Bang

“On YouTube.” She says YouTube the way a snooty gourmet says fast food.

“It’s not just for cat videos anymore.” And I have to stifle a laugh because it is quite possible I just invented YouTube’s new slogan. “People make money on it.”

She snorts. Someone has offered the gourmet the latest Happy Meal.

“Mom, seriously—”

“Seriously, Sebastian. I’ve given you a lot of leeway. If you don’t come up with something this weekend, I’m going to come up with something for you.”





Me: Now what?

Aneesa: Don’t worry. I’ve got this

Me: Got what?

Aneesa: Trust me. Moms love me





Aneesa shows up that afternoon, all business, wearing a very conservative pair of pants and a professional-looking blazer over a button-down shirt. She has an iPad and a serious expression on her face.

“What are you up to?” I ask her as I lead her to the kitchen.

“Trust me.”

Mom is waiting at the kitchen table. There’s a moment of silence as they sort of size each other up. I want to laugh because it’s Aneesa and Mom, not a couple of Bond villains.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Mom finally says, “but I’m not sure what you can tell me that Sebastian hasn’t already.”

Aneesa smiles smoothly. “Mrs. Cody, I’m just here to explain how having his own YouTube channel is actually pretty productive for Sebastian. I know you’re skeptical, and we thought that maybe if you heard it from a neutral third party, you might be a bit more receptive.”

Aneesa, it turns out, speaks excellent Adult.

“Neutral third party?” Mom says. “You’re his friend.”

“Yeah, but I don’t really like him that much.”

Despite herself, Mom chuckles. “Fine. Fire away.” She leans back in her chair, arms folded over her chest in that way that communicates her mind has already been made up.

I nearly tell Aneesa to forget it, but she’s already propped up the iPad on the table and launched her presentation. I sit silently and let her work her magic. This is her show, and besides, I have nothing to contribute other than, “I like making pizza, and Aneesa thinks this is a good idea.” Both are facts already in Mom’s possession.

Aneesa begins with a quick précis of YouTube itself, starting with its humble first video way back in 2005. Mom smirks a little, but politely says nothing. Then Aneesa shows a chart of YouTube’s growth since 2005, titled “Eyeballs Grabbed” and featuring an animated set of blinking cartoon eyes. Mom reacts not at all, arms still folded.

Then Aneesa overlays a graph showing the decline in broadcast television viewing. It’s still high, but it’s dropping, while YouTube’s graph seems to have no upper limit.

Mom grunts something noncommittal and her arms relax a bit.

Now Aneesa accelerates, with quick screens proving the growing financial power of YouTube. First, a graph of ad revenues, labeled “Bucks Earned” with—of course—dancing animated dollar signs, euros, pounds, yen, and more. It’s more than quadrupled in the past four years.…

“… and that’s still not even a quarter of all video revenue,” Aneesa says. “Broadcast and cable are both declining, but online is only rising. It’s an accelerated growth curve, and it’s not breaking anytime soon. All the momentum is with online video services, and YouTube is the biggest.”

She then goes on to invoke a litany of YouTube megastars: Michelle Phan and PewDiePie and Grace Helbig and more, concluding with the holiest of holies—the Vlogbrothers.

She wraps up with a quick skim over the current online video cooking market, then shows a graph of “Projected Eyeballs and Bucks Earned” that mercifully lacks any numbers on the Y-axis. It shows rapid if reasonable growth over the next year, though, which warms my heart until I remind myself that Aneesa is making all of this up.

The last slide is a mock-up of a logo: SEBASTIAN’S PIES, in a cursive font curved upward like a smile atop a cartoon pizza crust, with two pepperoni slices for eyes to complete the smiley face.

And there’s a URL at the bottom just like on a real ad or commercial: YouTube.com/sebastianspies.

“It looks like it says ‘Sebastian Spies,’” Mom points out.

I groan. Yay, Mom.





There’s barely enough time for Aneesa to have gotten home when she calls me.

“Well? What did she say?”

“You just left. Give her a minute to think.”

“Well, what do you think she’ll say?”

“I don’t know. My mom’s a pain. She’s not cool like your parents.”

She huffs a too-sarcastic laugh. “My parents? Cool? Are you kidding me?”

I think of Mr. Fahim’s Xbox, of Mrs. Fahim’s lemonade, of their easy, laconic smiles and the way they welcomed me into their home without a moment’s hesitation. “I think they’re cool.”

“You’re welcome to them.”

“Come on.”

“I guess they’re not that bad. Compared to some of my other friends, they’re okay. They try to be as cool about things as they can. But they’re always walking a line, you know?”

“I actually don’t.”

“I’ve stumped you!” she chortles. “I’ve stumped the genius!”

“Are you going to celebrate or…?”

She sighs heavily. “I don’t expect you to get it. I mean, it’s a mixed marriage, right? Which is cool, but sometimes there’s a tension. Because Dad is religious and Mom isn’t. And I feel like I have to balance them, even though they don’t put that kind of pressure on me. And we… never mind.”

There are two ways of saying never mind. One way means never mind. The other means I want to keep talking about this, but it’s getting to me and I’m not sure I should, but if you encourage me, maybe I’ll keep going.

Aneesa’s employing the latter.

“Keep going,” I tell her, and she does.

“It’s tough to talk about this stuff. But I guess if I don’t, no one will learn. You wouldn’t get it. You don’t know how lucky you are. Both your parents were born here and their parents and their parents, and you don’t have this stress of ‘We’re not really welcome here.’ And ‘We have to honor our past, but also be a part of the place where we live.’ And sometimes that seems impossible.”

Replace honor with live with and I almost understand.

“I didn’t mean to vent like that,” she says quietly. “It’s just that we’re the Muslims no one thinks exist and we’re right here and it’s frustrating sometimes.” There’s a long silence filled with expectation, and I realize I haven’t said anything.

“I didn’t mean to go all quiet,” I tell her. “I’m sorry.”

She chuckles. “You’re apologizing again! All is right with the world.”





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