Getting Recognized Stories/Transcript


 * Rebecca Parham: Hello, my geeks and peeps, my explainers and blah blah blah, listen here: if you know that intro, chances are you know who I am, and if you don't, hi! I'm Rebecca! Thank you kindly for noticing I don't have a mouth, jumped right out of the inkwell without it. Anyways. back to my original point. if you know me there's a chance you may one day be gallivanting about in the world and happened to spy a wild Becca in her natural habitat, and if that glorious day comes, I assure you my little oo-de-lallies that it is quite okay to approach. I shall not maul you to death, probably. Something that you'll hear a lot from story time animators is that they don't know why people get excited or overwhelmed meeting them. [Rebecca and other storytime animators appear one-by-one saying] "Oh. please don't cry! I'm just a weirdo who spends way too much time in front of a computer screen and doesn't shower nearly as much as I should!". That's it, that's the reality of our situations, the day-to-day of what we do is not glamorous. Actually, strike that I'll tell you the one time that this job does feel glamorous: conventions, where sponsors give us a metric ton of free stuff and when we step on a stage, everybody goes back, but even then you're working really hard at these events. You're sweaty and exhausted and your feet hurt because you just had to wear the sparkly red high heels didn't you Dorothy? Click them together, maybe you'll get some Dr. Scholl's, you fashionista wannabe. Wait, what was I talking about? Oh, right, meeting! All of you sit down, I got funny stories. About three-ish years ago, I was at the grocery store. Nothing particularly important about this trip, I was just getting my things. I got in line for the checkout and there was a high school kid and his mom in front of me, big tall football player kind of guy. Now when I'm at a convention or on the rare occasion appearing on camera for a video, I tend to doll myself up a bit. But that day, I was in normal Becca mode; no makeup, my hair was all frizzy, I was wearing my glasses (like that would help disguise me). No one will suspect a thing if I wear my Clark Kent glasses! But even still, sometimes people won't realize who I am because I'm not all prettified. Case in point, while I was standing there in line, I noticed the high school guy started to stare at me for a long time, wheels definitely turning in his head, he pulled out his phone searched for something and then began to look between me and his phone a few times, that's a fun feeling knowing you're being stared at but not wanting to awkwardly return eye contact, so you do that quick glance thing over and over the guy's mother finished paying and began wheeling her basket away yelling at him to "Get out, we're going!". He looked back at me rather frantically and said:
 * Boy: "Are you Rebecca Parham?"
 * Rebecca Parham: "Yes!"
 * Boy: "Picture?"
 * Rebecca Parham: "Sure!" *click*, and he was out the door. The cashier girl looked at me and said:
 * Cashier girl: "What the hell was that about?"
 * Rebecca Parham: "He, uh, he recognized me from my YouTube channel."
 * Cashier girl: "Whatever, nerd."
 * Rebecca Parham: Speaking of stores, a little girl once followed me around the pharmacy section of Target. Every time I stopped in an aisle and looked something, she'd stand six feet from me and pretend she was looking at the shelves too. I know she was pretending because little girls are not usually that fascinated with rogaine. She side-eyed glanced at me a lot, but never did say anything to me. I wasn't wearing makeup that day either and was probably very sleep deprived, so I must have looked rather terrifying, resting witch face and all. "Yes, come closer, little girl, would you like a selfie? I promise I won't steal your soul!". I very often get surprised by the types of people who know who I am. They pop up in every situation too. See? I am more often than not approached by young people, kids, teens, early college, you get it. So, when my mom and I were in the airport and we walked up to our gate, I was rather surprised when a man traveling alone in his 40s came up to me and said:
 * Man: "Excuse me, are you Rebecca Parham?"
 * Rebecca Parham: I was not ready for that my brain fully expected this man to say "Excuse me, is this the flight to London?" or some other old person thing like: "Do you remember that show Thundercats?". He was a nice guy and told me that he watched my videos with his daughter. "Ah, your child forces you to watch me now? That makes sense. Well, fair play to you, dedicated parental unit." Another place I was blindsided was when I went looking for rent houses in LA last year (I didn't actually move there by the way, fun fact!), LA housing contracts are signed in blood, if you catch my drift, but I digress. I went out to look at a rent house one day, and when I got there, I was greeted by the real estate agent, a woman who looked to be about in her late 40s. She walked me around told me about the place, basically just did her job, but as I was leaving, just as I was about to cross the threshold of the house...
 * Real estate agent: "Oh, and by the way, I love your videos!"
 * Rebecca Parham: "Uh, thank you?" Um, if I may ask do you have any children? Teenagers? Maybe a kid in college?"
 * Real estate agent: "No".
 * Rebecca Parham: "Ah". There was this one time back in 2019, I was in downtown San Antonio for San Japan, a big old weeb fest anime convention, I was there to sing at a concert with fellow YouTubers Caleb Hyles, Annapantsu, and CG5. The night before the convention started, we all went to dinner and when we were done, we called an Uber to get back to the hotel. I was in the front seat and Caleb was in the back seat, directly behind me. We must have been talking about something very interesting, because I had turned towards my window to better speak to him. Over my shoulder, the car stopped at a red light, and while we were sitting there, some movement outside of my window caught my eye. I looked up and this is what I saw in the suburban next to me. [the kid moves desperately so that Rebecca notices her] Funny enough, there was one time my face wasn't even the thing getting recognized. About three years ago, I was at Disney World with my family, and on this particular day, we were at Epcot. David and I were waiting outside the bathrooms for mom and Rachel, when a girl walked by and noticed that David was wearing an aperture laboratory's t-shirt. The nerd, she stopped and said:
 * Nerd: "Hey, I really like your t-shirt!".
 * Rebecca Parham: I couldn't help but notice that the girl was wearing a Spirited Away shirt so I said "Oh, and look you're wearing Hayao Miyazaki! You really ought to go over to the Japan pavilion here, they have all sorts of fun anime and manga stuff!" I was rather satisfied with my perfectly executed social interaction! There, my fellow geeks are so easy to talk to, but then I noticed how she was looking at me. She was staring very intently and squinting her eyes in suspicion. Immediately, I thought I had said something stupid. "Oh God, I insulted her! I assumed she liked anime, I mispronounced Hayao Miyazaki, I did something, I must have!". She just kept staring at me, but then said:
 * Nerd: "You sound familiar..."
 * Rebecca Parham: "Hello, my geeks and peeps, my explainers and entertainers, my little oo-de-lallies!" and that was all she needed to hear. "Uh, who needs to stand in line to take a picture with a princess? You got a moderately popular YouTuber over here!" But I'll never forget the only reason I got recognized that day was because of David's nerdy shirt. You win this one, brother. And speaking of nerdy shirts, we have one of those sweet new witch of the wood shirts in the shop for ya, we call this one the "Garden Witch Shirt", good for ladies, gents, and all other corporeal beings. Get them while they're hot, baby cakes! Link in the description below. Alright, I think I'm just about out of time for this video, now don't forget explainers and entertainers, if you see this face poking about in the post-pandemic outside world, you shan't be afraid to introduce yourselves, it warms my heart to see your blessed little faces and subsequently squeeze them. Have a good day, my little oo-de-lallies, thank you so much for tuning in, but now, I gotta tune out. Bye!