Youtubers

"This is a massive problem with media platforms right now. YouTubers who know nothing about anything can misunderstand a bunch of articles and spread lies to millions of people. And then they get to vote how you live your life! I wonder why everything’s getting worse all the time!"

""Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." That's a quote commonly attributed to Winston Churchill, but he was actually probably paraphrasing George Santayana. [...] But here's a corollary I came up with all by myself: "Those who let hucksters write the history they're trying to learn from are doomed in some other horrible way"."

"The depressing thing about charity is that no charity should exist, the things charity advocates for should just be built into the system."

"Just one small problem; sell their houses to who, Ben? Fucking Aquaman?!"

"People seek these solutions because they perceive on some level a problem, and they’re right. Something is wrong with the world right now. The world is figuratively on fire, world leaders are asleep at the wheel, there’s nothing in place to prevent another massive financial crash which will destroy thousands if not millions of livelihoods, and ecologically speaking, instead of being, you know, figuratively on fire, the earth is literally on fire, wildfires are getting worse, temperatures are shifting all over the place, ice is melting at an astounding rate... even on a globe Earth, the edge is coming fast. So I can’t blame anyone for feeling alienated and lonely about living in late capitalist society. You know, at least under feudalism we had job security. So of course people are gonna try and find something that helps them cope, or seems like a solution. I mean, that’s why you get cults, that’s why you get Scientology, that’s why you get Jordan Peterson supporters. You know, something is wrong, and we can all tell, and some people have arrived at a solution that doesn’t really work."

"I just sort of realized one day that I was capable of being romantically attracted to men as well as women. I realized I was different from how I'd even thought of myself. I'd just sort of naturally seen myself as straight, and even if I didn't think I thought of it this way, on some primal level, I'd thought of being straight as being "normal." I didn't know why I thought like that. It's probably a mix of not really thinking too hard about these things at the time, combined with the vague notions and expectations our society tends to have towards people's sexuality. But one day I looked in the mirror, and saw myself as not who I thought I was. I saw myself as an outsider from me, from the identity I'd assumed for myself, and then I had a few difficult conversations with troublesome people about those feelings. I'd always experienced homophobia. I was an effeminate boy growing up, but I hadn't really cared, because at the time I'd not really accepted it as an insult, or seen anything wrong with being called gay by losers in high school who had just as much growing up to do as I did. But, when I actually was one of those people and knew it, all of a sudden, it was a real judgment of who I actually was. To them, I'd actually become lesser. Being told I was going to die of AIDS, and that my feelings were unnatural, and so on, and having to deal with being actually expected to try to convince people that I wasn't inferior to them, suddenly made me think about that Cthulhu film I'd seen a few years before. It was like it knew what I was going through. It knew how it felt to sit in a room you just can't leave, and have a piece of your personhood interrogated. It knew how it felt to be seen as an outsider, and it knew how it felt to connect with someone who understands and accepts you. Somehow, it knew me and how I'd felt, before I'd ever had a chance to. Some of the scenes from this film just kept coming back up in my mind. It hadn't been what I'd thought I'd wanted, but what it was struck a chord with me anyway, on a level I didn't know was there. It just took a while for me to hear the chiming. It turns out that some of the greatest horrors, biggest sources of sadness in our lives, don't come from scope or big questions, but from the tiniest things. If you've ever lost a loved one and had to be involved with the arrangements of their funeral, or if you've ever had to be around someone you've made an effort to cut out of your life because of something abusive they'd done to you, or even something as simple as being reminded, gently, that you're in a place where everyone regards you with suspicion, that you're an outsider to them-- You'll already know that the idea of a powerful cosmic monster out there somewhere beneath the sea can actually be the least of a person's problems."

"Imagine sitting in front of your computer with the script for your final Doctor Who episode and looking at a screen where you have physically typed the words, "Oh. It's not an evil plan. This was all pointless." Well, that's the place where I would do a rewrite or hope that, like, someone would stop me! WHY DIDN'T ANYBODY STOP HIM?!"

"One of my favorite paintings is "The Lacemaker." Johannes Vermeer painted a loving, accurate, and detailed rendition of a girl making lace. Vermeer celebrated real people doing ordinary things; he offered the radical idea that you didn't have to be special or important or magical or legendary to worth being painted or thought about or remembered. So it turns out there are two ways of explaining history. We can be like Geoffrey of Monmouth or the early Romans and invent these magical, wondrous, brilliant people who gave everything to us: a wizard made Stonehenge all by himself, a man called Romulus invented Rome out of whole cloth and took part in every major historical event required to fulfill his amazing design, Don Bluth made "Dragon's Lair." Or we could be like Vermeer: a bunch of ordinary everyday people built Stonehenge just by working together and putting time and effort into it, a bunch of ordinary people make video games by working together very hard for hours and hours and hours and days and years to make it, a bunch of regular, ordinary people built Rome over the span of a very long time, contributing to what would later be remembered as the exploits of one man. This way is nowhere near as magical as the one we like to imagine put our world together. The truth is often very mundane. But maybe that's okay."

