You make being a fan worth my while

Fan art from DannyFanthomFreek

It is back. Well it never really went away with the creator posting weekly videos. I dwell on it year round. At the moment I am fangirling so hard that I'm finding it difficult to get coherent sentences together. Basically big rush of emotions.

Except for tears. No crying. Crying is lame. That is when I do it, anyway.

Platoon of Power Squadron

YouTube has given me many great things. From the ability to find the nomads to showing me other people get as excited about things I do, all of it has been gifted to me and for that I am grateful. My favorite is hands down PoPS.

Of the creators, Jake Jarvi is a man that I feel I can look up to. It seems silly as I've never met this man in person. In my eyes he is incredibly good at seeing what it is that he wants out of his life and finding ways to get to it. When he takes on projects I find myself rooting for him as though he were related to me. I can't even remember the last time I've wanted something for a family member as much as I want things to come together for him.

PoPS is this funny, quirky nugget of happiness that I came across over a year ago. It's a show about modern day vicenarians who are trying to live their lives. Oh, and they have super powers. It's hilarious and dark with plot twists and crazy special effect. It even manages to tell two stories, one of the characters and one of the creators. But why am I gushing?

I don't know what it is. I guess I'm speaking from the part of me that seeks acknowledgement. It could just be that I finally feel appreciated, but even that doesn't sound quite right. Tonight was a live show put on by the for main characters of the show. I made sure I didn't miss it. I've mentioned before that a reason I love YouTube is that it allows me to interact with the content creators. I've been having conversations in the comments of videos with Jarvi for months now. I've sought him out on Facebook to get a question answered, not been replied to only to get what I was looking for when I thought I was forgotten. He's taken time out of his day to throw words of encouragement and understanding my way when, simply put, he didn't have to.

I've tried to send him encouragement when he feels that his work is going unnoticed. While I feel that any message I send is a drop in the bucket, it feels good to know that some of it is being seen. For some reason I seem to doubt people's deductive reasoning abilities. I've messaged this guy on his YouTube page, on Facebook and had conversations with him on Twitter. I don't have consistent branding so every profile is different. Although all of the profiles have pictures of my face, it never occurred to be that he'd know it was the same me coming at him from all the different mediums. Tonight let me know that he did know. In the live show he made note of my participation in his fan base. Eliza, his wife, let me know that I wasn't this obscure nothing. Sitting there and having her talk as though my name is ubiquitous throughout the fans of PoPS has me smiling from ear to ear.

From being told that my reaction to the possible cessation of the updates saved the updates to being remembered when I requested the buttons during the fundraiser, I've been given little snippets of how he notices I'm here. Tonight's show made me feel as though I am actually having a conversation with him. I'm not just throwing things out into the void of the internet. He's on the other end of the signal and he and his wife are actually paying attention. I am so thankful.

I'll be sad for it to end but I am so glad I'm getting to experience it now.