July 22, 2012

  • My Youtube Family

    I have an hour to kill before I take off to Canada for Banff Festival. Ahh, so excited about that. I can finally have some social interaction.... I've been seriously lacking that since I got back home for the summer.



    Anyway, I want to describe some amazing people I've met through YouTube. Although I've never met them in person, I feel as though it's so much easier for me to connect with them than some of the friends I have at school. 


    Jerome Owen Pilares - He has been watching my youtube videos since I believe 2006 or 2007. His favorite was my cover on FF7's Main Theme, being a huge Final Fantasy fanatic and all. We were Myspace friends at first, and then switched to Facebook when everyone else did. He's one of the few YouTube people that I would consider my friend. He's seen me grow up not just in my videos, but as a person. Jerome is like a very sweet older brother to me. He's very easy to talk to and gives great advice. He's four years older than me and resides in the Bay Area, and I know that if I ever get the chance to visit the Bay Area again, I'm definitely going to be meeting up with him. 

    Kenneth Morse - He's another friend that has been following my videos for a very long time now. I actually can't remember if we first met on FFR or through my videos... that's how long it's been for us. Again, he's four years older than me and acted like an older brother. If Jerome is the sweet and nice older brother, Kenny is the one who makes me laugh but still gives wise (and sometimes blatant) advice. Back in the days, we used to chat quite frequently (like I did with Jerome), but as time went on and I got busier with my life, we don't have that much time to talk. Instead, we'll have random days throughout the year where we have long talks, catching up with our lives. Recently, Kenny and I had a great conversation regarding relationships that has really helped me a lot and see things in different ways. 

    Charvin Kessler - I don't know when he started watching my videos either, but we've been good friends for a very long time now, back in the Myspace ages. He's from the Socal area, currently attending UC Irvine. The few times he visited Vegas, we were able to meet. We met in Vegas twice, and when I was in Cali for Eastman auditions, I ate korean BBQ with him there. In Vegas, we were at Town Square and we were improvising and having fun in the keyboard section, especially since he's really big on composing and arrangement electronica music. And during my senior year when I was frantically looking for someone to edit my Northwestern essays, he was the only one who agreed to help me out, and I gotta thank him for that now that I go to Northwestern. Although he's not Asian, I think he has more Asian friends than I do, especially Koreans. LOL. He knows a lot about the Korean culture like my Mexican buddy Alex. He's been a great friend to me and has helped me a lot when I needed it. 

    Kyle Landry - Of all the people I'm closest too through YouTube, Kyle is the only one I've met in person. We knew each other since the summer of 2006, which is when we both coincidentally started posting up videos. We knew each other because at that time, the anime/video game piano community was very small. We knew of each other's presence, but we didn't really talk to each other much. In fact, I was quite jealous by his improvising skills, and became even more jealous when I found out that one of his videos got featured, making him instantaneously famous. I've seen his original account get deleted by Youtube, only to have a stronger comeback in the end, now with 118k subscribers (where I have only 30k). Through the years, I finally was able to let go of that burning jealously inside me and accept him as a peer, a friend. Once Facebook became the craze, we added each other and since then we've gotten to know each other more and more. Our mutual fans kept begging that we would collaborate someday, so to their surprise (and definitely ours, too), we were able to meet up during my epic spring break trip during freshman year of college. I was only in Hartford, CT for less than 2 days but the whole experience was surreal. When he picked me up from the train station, it seemed as though we knew each other in person for a long time. I stayed at his apartment (which, to be honest, was a nightmare for me) thanks to his warm hospitality. Once we got to his apartment, we were seriously being nerds. We would be showing each other cool pieces or improvise here and there for several hours. Finally, that evening, we got serious and started making videos. We made three during my stay, and our favorite, the To Zanarkand collab, was a success. Because of Kyle, I gained over a thousand subscribers in just one day. Everyone just exploded in awe and happiness, because I don't think they even expected our meeting to ever happen. I just know that that won't be the last time I'll get to see him. I know we'll have another time to meet up, for sure. 