"Harry: [imitating Jon Jafari] "You know, Ken, I was thinking about, you know, maybe taking a year off, going back to college, starting my career?" "Nonsense, Barbie! You're staying here and having my kids!" Skeleton: Jon, what are you playing? Harry: Nothing! This doesn't happen! Systemic problems aren't real! If you can purchase a Big Mac, you're not oppressed!"

"[In] Carl of Sad's defense, he only [sends interracial gay porn] to Nazis and members of the alt-Right in an attempt to get them to stop following him, which is probably an effective short-term solution. The long-term one, of course, would be to re-evaluate why his claims keep attracting the agreement of Neo-Nazis."

"I have a platform and a following of millions of people, many of whom I know have been through exactly what I have. And if I tell my story, as painful and flip floppy and flawed as it is, I know it will mean something to someone, as every time someone speaks openly about sexuality, it saves lives."

"This experience coming from a childhood hearing the word gay meaninglessly thrown around as an insult at home and school, in music, on TV, to then realizing I am actually kinda gay, to then very specifically being attacked for it, was traumatic."

"School friends don’t have to be people that you actually get on with, they’re just people that you bond with after sharing a traumatic situation for several years."

"Every single one of us needs to be there for each other, not just in the big profound ways but sometimes just the really small and important ways."

"I’ve come out of the closet, now I just need the confidence to actually leave the house."

"If a gay person dyes their hair, they are a visibly spiraling crisis twink. [...] That is a stereotype, and you know what, some stereotypes are true, and that is one of them."

"Queer people exist. Choosing not to accept them is not an option."

"I’m here, I’m queer, and don’t worry, I’m still full of existential fear."

"We get dealt cards from the start, too. If you look at my life, I was born into this world as an able-bodied, white, cis man in Britain, which immediately gives me so much privilege in this current world and I am fully aware of how much harder making it to today could have been for me, which is why we all need to stand up for equality and social justice, even if it doesn't apply to us."

"A few days before the talent show, I went to a pep rally at school that also included a talent show. I really wanted to sing in that talent show, too. I knew I could nail it. Then I thought about how some of the kids always teased me, and I wondered if they would make fun of me more. Maybe they would, but then I thought: Who cares? It felt amazing to realize that."

"I could tell from the comments posted on our music videos that they really liked my singing. Not long after that, I was thinking about how some musicians had nicknames for their fans, like how the really big Justin Bieber fans were called Beliebers and Katy Perry fans were called KatyCats. And then it came to me. If I ever had a lot of fans, Yeahhh they would be Mahomies- you know, like my name, Mahone, and my friends, "my homies." I didn't think I'd ever have real fans, but hey, at least there were those girls at the mall. Maybe they could be Mahomies. AC and I joked a lot about having fans. Because who actually thinks something like that is going to happen to them?"

"I didn't take any of the social stuff at school that seriously. My main way of dealing with it was this: I was really quiet in school. I sat in the back and watched everyone and didn't say much. But for some reason, the kind of kids who care about being popular in high school are never content to let you do your own thing. As I got older, some kids still gave me a hard time about the way I dressed and the fact that I wasn't obsessed with the rodeo and country music like everyone else was. The one good thing I can say about this time is that it made me get clear on something: Either they were right or I was right. And I knew they weren't right. I knew there was a whole world out there, with all different kinds of music and people, and I knew I was going to get out of this small town someday and join it. And when I did, I was never going to look down on anyone. I was going to let everyone be who they wanted to be and not worry about it. I'd be too busy enjoying my life."

"Now, the funny thing about growing up in Texas is that people who aren't from there just assume we ride horses to school and do all this weird stuff, like we're living in a rodeo every day of our lives, when of course that's not true. Or at least that's what I always thought. And then I moved to La Vernia, which is like a scene out of a country song. All you can see on the road are trucks, and everyone wears Wranglers and a can of dip in their back pocket and cowboy boots and hats- not just on special occasions, but every single day."

"When I was growing up, I never thought much about living in San Antonio, or whether or not I liked it there. It was just where I lived, and I liked where I lived. It was where my family, my friends, and the music store I loved were, and that was all I needed."

"Granddad smiled at me before he said anything. It was a smile he gave when he was worried about disappointing me. "It's going to be hard," he said. "It's expensive. You might not come back for a long, long time." I nodded and took that in. I knew my mom had always worked hard for everything we had, and that Granddad and Mema helped us out, too. And I knew soon I'd be working at something. But I was determined I'd get back there before long. And, man, when I finally did, it was even better than I could have ever dreamed. But that was the amazing thing about my family: Even when something seemed kind of far-off, and maybe impossible, they always let me know it might be hard to get there, it might take work, but I should always dare to dream. And so now that it's paying off, I feel like all of this is for them as much as it is for me. It makes everything that's happened even better."

