Face Reveal

 

@JuiceJaceC 12 minutes ago
I wonder what you look like

▴ 3 replies
@deatpenalty9283 10 minutes ago
brooo I was asking myself the same thing. It’s been years since he's doing this and we haven’t seen ANYTHING?? HOW DOES HE DO IT? absolute madman

@UltronPower 9 minutes ago
cant post the link here but lokk on his twttier account he posted his hand in februray 2020

@mechaenjoyer2883 7 minutes ago
anyone here with a heart that realise its his privacy and we shouldnt pressure him?

 

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One hour to research, one to record, two to edit, and about one to polish and share the link on my socials. Five hours in total. For the standards I’ve set for myself, that was a record.

I was glued to my YouTube analytics like the moth on my dusty desk lamp. A cube of nauseous excitement had settled in my stomach, and the weight of exhaustion was pulling on my eyes. I propped my chin on my knuckles and quickly glanced at the time. From five to ten, I’d worked on my last video, which presented all the new bits and bobs the new Minecraft snapshot had introduced. It was now midnight, and since the video went live, I had been mindlessly staring at my statistics, watching numbers go up every minute or so.

Tracking your stats is a bit like playing 2048, it’s absolutely thrilling to see a figure double, but the second you look away, you feel mentally numb. That simple fact being taken into account, the best course of action was obviously to not look away.

I looked away. I opened a new tab by clicking on the video icon in the top left-hand corner of the analytics page. I dragged it onto my second screen and let it play. It’s crucial to check one last time to see if your video doesn't contain any errors or typos. Sometimes you catch a flaw in your seventh rewatch you didn’t in your sixth.

My voice from earlier perked up in my headset. “Heeello everyone—”  Way too loud. I flinched and lowered the volume. “Mojang just delivered to us a new snapshot this evening. This is 23w51a — and b! — for Minecraft 1.20.5. Just to remind everyone, a snapshot is a weekly experimental update from the developers of the game. Everything here is heavily prone to change, and will probably do so with your feedback. And with that out of the way, we finally have our first look at the armadilo, the new mob announced at the last Minecraft Live…”

My thoughts grew louder than the sound of my voice.

I really shouldn’t have started with ‘Hello everyone’, that was dumb, I wasted everyone’s time. Every time I’ve done that, it felt forced. Like, okay, it’s a catchphrase, it’s familiarity — someone could probably edit a funny compilation by fusing all the intros I’ve done over the years into one big mouth hell — but it feels so limiting. I know it’s just two words, but I was fed up with saying them again and again. I wanted to test fresh ideas. Maybe I could try that trick of inserting a fun clip from another part of the video right at the start, as a little foretaste? But wouldn’t that run the risk of being redundant after some time too?

I was definitely getting hungry, so without thinking twice, I ordered some food. 

The video was still playing on my other screen, but I was half-listening; my eyes had cemented themselves back to the analytics. The video was doing numbers! It had already accumulated over ten thousand views and rising. YouTube had gently told me it was doing better than my survival Let’s Play or even my modded series. Thanks bud. Genuinely appreciate you telling me I should sacrifice my passion for views. I leaned back on my chair, frowning. Update videos and shorts were my bread and butter, sure, but they couldn’t stand the test of time like a good ol’ Let’s Play. Plus, you couldn’t even do fancy timelapses in a snapshot showcase, a shame.

The comment section was average. I had two people competing to see which one was the true ‘first’. I had bots impersonating me trapped in the automatic ‘Held for review’ tab. I had that one really loyal guy, RogerCross, my sixth subscriber, who had posted a nice comment, as they did under each of my videos since the dawn of time — well, since the dawn of my channel, according to a more conservative estimate — and I gave it a thumbs-up. I had the usual ‘Face reveal when?’ To which I would argue: never. Magicians never reveal their tricks! A hidden face gives a YouTuber a certain aura of mystery, and I intended to keep it that way. And finally, I had a few shocked and angry people calling me gay because I ‘hung out with the gay one’ (that was not exactly their own words, I polished them a tad), or, in their own words, I ‘sounded gay’. A lot of people were taking notice that my voice had had a… journey. It's true that I used to have such a low, awkward tone when starting out.

Okay, off you go, masked.

Masking people on YouTube is an awfully swell feeling. I could ban them, but that’d be no fun. No. Instead, I will put you in a little invisible box. And when you’re like that, when you're masked, no one can hear you scream. I concede, I was feeling a bit cruel tonight. But I could only chuckle at that thought.

“What’s so funny, Screw?” Mandel’s voice asked.

I let out a high-pitched scream, bumping into my microphone. 

The fright!

My heart was thrumming like crazy, and my breath had trouble catching on. I had to take a few seconds to recover my wits, his belly laugh rumbling in my headset.