    Joshua Chiu - He's probably the one friend that I can really relate to because he reminds me of who I have been hanging out with throughout high school and college. He's Chinese, in my year, part of a Christian fellowship on his campus, in the pre-med track (I believe), goes to UC Berkeley and knows some of my high school friends, has a korean girlfriend, yeah. He played the violin seriously up until he graduated high school, and now he only plays for fun and for YouTube. Sounds a lot like my friends back home. We've collaborated several times together, which have been very fun. And like I mentioned about Jerome, when I get the chance to visit the Bay Area again, Josh is definitely is high up on my list of people to meet and visit. 

    Julian Sanchez (Zorsy) - For the longest time, I wasn't able to make the connection that Julian was Zorsy. I don't know where the translation got lost, but I was always confused as to why Julian would keep commenting (and trolling) my posts on Facebook. I always thought that he was just some random dedicated fan, only to find out that he was Zorsy all along. But shhh, he doesn't know that. :P Julian is a really funny dude, I believe he's a year or two younger than me. He's from Australia and like everyone in that country, he has a really cool accent. Of all the youtube people, he's one of the few that has a big interest with dancing games, like ITG! I don't know him so well on a personal level, but his enthusiasm and trolling level is superb. 

    Joanna Lee (xclassicalcatx) - She's the cutest little Korean girl ever! She's still in high school currently, living in the Bay Area as well (freaking Bay Area!!). She sings like an angel and also plays viola in some of her videos. She's also a very good drawer. We collaborated once, and although people had mixed reviews about her voice, I personally thought that she was a perfect fit for the song. I'm glad that I can be an older sister for her in times where she needs me. 

    Lara de Wit - Lara is a very sweet girl, also from Australia, who plays both violin and piano on YouTube and cosplays as well. That's probably why she's become so popular on YouTube... haha. She's a few years older than me, and we have yet to meet, but I also know that it will happen one day. Lara has a very dry humor and doesn't necessarily like everyone, so the fact that she's very nice to me and respects me is more than I can ask from her. 

    Andrew Furmanczyk - Andrew is five or six years older than me, known as Lypur on YouTube. I remember the first time I was able to be in touch with him because I was so shocked that someone with over 100k subscribers would talk to me! He was really sweet and is a very humble person. His videos are mostly educational, teaching people all over the world how to play the piano. In real life, he is a piano teacher, and also teaches piano via Skype (which I think is pretty awesome). We've had many in-depth conversations about philosphy, life, and Christianity (which, he is a Christian). He originally thought I was at least 22 years old, but thank goodness we got that confusion cleared. :P He has a super big passion on photography right now, and he's actually the person who recommended me to get the new digital camera that I have now. He resides in western Canada, and there's a possibility that he may come to Banff just to meet me! It will, however, be anywhere from 8-12 hour drive for him though. >< If this actually happens, I can't wait!

    Karen Ding - I don't know when she started watching my YouTube videos, but one day about two years ago, she messaged me via FB regarding to being a piano major at Northwestern University. She is two years younger than me, so at that time she was learning about colleges. I was able to help her out by sending her long, detailed messages. Every so often throughout the year, I would hear back from her, hearing about her progress. She would message me after she sent in her NU application, after she got past the pre-screening round, and then finally in February earlier this year, I was able to meet her in person at Northwestern because she was there to audition. I took her to Joy Yee's with her dad and then took her to Focus (large group at AAIV), which she really enjoyed. We also watched an opera that was showing that weekend. And now, she got accepted into Northwestern and has decided to come here! And to my greatest surprise, she is currently placed in my Peer Adviser group for orientation week in the fall, which means that I will be with her pretty much 24/7 throughout that entire week. It's so crazy the journey we've been on, and to think before all of this, she was just another random person who watched my videos. I'm really excited that I was able to help her out a lot throughout the entire process, and now I only hope that she will have the best four years at NU.


    I feel like I can go on, but I'm going to stop here since I have board my plane soon. There are so many more awesome people like: w3sp, Sebastian Wolff, David Ramos, Jonathan Cambry, Christopher Woo, Verdegrand, and more.

    It's thanks to these people especially that I have had such an amazing experience on YouTube for the past six years. (Six years.... it's already been that long?! Jeeeeeez.)

    And although I don't post videos quite as often anymore, it's great to see what the rest of my YouTube family is up to. And I really hope that I'll get to meet each and every one of them, someday. With the technology surrounding, that dream doesn't seem so far away anymore.


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