"There was one place I really wanted to go, more than any other: New York City. Maybe it was from watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV for all those years, or because I knew so much amazing music and culture and food came out of there, but that was always it for me, and I just had to see it for myself someday. Finally, in the summer of 2010, my granddad took me on a trip to NYC, just me and him. We had a great time. We walked around, checking out everything, got some classic New York City hot dogs from a street vendor, and saw the Statue of Liberty. Best of all, we spent time with my mom's first cousin Mac Demy. He's a real musician with a small studio in his apartment and an album available on iTunes. I was immediately into learning everything about his musical career. It was like this whole new world opened up for me, and I wanted to find a way to join it. He even said I should write a few songs and come back and record them the next summer. The whole time I was there, I had so much energy. It was like the best place in the world, and I wanted more and more. "I love New York," I told Granddad. "I want to come back again.""

"I guess I was always looking beyond what was right in front of me. I wanted to listen and play music that wasn't the normal Texas thing. More than that, I wanted to see the world beyond my hometown."

"One day when I was twelve or thirteen, I was hanging out with some friends, and I heard T-Pain for the first time. Immediately, I was like, Oh, man, what's this? This is different from what I'm used to listening to, and I love it. By this time, I wanted something new, so I started listening to more R&B and hip-hop. From there, I started listening to Lil Wayne, Chris Brown, Drake, and all those guys. At the time, I thought country and R&B were totally different worlds, but now that I actually spend most of my life singing and writing and thinking about music, I can see they're kind of similar. Before you say I'm crazy, think about this: In country music, the singers are really soulful, and you can just hear all the emotion on their voices. They mean everything they say. And R&B is the same way. It's like every note, every word, is telling you exactly how the singers feel about what they're singing about. It's just that in country music, all that feeling is usually about a truck, and in R&B, it's more often about a girl. And for me, girls are a lot more fun to sing about than a truck. All joking aside, I feel like all music is the same, when you get down to it. It's about communicating emotion. And that's what I love about it so much. I wouldn't want to spend my life any other way."

"It might be a weird thing to say, but I don't really feel like I have a home. There's no place that feels like where I live all the time. Sometimes, I feel like my home is a hotel room. That's pretty much where I am on most days, and I literally live out of a suitcase (actually more like three or four). I live on the road. But for me, right now, that's okay. I think a huge part of feeling at home on the road has to do with the fact that I'm traveling with my team. My extended family. So, wherever I am, it feels like I've got a solid home base, even if I'm moving around on a tour bus. I really think being around good people is the secret to a quality life, especially in this industry. I am so fortunate to have this core group of family and friends to be there with me and support me. I know they keep me grounded."

"And then I got into the car to head back to our hotel, and when the driver turned on the engine, there it was: my single "Say Somethin" coming out of the car speakers, being played on the radio, just at that exact moment. It was my first time ever hearing myself on radio, and it was almost overwhelming. This is weird, I thought. This is so cool. But this is just strange. It's like, I was living this new life every day, but it was still hard to believe it was my life."

"I decided I wanted to finish high school from my room at my grandparents' house. I didn't care about going to football games. I didn't care about going to prom. I liked singing and wanted to concentrate on it more. I know that getting an education is important, and I felt that being homeschooled would give me more flexibility to concentrate on music. I knew what I wanted to do with my life. Of course, this was a big decision. My mom literally cried about it for weeks because she was so worried about whether or not I had the discipline to do all the work basically on my own, and whether she had the dedication to be my teacher. Finally, she sat me down for another one of our serious conversations. "I've been agonizing over this decision," she said. "I know it's the right thing to do." "It'll be fine, Mom," I said. "It'll be great.""

"Everyone in my family was so amazing and supportive. Granddad and Mema let us move back in with them so Mom wouldn't have to worry about a mortgage payment or rent and our other expenses would be minimal. Their house was nice, but it was a little cramped with all of us there. Mom and I kept our clothes in big plastic bins in our bedrooms because we didn't have a lot of space. I knew what a big deal it was, what my mom and my grandparents were doing for me, and I felt so lucky to have them."

"So even though everything wasn't perfect for me in La Vernia, I put all my focus into the things that were going well in my life- my singing, my YouTube channel, my family, AC and my other friends. Luckily, that's the great thing about singing: It makes me forget everything else while I'm doing it."

"I hit play, the music started, and that's when my nerves got the worst, because it was like, There's no going back now. So I just went for it."

