The “out of town” was an investment convention in France. I have no idea why, but they were paying me a lot, and it was hard to say no to big piles of cash. Look, I got off on the money. I know it’s gross, but April taught me to be honest.
The conference was in Cannes, a town on the Mediterranean that you have heard of because of the film festival, but that also is home to tons of other events. I was headed there to give a speech on the anniversary of the arrival of the Carls, and thus the anniversary of the first video I made with April. I didn’t really know how to feel about this date. It was both arbitrary and huge. It felt like something I wanted to commemorate somehow, if only in my own life and in New York.
But then I also wanted to completely ignore the milestone. I didn’t want to think about the fact that the last year, which had seemed like the whole rest of my life combined, had only been a year. And I had gotten used to not looking too hard at the things that hurt. That’s normal, or at least that’s what my very expensive therapist told me. And then there was the part where I didn’t have a topic that felt worthy of a momentous occasion.
I handled that conundrum the usual way: I went and checked out some of my favorite internet thinkers. These people had no idea what a huge influence they were on me, but all of my ideas were just amalgams of the stuff they were talking about. I tried to pull from a diverse group, Black women sci-fi authors, Chinese business analysts, nuclear disarmament experts, and of course YouTube video essayists. I hate-watched people with massive audiences and terrible ideas that were nonetheless resonating with people, and I watched the smart ones who had all my same biases. This was the only way I could have the number and quality of takes people expected of me. You watch four different videos, trying to keep all of them in your head at once, and then out flops an idea that looks and feels fresh and new. When I knew I was going to have to say something useful soon, I watched a LOT of videos.
It feels a little phony that my process works this way, like I’m an impostor who doesn’t have any real ideas, but I’m pretty sure this is just how ideas work.
The amazing thing about YouTube is that new channels just appear and disappear all the time. A new channel might pop up, and suddenly some smart lady from Baltimore is having a massive influence on the cultural dialogue.
There was a channel that had done just that thing in the last few months. It was called The Thread and it was weird. You almost had to be weird to get noticed these days. Good ideas alone weren’t usually enough. The Thread had uploaded his first video the week after April disappeared and it had gone pretty viral. It was about the song “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” His point was that we sing that song now while knowing pretty much what stars are. They’re big balls of protons and neutrons and electrons that gravity is smushing together so hard that fusion is happening.
But when the song was written, the wonder was legitimate. The person who wrote “Twinkle, Twinkle” didn’t know what stars were. In 1806, no one did! It was a beautiful video, aided by The Thread’s graphics and music, which were absolutely gorgeous.
It was, on its face, just interesting information in a beautiful package. But deeper than that, it was about how we as a society have learned so much so fast, and how we have adapted to big shifts in our understandings before. It was professional and thoughtful and it felt like it was about Carl without being about Carl.
But it wasn’t world-changing. It just looked like another popular video. But as the world started finding its new normal, The Thread’s videos started pushing more buttons and getting more political. And then The Thread actually broke a story, which was basically a brand-new thing for YouTube essay channels. In a video about money in politics, The Thread released a half dozen emails between a major donor and politicians of both parties guaranteeing that judges friendly to the donor’s company would be placed after the candidates were elected.
The Thread wasn’t just a YouTube channel anymore; it was news. The “Dark Money” video ended with information on how people could send encrypted, anonymous information, and ever since then, Thread videos had felt almost illicit. It was very James Bond.
Adding to the mystery was that no one knew who The Thread was. The creator of the channel had completely hidden his identity.
The channel had a new video up I hadn’t seen yet. As always, it was beautifully animated. The Thread never showed his face; you only ever heard a voice. It had to have taken a solid month just to make the graphics. The video was called “The Clear Path,” and it followed the course of a life forty years ago and the course of a life today. In the life forty years ago, the path was clear and obvious. The illustrated protagonist of the video did not need to spend time thinking about his sexuality or his gender or his religion. That same protagonist living life today was given options. What is your sexuality? What is your gender? How do you want to find connection and community?
The point the video was making now was that there was no longer a clear path, and that was more work. And, at that point, it was kinda pissing me off.
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