He attempted to say something in between intense outbreaks of laughter. “So— sorry-heheheee, this is so funny-heheheee… I’m sorry. Gosh Screw, ‘m so sorry really-heheheee…”

“It’s fine. I— I don’t know why, I just completely forgot I was on voice chat,” I finally explained. I was panting and wheezing like those times I hurried home from school with a video idea I just had to try before I’d forget it. “You were absolutely silent for an hour. I swear, you’ll be the end of me.”

“Sorry again! Was AFK, eating fries, just came back. But pray tell, my Screw, what got you so enthralled?” he asked, still audibly gobbling his snack.

I paused my snapshot showcase video; having so many sources of noise fighting for survival in my ears was not helping me stabilise. “I was masking the comment of a homophobic prick on my new update video. They were so unimaginative, and that made me chuckle, is all.”

“Oh yeah, fuck homophones. I hate when things sound the same.”

“Shut up, Mumbo Dumbo.” I stuck out my tongue, knowing full well that no one could have witnessed the act. “Be glad I’m defending your kind.”

“I’ll have you know we gay people have all the defences we need: our agenda is grand and marching. But we are grateful for your modest contribution, soldier. Glad to have you on board,” he declared, his voice deep and solemn.

I laughed at his antics while kind of weirdly appreciating the way I could serve in the gay army, even as a straight dude.

I got notified my kebab was waiting just in the street below my studio flat. Mandel reminded me I should turn down the sensitivity setting of my microphone because he mimicked the sound of my phone vibrating with a ‘vvv vvv’. I stifled a laugh, uttered a ‘be right back’ to him, and muted my mic.

My studio flat was a small pity of an apartment: two rooms — I had magnanimously considered the ridiculously small bathroom as an honorary room — one window and a kitchenette (you can bet I compensated for that in Minecraft). The whole was embedded in a long series of similar habitations, all connected by a shared balcony that led to the stairwell. I must have lived there for more than six months now. I had persisted in the idea that I should get a place of my own to get more time for myself and work on my project — my parents could be a bit… much. And my mum had followed suit, judging it would get me to ‘come out of my shell, for once.’ So I found this shoddy hole on the other side of the city last summer, and it became my new home.

I had to suppress a yelp because, as usual, in my hurry, I got my hair stuck in my door. I really should’ve cut it years ago, but I never found the time with all this stuff happening online. I dealt with it in a hasty manner my mum would not approve of and headed down the street.

“Order for… Screw?” The delivery guy had arrived on a bike and dropped a foot on the ground, a handlebar in one hand and my meal in the other. “Is that your name?”

Ah, yes. I had to interact. Answer the question. That’s what you do in this kind of situation, right? Normal people aren’t terrified to talk to new people, right? Why did I not prepare instant noodles instead—

“Are you okay?” he prompted.

“Yes— yes, I’m okay, and no, it’s an online alias,” I answered. My eyes were awkwardly locked on the bag a few seconds too much before I finally seized my prize.

“Okay, then, take care,” he insisted, looking right into my eyes with a little nod. “Good evening, and bon appétit!” With that, he tapped a button on his phone and got away.

When he was sufficiently far away, I let out a long sigh. That wasn’t the first time I had that kind of weird exchange. I got that a lot. I tended to use my online moniker on every site, and sometimes it led to unpleasant situations. Today was one of those. But I couldn’t help it, my username gave me something I craved: a layer of anonymity.

I came back to my desk, unmuted myself, and greeted my friend. Then we fell into serene silence once again, intermittently reminded of each other’s presence by a few mouse clicks and keyboard clacks and, in my particular case, loud chewing. It was the kind of silence you can only attain with a trusted friend. When you feel that, no, you don’t need to say anything to have a good time.

Mandel was my Dobermann, I was his cat — that’s how our fans liked to think about us anyway. And I can’t say I disagreed, even though I would never say it publicly. We met on YouTube a few years back. I was only starting my Let’s Play, he was doing his. One day, he'd slid into my DMs and proposed to make a modded Minecraft series together. One thing followed another, and now we were close friends. Every year or so, we kick off a new season of ‘Mandel & Screw’s Adventure’, testing the wacky mods we’ve found along the way. We were currently on the tail end of season three, a very technical one.

I had been working hard to produce high-quality episodes once or twice per week, preferably with at least one timelapse each. Even though I got on my survival world once a month to record an episode or two, most of my work time was dedicated to our server. I was hopping from series to series and mixing in snapshot reviews, never catching a break.

In the last few months, we'd been very intent on working on our series, our bond getting stronger by the day, and the views following it — we did not escape the internet’s fondness of shipping us together. However, I was increasingly thinking of quitting modded for a while to focus on vanilla gameplay again. I just didn’t know if I could afford to do that without Mandel.

