So today was another one of those nothing days. Went to the pub with my parents, had a pizza, watched a few friend episodes...
Oh, and I met John Green.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable but weird experience, in the same way seeing any YouTuber in real life is weird but to a greater extent because he is like the king of YouTube. I knew, academically, that he was real and did things other than occasionally make videos for our amusement, but it was strange to see him standing there in 3D wearing that Catcher In The Rye t-shirt I really want but can't afford. And the irony, as pointed out by someone in the audience, is that Paper Towns (and so a lot of what he said) is about how important it is to imagine people complexly, as more than the sum of the things they do for you.
The talk was a defensive of reading to a certain extent, about how it's relevance in the modern world is as the only medium that still truly allows you to experience the world through eyes other than your own. It made me want to read things and write things and I found myself in an excellent daydream on the bus thinking all these things he'd conjured up. And I think that was the intention. Nothing is more magical, to say something I've already said on this blog once before, than reading one of your own thoughts as transcribed by somebody else.
The section he read is one of favourite in the book because it's strange and evocative and yet somehow so real. It's one of the few images that I carry around all the time, of two teenagers leaning up against a single pane of glass, trying to decide if the world looks more real or more fake from far away. Truly moving. He spoke so passionately and eloquently about reading and books and interactivity and empathy and humanity that it was as much an intellectual experience as a fangirl one.
But it was a fangirl one, at least to a certain extent. Everyone after having their book signed came out of the room and 'sqeed'. Even one of the people who worked on the event was all flustered at the prospect of him signing her copy. And of course we were: John Green is someone to admire on two levels. The level of making excellent YouTube videos and the level of writing great books. To meet anyone who has influenced you in two different ways like that is enough to make you want to squeal a little bit.
Fangirling in general makes me uneasy. I'm not sure if it's because I am so socially inept but the idea of doing anything remotely... memorable, I guess in front of someone I admire is painfully frightening. For example, there was a Luke And Noah gathering in Paris in the summer I did not go to, not because I am not enough of a fan, bu because even if all I had to do was stand next to Van and Jake for thirty seconds, that alone would be too embarrassing. The trap is always to sound too eager or too trite and, in the end, all the things I have to say are almost implied by my being there. What's the point in gushing to them? It makes everyone feel uneasy. I would rather be forgotten by someone than remembered as 'that person that did something stupid'. In the end, I am simply too awkward to
endure any awkwardness.
So again, YouTube brings to light my vast emotional failings. Maybe I should go back to reading books.
PS: What a rambling post this is, too many thoughts at too early an hour. I blame BEDA. Sometimes nothing to say and then, all at once, too much.
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