As a young girl growing up in a small town, I didn’t have that much to look up to. Yes, of course, I looked up to my parents and all that jazz, but there was never anyone who made it out or to the top. One afternoon as I was putzing around on YouTube, though, I stumbled across a person who I knew from my hometown who was posting videos. I decided to click on the link, and it turned out that he had thousands of followers! This person was Connor Franta.
Connor and I grew up in the same little town in Minnesota. We went to the same swim team in the summer, and he is very close friends with one of my cousins. We never really talked, except for a few times when we crossed paths in swim team.
Let’s fast forward a few years. Connor had made a career for himself on YouTube and is a twice-published author. I own both of his books, and he uses his words in a way that makes you feel extremely lifted and free when you are done reading them. One of my favorite chapters of his dives into what going through a depressive episode is like. In these few pages, he talks the reader down from an episode, acknowledges what they are feeling, helps them breathe, and helps the reader brush off negative comments like specks of dirt. He ends this chapter with: “You’re okay. You will be okay. Breathe deeply one more time. Now get up and get out into the world. It misses you.” When I read through this chapter, it struck me deeply because one can only write out what to do when you’re feeling down if they have been through that personally. Knowing that even a famous YouTuber and accomplished author experiences depression and anxiety and openly talks about it is just one of the many ways that Connor reaches out to his audience and connects with them.
On YouTube, Connor makes a multitude of creative and fun videos. Just recently, he uploaded a video of himself just walking around a room in his house giving the watcher a pep talk. The pep talk is mostly serious, but it also has it’s silly and funny moments that make the viewer laugh and feel better about themselves. He does Q&A videos, poetry videos, but my favorite videos are when he addresses serious topics and just word vomits on what he thinks about it. He talks about many different issues, but mainly focuses on LGBT+, society norms or the way social media and the internet is changing our lives. Connor is such a great role model, and I love watching his videos and getting to know him better.
So, you can imagine my surprise when my idol, and the person I look up to the most, showed up at my cousin’s wedding. I arrived late to the reception because I had a concert (yay band!), and I quickly went to my table to have dinner. The pastor stood up and said grace, and when I looked around the room, my eyes fell on Connor. I immediately started to lose my mind and probably looked like I had to pee because I could not sit still on my seat. I proceeded to glance over at him every once in a while, like every other second. After dinner, I ran over to my mom and began to just pelt her with a multitude of “He’s here! Connor Franta is in this room!” My lovely mother, who is used to my crazies, just rolled her eyes and told me to go talk to him.
I spent the next half hour or so creepily watching him from the opposite corner of the room. I was so nervous that he was even in the same room as me. Finally, I worked up the courage to ask my cousin to introduce us. She said yes, and walked me straight over to him, giving me no time to react or prepare myself. As I was screeching internally, she pulled him away from his group and introduced me to him. Guys, I literally felt like I had died when I began to talk to him. I think he could sense a bit of my distress, because he was very calm and kept asking me questions about how I knew the wedding couple or where I went to school. He was so sweet and nice the entire conversation. He seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say, and when I mentioned that we were on the same swim team together for a few years, he said that he recognized me from then! I made a comment on how I love both of his books, and he said that he is currently in the process of writing his third, so I already have that on my birthday gift list, of course. He mentioned how we should get our picture together, so my cousin took that for us. He was such a gentleman and completely down to Earth. He was everything he seemed to be in his videos and his books. I will definitely remember this meeting forever and look forward to his next release either on YouTube or on the shelves.
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