I was amazed at how he and I had become so close just by playing the same game. That’s really something I couldn’t have imagined when I started videos as a teen, six years ago. And now, that was actually my job and, honestly, my main drive in life. I had lost contact with most of my school friends because I had never been able to properly connect with anyone. So when I went to live on my own, I was really lucky to have someone like Mandel to keep me company at night.

That, and my dad and his weird Discord messages. Tonight it was to inform me that, actually, I did make a typo in my last video.

Big-Daddy _{Today at 00:12}
Hey.  Armadillo is spelled with two ‘L’s.
However, as always, it was a great video.  Proud of you.

sonicScrew _{Today at 00:12}
thanks dad
why r you up so late?

Big-Daddy _{Today at 00:13}
I was watching every POVs of the CovenCraft season 4 ending.
While playing ffxiv.
Have you heard of the critically acclaimed mmorpg ffxiv?

He sent a screenshot of an all-dragon-girl group of players with shiny weapons and cute outfits and an ungodly amount of lights and particles.

sonicScrew _{Today at 00:14}
lol
you know i don’t have the time to play that kind of time suction machine, i have to work!!

_{┌──Big-Daddy Hey.  Armadillo is...}
sonicScrew _{Today at 00:14}
anyway, too late to change the text inside the video but I will change the title
thank you!

While I was doing just that, his three dots hung in there for a few seconds.

Big-Daddy _{Today at 00:16}
Your mum is furious, gotta scram. 
Bye, don’t overwork yourself.  Love you son.

sonicScrew _{Today at 00:16}
love you dad, gn and gl

CovenCraft was a fairly well-known Minecraft server. The first season had a witch-themed spawn, and the name stuck, even if last season was inspired by ancient Egyptian architecture.

I used to be quite a big fan in the early days, but with time and evolving interests, I had mainly stuck to two guys, 40bees, the admin — I liked his very detached approach to video creation, he wasn’t the type to put himself in the spotlight — and orangetech, the only one who made advanced redstone videos. But he left YouTube before season four had started—

“DUDE. DUDE. DUDE.” Mandel's saturated voice scared, yet again, the shit out of me. “You’ll never guess what email I just got.”

“Wow. We really have to talk about your way of starting a conversation.”

“But Screw,” he whimpered. “It’s big news!”

“Okay, okay, lemme think. It’s something you like, something you care about?”

“Yeah.” He elongated the word for a good four seconds. “You don’t really have to guess, you know, it was just a phrase—”

“Nu-huh, shush, no hints. So the first thing I can come up with when you put it like that is that it’s music-related. You always wanted to do more with that. I know you’ve tinkered with MuseScore and FL Studio, but maybe it’s something more than that? So my guess is you won some kind of prize, like the piano you always wanted. Oh! I know! You got an offer to do a sponsorship with Yamaha!?”

“I don’t— No, that’s not it.” He laughed. “Screw. Breathe and listen. It’s from a YouTuber,” he pointed out. Ah, I might have gotten carried away then. I had to suppress a chuckle. YouTubers like to write emails; it gives them an air of legitimacy, something that posits that ‘YouTube is a real job, look, we even have real email addresses,’ even though it’d be bloody easier if we sent each other direct messages. Mandel cleared his throat and brought me back to reality. “Let me read it out loud,” he said, and then took a big breath.

Dear MandelbroGaming,

First of all, I’ve been a big fan of your videos for quite a while now. Especially your modded series with sonicScrew. You have a chemistry that I find really endearing.

This is why we are considering you to join CovenCraft season 5, starting mid-January.

But before that, we’d like to indulge in a little ice-breaker: we’re inviting you to our next PvP Sunday. It will be a battle royale session lasting about 4 hours, with teams of two. (Actual date of recording will be Saturday, 23rd.)

So, what do you say?

Sincerely, 40bees.

Mandel had hastily read the whole letter with excitement, only pausing once to take a breath and comment, ‘This is amazing, aaah.’

I could not believe it. “So, let me get this straight. 40bees, The Fortybees, the admin of CC, the guy who beat Minecraft with only snowballs, the guy who makes even mining for coal looking cool on video, the guy who probably induces a panic attack a week at Mojang because of all the exploits he shows… That Fortybees invited you to play PvP and join CovenCraft? Okay, yeah, this is crazy. Oh my god, he even mentioned my name—” 

Then it hit me.

“WAIT? Am I included?” I shouted.

He chuckled. “Sounds like it, yeah. Check your inbox.”

Oh, I was in for a doozy.

 

✦ ▶ ✦

 

The thing about stories was that most of them made me feel weird. Each and every time, they focused on the lives of wonderful people who can fly, time-travel, or shape-shift, and/or those people are super likeable and loved. They win battles, wars, and the heart of their crush, and I was just a shitty guy who likes video games — who likes one video game.

