in movies, had a New York Times Best Seller, and fostered one of the most inspiring communities online. She gets drunk and cooks, with a show called My Drunk Kitchen. Besides all that, she’s hilarious and warm and knows when I need a hug, and just how long the hug needs to be for me to not feel like crying anymore. She replied to let me know she’d just arrived to the party and that I should let her know when I got there.

  The only way to get to the party was by riding in the backseat of a golf cart from the hotel to the event center. During the ride over, I tried to calm myself down. I thought about how much I wanted a glass of red wine to help me take the edge off. I entered the front door of the party and was bombarded with thumping bass. The party was packed. I knew a handful of guests, but all I wanted was to find my friends.

  In previous years, I was typically the YouTuber who plucked up his courage and went up to the top creators to ask for a selfie. As I attempted to squeeze through the crowds of people, I started to feel that maybe I had finally become one of those top creators. Every few steps, I was being tugged by people asking for a picture. I wasn’t used to this, and considering the day’s earlier circumstances, I wasn’t prepared for it. Normally, I’d be happy to oblige, but after the incident in the van, taking selfies with people I didn’t know was the last thing I wanted to do. Unfortunately, I’m a people pleaser, and I gritted my teeth through each shot. I increased my pace, weaving in and out of the crowd. I pulled out my phone to try to get ahold of any of my actual friends, but I had no service. It was 11:50 p.m. Ten minutes until my birthday, and I couldn’t find anyone. I stepped a few paces farther, and I was stopped by some acquaintances. They warned me not to go too far away, ‘birthday boy, because it’s almost time.” Oh, God, are all of these strangers planning something?

  I became frantic trying to find my friends. I ran into some creators I knew vaguely, and they saw I was noticeably distressed. “Here, take a shot, it’ll calm you down,” they suggested. I took the shot glass in my hand and thought it over. If I took it, I’d relax, but was this the only way? In an instant, I considered my mom’s mom, a heavy drinker for as long as I’d known her. I remembered her hugging me when I was younger, and I could smell the reek of stale beer. At that moment, a pair of hands landed on my shoulders behind me. I spun, startled, and found Hannah grinning. I set the shot glass down and hugged her.

  “Five minutes!” she yelled over the thumping beat.

  I leaned into her ear. “I need out of here.”

  She pulled back and saw that the seriousness on my face matched the tone of my voice. She took my hand and led me through the crowd. We burst through the front doors of the party and into the fresh air. I was instantly relieved from all sense of suffocation. She hailed us a golf cart, and we made our way back to the hotel. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes as the breeze cooled me down.

  Hannah put her arm around me and squeezed my shoulder. “Happy birthday . . .”

  Eyes still closed, I smiled. This was the definition of quality over quantity.

  We got back to our hotel, changed into sweatpants, and hung out in my room. A few other friends joined us, including Mamrie, who informed me that the party’s DJ was planning on announcing my birthday, with shots readied for everyone and a birthday sing-along. I cackled at the thought—how suddenly would their expressions have dropped had I succumbed to a full-blown panic attack and had to be carried out of my own celebration?

  That night, when pushed to an edge I had never before encountered, I was offered the chance to binge, to escape through alcohol as I felt my mom’s mom did: an easy escape, but one that could have had a ripple effect on how I’d handle my lowest lows in the future. Luckily, I said yes—not to alcohol, or to the attention of hundreds of strangers at a party, but to the company of people I cared about, who let me lean on them during one of my most vulnerable moments.

  melancholy fantasies

  IF YOU EVER FIND YOURSELF MORE OFTEN HOPING that the flights you’re on crash instead of landing safely, you’re probably not in a good place. For a good part of 2014, that’s where I was. It was the most professionally successful year of my life so far, but I completely lost myself personally. Think the lyrics of Britney Spears’s chart-topping song “Lucky”: And the world is spinning, and she keeps on winning / but tell me, what happens when it stops?

  The larger my platform, the more scrutiny I faced. I realized that the more influence one has, the higher the expectations, and because of this I began to doubt every move I’d make and every word I’d say, for fear of being misinterpreted and labeled as evil for the rest of time. Instead of letting that paralyze me, I figured that regardless of how anyone felt about Tyler Oakley as a person, if I were to fight tooth and nail to create the most productive year of my life, nobody would be able to deny my work ethic. And I was absolutely right. Between my producing ninety-two videos, creating my podcast, going on the Slumber Party Tour, attending almost every convention, and working almost every award show’s red carpet, @tyleroakley was slaying the game.

  But, in the words of our good friend Britney Spears, if there’s nothing missing in my life, then why do these tears come at night? Well, for me, it was because while all of those successes were happening, I slowly began to forget who Tyler Oakley was. I could always introduce @tyleroakley in a meeting or at a party, but when asked anything about the man behind the username, my answers began to fade from my own vision.

  What were my hobbies? Well, I spent most of my time working. What were my passions? Well, my job, mostly. What did I do for fun? My job was fun! Those were the things I’d tell myself, my first dates, and my mom when I went home for the holidays. I think most p
eople saw through it, but I didn’t. I believed every word. One of those “fake it till you make it” situations. And it’s not to say that my hobbies, passions, and what I find fun don’t include my job—but if that’s all you have, what happens when you need a break? I didn’t know how to take a break. I had no clue how to turn off or stop.

  When I went home for the holidays, I was ready to shower my mom with expensive gifts after such a successful year. My family has never had it all (or most, or more than some), and being able to help in some way makes me feel that I’m contributing, even if I live on the other side of the country. When I asked my mom what she wanted for Christmas, she could have said anything and gotten it from me.

  Instead, she sat for a moment, looked me in the eye, and told me not to be upset about what she was about to request. “Honestly, I just want it to feel like you’re home while you’re here. Your dad is getting older, I’m getting older, the kids are growing up, and before you know it, you’re going to look back and not remember any of it.”

  It was true. I don’t visit Michigan much, and when I am home, I’m buried in my phone, in my computer, on a call, in a meeting, writing, working, editing. All she wanted was for me to stop for a second, relax, and share a moment with my family. The closest I get to a moment of relaxation is typically on a flight—and only then when the food cart comes around and I don’t have space on my tray table for both my dinner and my laptop. Sorry, laptop, even airplane food will always trump you.

  During those moments on flights, sitting peacefully with my earbuds in (so the people next to me won’t talk to me regardless of whether I’m actually listening to anything), I’d begin my newfound activity as the newest member of the mile-high morbidity club.