Psychological Control

Chapter 19

While the popular entertainment and fashion worlds are not paying attention, the video site, Oil Tube, is flying high with videos that are made and uploaded by young people themselves. Most of these videos feature beauty and fashion instruction, or funny prank clips of their own making.

Once there are tens of thousands of tube owners following the channel, the editor in charge of the tube will send a backstage message inviting them to join the tube and sign up with the tube company. After signing up, the channel owner will get a share of the views of the videos they upload. Many channel owners who have millions of followers have even made video filming for the tube their official job.

Channel owners are also divided into different types of channels depending on the subject of their videos. There are female channel owners in the beauty and fashion category, male channel owners in the game commentary category, pure travel video diaries and original music or cover artists.

The easiest and most popular of these channels are those run by good-looking young men.

The videos they upload are usually either a record of the day's events, edited into a ten-minute or less video, or they create their own video theme that is popular in the tube and shoot it.

These themes are usually the type that show their sense of humour, such as extracting questions from fans in the comments to give funny and personal answers, some amusing little challenges, marshmallow challenges, one truth and two lies and the like. It's very simple and anyone can do it, but naturally people are more interested in following some eye catching and humorous young channel owners.

On top of that, there are meet and greet events organised by the Oil Tube and some of its partner companies or groups, and these events can easily be attended by over a few thousand people. Fans just want to take pictures and sign autographs with famous channel owners on the tube. It's not much more than a small book signing.

So, I'm going to create my own channel and make a photo diary of my daily life and upload it once a week. It won't take much of my time, but it will keep me in the public eye more often. And the contract will not be as binding as that of a modeling agency.

It satisfies the interest of young people who have nothing better to do than surf the internet and pry into the daily lives of celebrities, while keeping my face and name in the eyes of my fans.

The upfront investment is a bit high for me, with expenses like digital cameras and reflectors, and the time it takes to edit the video. But if I could take advantage of America's Next Top Model and get my YouTube page tens of thousands of followers, it would be an easy and free time job if I could get signed to YouTube.

I bought a not-so-expensive digital camera to do my daily shooting.

On my way to the plane to San Francisco, I took the camera and made my first selfie video. I took the camera here and there and recorded. The journey was as leisurely as if I were travelling, making me almost hypnotise myself into forgetting about Mike.

The card that the agent had left for me, saying 'call me when you get a lead', was left in the empty tenement. I don't think I would have wanted to be associated with the FBI if I didn't have to.

In the FBI, where there are a lot of capable people, I'd be considered a potential criminal after more than ten years in a mental health facility and still be locked up for that kind of reason. I'd even like to be able to completely insulate my private life from the FBI's attention when I go to Stanford if I can.

It was 10pm when I left the airport, but luckily the car rental company had already brought the car I had rented in advance to the airport. Driving myself through Pala Alto, where Stanford is located, saved me a lot of hassle with transfers.