Why would I watch a movie about a kid who goes on to ride dragons in another world, or a book about someone exploring space and getting powers due to an ancient technology, or a video game about a girl who can time travel and correct her mistakes? That’s just torture.

I think that’s why, at first, when I was little, I was afraid of movies with real people. They made me feel afraid and icky, somehow. I didn’t know if what was happening on screen was true or not. Most of the time, it felt so real, like magic was pouring out of the screen, and that was too much. So, after a frightening experience with E.T., I stopped consuming live-action all together for a good chunk of my childhood. I only started again when I was about fourteen by catching a glimpse of a horror movie my cousin was watching on his laptop. From there, I could tolerate humans on screen. Though I preferred when it was a bit sad and twisted, something that reflected reality and didn't indulge in any frivolous fantasy. Men who lived shitty lives. Something that got my schadenfreude tingling. Something that didn’t rip a jealousy-shaped hole in my stomach.

So when it came to games, I didn't like those with stories, and I didn't like those that dealt with people. If there are people, give me a grim guy with a sad quest, a minimal story told with optional text hidden in the description of items, and a gameplay-centred experience. With mountains, too. I love mountains.

The more isolating, the better.

That’s why I'd stuck with Minecraft for more than ten years now. Nothing human, no heartfelt stories. Sure, it’s magical in many aspects, but you can’t get jealous about cubes, can you? The perfect game: nothing can beat it.

You’d think making videos would be a social process, though. But for me, it scarcely was. Yes, I had to talk, but I also had to collect resources, and build things. And most importantly, I had to edit. Everything I made was neatly tended to, every detail polished, and every part I didn’t like I could delete and redo. The social aspect of the job was an afterthought for me.

That’s something Mandel respected deeply. He knew that I didn’t like people, I didn’t like too much interaction, that I wanted a solo episode from time to time, and he could work with that, no questions asked. He got me.

But at the same time, I’d been working on this channel for so many years with little to no interaction with the YouTube community at large, and something was lacking. Something had always been missing. Little Julien dreamed of being able to play video games all day for a living, about making an audience, but also about meeting his favourite creators and making meaningful connections. He did all of that for a reason: he wanted a part in this world.

And that’s why the email broke me.

I was holding my head in my hands, with my shaky elbows supported by the desk. I slowly realised I was breathing unevenly and had accumulated a knot in my throat. The idea of being in a voice chat with dozens of Let’s Players I don’t know — or worse, Let’s Players I admired — had taken over my mind.

“You really don’t have to come, you know.” Mandel was talking to me, trying to prevent the creeper inside of me from exploding. When I was in distress like that, I needed a voice, and his husky tone had always been a perfect candidate. “And I know it’s your policy that no one should know where you live and stuff, but if I could, I want you to know I’d really like to come and give you the biggest hug right now. You deserve that.”

When he said that, my eyes started watering. I opened my mouth a few times, trying to muster courage to speak again, but I couldn’t be damned to utter a single syllable. 

“Don’t—” He breathed out. “You don’t have to say anything. It’s late, Screw. I know it’s hard, but we have time. A week is a lot. We can wait before answering. We don’t have to solve this right now.”

But we do, I thought, don’t we? It’s the opportunity of the year. I should be happy to have received that email. I should revel in the attention I got.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realise. But yeah, makes sense. For me, it’s my dream come true, for you, it’s—”

“It’s hell…” I croaked.

“Yeah. That.”

I sighed. “It’s both, really.” Each of my sentences was punctuated by a long silence. “I want to try, Mandel. I really wanna go there and meet those people. I'm sure they’re a wonderful lot. But it’s no coincidence I’ve never connected with other video makers until you. I’m fucking terrified, Mandel. I don’t know how to deal with people. I’m a mess.” 

He gave me space to sort my thoughts and only started speaking again when he understood I was done, when the silence was getting just that extra bit too long. “Should we refuse then?” I was sure I could hear the disappointment in his voice.

“Can’t you join solo?”

“No, I don’t want that,” he said in a hurry, his voice trembling. “I really don’t, Screw. I want to play with you.”

“Then, I— I need time.”

“Of course. As much as you need. I’m sure we could even refuse this PvP invitation and join another session, further down the line. We can just tell them we won’t be free on Saturday. Screw, you really don’t have to do this.”

“I know. You’re right. Thank you, Mandel. You’re a great friend. I can’t think straight without sleep though. I’ve existed too much today. I think I’m gonna hop in bed.”

“You’re a great friend too, Screw. Sweet dreams.”

“Sweet dreams.” A smile crept up in my face.

I would not be alone in this endeavour. I would have him at my side. And that thought alone comforted me a lot. With him, I might be able to do it.

He imitated the disconnecting sound effect of Discord and then disconnected soon after, not hearing the chuckle he extracted out of me with that last sound.