Typical Day
It's 9:00AM and Felix Radical is starting his day in his usual awkward way. Keeping most of his body still, he reaches across his mattress to the end table where he keeps his phone. He had a strange dream and wants to shoot a video about it.
It's very important to him that the video remains authentic, so he struggles to maintain the exact, albeit highly uncomfortable, position in which he woke up. His eyes still shut, he finds the phone with his fingers, uses voice activation to turn on the camera function, and "wakes up" on video.
"Morning, Radicals," he says groggily. "Radicals" is the name he's given to his fans. Well, frankly, he doesn't have any fans yet—but when he does, he'll be sure to call them Radicals.
"I had this dream last night that I'm just dying to tell you about," he says, finally allowing himself to stretch and sit up in bed. He spends about five minutes recounting what little he can remember about the dream—something about a chicken and a very angry space shuttle salesman.
But then he abruptly decides he doesn't like it and recreates waking up for a second take. The second take becomes a third, then a fourth, and so on, until he finally shoots one he likes around 11:00AM. So much for "authenticity."
He turns around, notices the 11:00AM lighting, and decides that the Radicals—being the exceptionally smart demographic that they are—will definitely know this wasn't filmed at 9:00AM. It's a bust, he thinks, and goes downstairs to make himself a late breakfast.
Part of Felix's YouTube strategy is to diversify his uploads. While researching popular streams, he discovered that a few types of video seemed to do particularly well. His reaction to this observation was, of course, to just do all the video types—a stroke of genius. Felix Radical has been convinced of Felix Radical's genius for quite some time, but that idea in particular really sold him on the notion.
Why make breakfast when you can make a cooking show about making breakfast? Felix wedges his phone into the toaster and makes a mental note to not accidentally turn it on. Fortunately, this morning's breakfast doesn't involve toast, so that shouldn't be much of a problem to remember. He hits the record button and proceeds to prepare his cereal, spelling out every step along the way for the camera.
He hates his first take, doesn't have enough milk to shoot a second. Instead, he decides to jazz up his video by turning it into one of those "unexpectedly great recipe" videos. He turns the camera back on and tells his "viewers" that the secret to making great cereal is to add some ground coffee to the milk for a special kick. It doesn't matter whether or not the final product is disgusting; what matters is whether or not people will click a video called "Coffee in cereal? Radical."
Sadly, the cereal is disgusting, and now he has nothing to eat for breakfast. Felix shrugs—that's the cost of doing business.
Felix Radical decides that a good "how to" video should do the trick next, so he moves to his living room where he's set up a long, cheap table. He grabs a box from underneath. A really cool handmade umbrella that looks like a TARDIS is inside. He bought it on Etsy with an ingenious plan in mind: first, he'll just take it apart. Then he'll reassemble it on camera, making it look like he's the one who made it to begin with.
As it turns out, taking it apart was the easy bit. Reassembling it...not so much.
Oh well, probably best not to trick the Radicals anyway. It's all about the Felix brand, and that brand has to be trustworthy.
He tries another failed "cooking show" video as he makes his lunch, then spends the afternoon attempting other popular formats while experimenting with different personas. He does a cynical movie review, a sappy, saccharine vlog about his sister's wedding, and even tries to put on a British accent for an "angry" video game Let's Play. None of them go particularly well—especially the accent.
Around 6:30PM, he starts to upload the eleven videos he produced with his day. As he watches the progress bar grow, he dreams about the fame and fortune that come with being a YouTube star. It's all he's ever wanted.
Suddenly, the phone rings. He clears his head and answers it. "Felix Radical speaking," he says. As he listens to the voice on the other end, his eyes widen and his smile ignites. It's Starbucks. He has an interview tomorrow at 10:00AM.
Felix has been unemployed for three weeks now. With rent due soon and almost nothing left in the pantry, he dreams about the apartment and Ramen noodles that come with being a barista at Starbucks. It's all he's ever wanted.
He pulls his phone off the charger to call his mom and tell her that he'll be repaying the last loan she gave him sooner than he thought.