Do you wish you could return to a moment from your past?
I recently found videos that I made with my brother while sorting through our external hard drive. Folders were filled with these videos. Many were videos of the same scene, taken over and over, with a different person cracking up in each or our parents barging in. I almost never found a video that looked complete, but it reminded me of that time when we had time to play together.
Back then, almost all of our games consisted of some sort of imaginary game, where I would star as the smart sidekick and my brother would be the worldly hero. This was probably because he was older, and narrated all of our games. Playing these imaginary games were like starring in our own movies 24/7. On vacations, this was especially useful to combat the boring car rides and long lines. Transforming these imaginary games into videos was pretty simple for us.
We usually co-starred with my neighbors. We came up with a plot, dialogue, costumes and choreography. We reenacted scenes from Harry Potter, or our favorite book series at the time, Warriors. We filmed short commercials for things that didn’t even exist, we made puppet shows, we vlogged our "wartime" action in the backyard, and we performed hotline skits. We didn’t started making videos with the intent of becoming famous Youtube stars, we just enjoyed play acting. Now, I can’t even remember the last time that I did something 100% for my own enjoyment and also guilt free, and not as a result of some kind of pressure.
We used to film our videos even during the weekdays. We became very close friends with our two neighbors, and spent all our free time together filming. We were so used to calling each other’s home phone and asking “Can you play?” that it's become a joke between us, and we still use that exact phrasing when we want to hang out. We filmed a lot of videos, filmed with either our camera, or my neighbors flip camera. We never ran out of ideas, and entertained ourselves by making video after video.
Eventually we decided to make a Youtube channel, and posted our first video. This was a moment of euphoria, we were going to make it big! The world would see our genius script, our hilarious accents, and celebrate us.
Two days later, we had three views.
Just doing this all day used to be plenty to entertain us, and there’s just this aura that surrounds that time that I can’t shake off.
HA! I thought I was the only one. We literally had the exact same experience, down to the "Can you play?" over the phone. Of course now its "Can you hang out?", because we are older and "play" sounds childish. I am really close friends with my neighbor. We used to make these videos too. Instead of sidekick/hero, we were enemies who would fight each other with nerf guns. Since there was only two of us we couldn't be in the same scene at the same time. This made it super fun to film because we had to improvise ways to shoot while holding the camera. Anyway we also made a youtube channel -- its on private now-- and got <100 views. Not only is this a time I sorta wish I could return to, its a time that I am also embarrassed about now.
ReplyDeleteHi Hailan,
ReplyDeleteThis essay definitely reflects an honest and vulnerable representation of your character (and your brother’s) but in a way that shows while you are nostalgic and miss those moments in your life, you can also laugh at the absolute silliness of them. You also include a good amount of detail that anyone who might have performed in similar ways can relate to the experience. There is a casual tone through the use of references to popular culture and your general awareness of how these films and games affected your character. There is an organic form that flows nicely as you take us through your memory.
I think this is so cute, it really takes me back to a time where I wasn't stressed all the time. I think it's also really nice how you touch on the "it's hard finding things i like to now" thing because I think it's something that so many people (including me) relate to. I also think your voice is really nice in this, I don't know how but your writing style really is the you I see in the hallways every day at school which is really cool.
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