"I was really starting to think of myself as a singer. People who watched my videos treated me like one. They weren't just telling me they liked my singing. They were also giving me tips about what I should sing and how I should use my voice, you know, trying to help me out. It was cool. I realized something was happening. Maybe I can take this further, I thought. So I really dialed in, knowing if I kept working hard at it, and practiced and trained, that I would keep getting better and better."

"There were some dark days in school. Some people still made fun of me for my videos. I tried to hold on to the positive feedback, but sometimes it was impossible not to let the negative stuff get to me. Maybe they're right, I thought, when I heard some dudes talking about me. Maybe I am stupid for putting myself on YouTube. But luckily, there was something inside of me that wouldn't let me believe that. People are going to give their opinions about you, I thought. Some people are going to make fun of you, no matter what. So you might as well do whatever you want and enjoy it. So that's what I did."

"I just think it’s funny that a couple of logical tweets have made me a “conservative,” such a strong label. I don’t even know what it means to be conservative, or what a conservative is anymore. I feel like the meanings of these labels are changing. I certainly would never have called myself a conservative."

"“Captain would raise eyebrows about him eating with us or taking the food from the same table.”"

"“When Allah has given so many halal animals, why must you eat bats and spread the virus?”"

"After Sarah Palin, you guys are running Mitt Romney. And I've got to say, I saw the appeal of George W. Bush, I saw the appeal of Sarah Palin – I do not see the fucking appeal of Mitt Romney! I mean, you guys can't say that he's some kind of down-home folksy motherfucker, 'cause he's not; he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and a golden fork up his ass! [...] You can't say that you like him because he's a true conservative, because he's not; when he was governor of Massachusetts, he governed as a liberal. In most states, he would've been considered a Democrat based on the way he governed. He was a Massachusetts Republican. The thing about Mitt Romney is, he's not a conservative, he's not a liberal, he's just a businessman."

"[...] I was thinking about the fact that we're coming up on the 18th anniversary of September 11th, right? So, that means we're now gonna have adults that were not born when the attacks happened. And that's crazy to me. And that just means there's people who have grown entirely in the post-9/11 world. That sucks, you didn't even get to see how much better things were before Osama bin Laden came and kicked us in the shin and then we fucking slit our own throats afterwards."

"Rape isn't fatal. So imagine my indignation when I saw a chatroom called "Rape Survivors." Is this supposed to impress me? Someone fucked you when you didn't want to be fucked and you're amazed that you survived? Unless he used a chainsaw instead of his banana, what's the big deal? I don't mean to be horrendously offensive and insensitive here, but everyone survives rape. Some women are killed afterwards, but that's murder, not rape. To say that you're a rape survivor is as meaningless as saying you're a jury duty survivor or a divorce survivor. Lots of things in life suck—that doesn't mean we survived them. The word survivor applies to people who are alive after being stabbed 73 times with an ice pick or mauled by rabid wolverines, not to a woman who gets banana when she doesn't want it. Just because you got raped, you have to rape the English language? You vindictive bitch! Also, don't you ever get tired of being the victim? How many failed relationships are you going to blame on a single violation of your personal space?"

"Justin Bieber is just the latest giant leap forward in the pussification of the American male. If he went to my school looking like this, we wouldn't have called him JB, we would've called him PB – for Punching Bag!"

"A poll has shown that 63% of Americans, in their contemptible complacency, refuse to accept the theory of Evolution to this day. 150 years after this theory was put forward by Charles Darwin, Americans still have trouble accepting it in this puritanical, damn-near theocracy that we call home."

"Whether it be in the toleration of sharia courts, or the turning of a blind eye to cultural practices which go against our laws, too often it has been women who have been the victims of those problems. I have always believed that a multi-ethnic society such as ours can be successful if it can be united by a common set of values and sense of identity, instead of a constant emphasis on division. It’s amazing to think that this was once considered outlandish. It can be difficult to explain this crucial difference in a city like London. More than one TV interviewer has asked me how, as UKIP’s Mayoral candidate, I can appeal to such a multicultural place as our capital. But this is to miss the point entirely. Like anybody else, I enjoy the huge profusion of completely diverse cuisine, fashion and music. Indeed the different cultural influences on our city are so big and ingrained it’s easy to take them for granted. But this is not the same thing as ensuring and, indeed, standing up for the common values and laws which should and must underpin any cohesive society. Here, as across Europe, one of those values – enshrined in our legal system – is that everybody is equal before the law regardless of their gender, sexuality or ethnicity."

"The outcome of the Brexit Referendum could very likely to prove to be as significant and as beneficial to Europe as the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. And the benefits of Brexit won’t just be felt in the UK and Europe - many African countries may reap long-term economic and political benefits from Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. Project Fear’s apocalyptic claims turned out to be bunkum. We are not in the midst of World War Three. Western Civilization has not collapsed."

"Europe’s elites are characterised by cultural self-loathing, combined with a heavy dose of cowardice."