YouTube was created in 2005, the year I forced myself to write The Guild. Yes, it’s weird to think that before that year, there was no YouTube. It feels like it should have ALWAYS existed, allowing us to share Taylor Swift covers with as much ease as breathing. There was Heaven, then there was Earth, then there was YouTube, right?
Shortly after it launched, Kim filmed a parody Japanese TV show short, Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine, that was as charming and odd as it sounds, and uploaded it to the service.
The video went viral, and at the time of our Chick-In meeting, she was in the middle of selling her show to a big company to make more episodes. So early. EARLY on, Kim was a planter of the first sprouts of web video. And that’s why she thought the internet was the perfect place for The Guild.
I didn’t know that, so I just stared at Kim.
“I don’t understand. I thought YouTube was for kitten videos and chunky light-saber teens.”
“No one gets this story who isn’t in the gaming world, right? Where are the people who WILL understand it? Online.”
“Huh. Good point. Gamers ARE online 24/7. I’M online 24/7.”
Kim and Jane said together, “We know.”
“So, uh . . . WE would make this? By ourselves?” Then it hit me, and I felt a heart-racing panic attack coming on.
For the record, I am not a risky person. If I was reincarnated from an animal, it was definitely prey. A cute one who lives in a herd, like an antelope. Or a dik-dik. What Kim was suggesting terrified me. My basic makeup did not allow me to boldly leap into self-actualization. I preferred to sit at home and complain about no one in Hollywood understanding me. That felt safer.
And Kim could sense that I was freaking out. Because I said, looking freaked out, “The idea of doing that freaks me out.”
“I shot Gorgeous Tiny with one camera in the back of my garage. This wouldn’t be much more complicated!”
Jane jumped in. “I can direct, we can split the costs three ways, it’s perfect! This is what Chick-In was born to do!”
I looked at Kim and Jane for a long beat, then a strange sunrise crested through the two hemispheres of my brain. Could it, indeed, be that simple?! . . .
Yes, it could.
It felt like for the first time in my life, I had the power to decide something this big and make it happen. Without anyone’s approval, without permission, without any external motivation like getting an A in a math class. I could do this because I WANTED to, even if it was scary and might go up in flames.
In that moment, I realized that I had been missing an amazing truth:
No matter what you feel is holding you back in life . . .
Repeat that motivational cup sentence until it gets in your gut and doesn’t sound like something stupid on a Hallmark card, because it is the basis for anything that will make you happy in this world. This is something I truly believe.
I looked at Kim and Jane across the booth and nodded, feeling warm and fuzzy, like I was having the best stroke EVER. I had the power to film my script. I wasn’t alone; we could do this.
We were going to MAKE SOMETHING!
[?Makin’ It!?]
I’m going to share a dirty secret with you . . .
Actually it’s not that dirty. I was trying to inject some suspense here. I’ll stop.
I love crafting. Knitting, decoupage, scrapbooking, any “lady-ish” art form, I’m a fan. For about six months each. Then I shove all the supplies in a closet, alongside the skeletons of long dead New Year’s resolutions, like saber fencing, playing the ukulele, and Japanese brush painting.
During my bored-actor years, I recruited lady friends to join me in doing crafting “Projects!” to relieve said boredom. (Note the exclamation mark. That was part of the vibe. Say “PROJECTS!” like a stereotypical gay character on television and you have it.) A little before Christmas and Valentine’s Day, I threw parties to make holiday cards from scratch. I would buy CARTLOADS of supplies: pipe cleaners, decorative paper, gold filigree, dot matrix pictures of Bea Arthur . . . it was a bacchanal of glitter and glue sticks. I would cater tea-time foodstuffs (sandwiches without crusts and heart-shaped tarts with yuppie-berries) and serve them on flower-embossed ceramic plates.
It’s strange to remember I was so vaginal at a certain point.
The same enthusiasm that motivated me to create dozens of handmade Christmas cards every year—and some for Hanukkah, because I tried to be inclusive but I didn’t really understand when it was appropriate to send them to people, so I ended up shoving them in the closet—drove me to take the script I wrote for The Guild and turn it into a web series. From scratch. With my friends.