Sunday, November 6th
It’s a normal morning in the Gorrie household. As par normal, I wake up. Eat breakfast (pancakes are my favorite). Shower. Brush my teeth and am ready for another long day of my young life. But this wasn't any normal day. It is twenty-seven days after the upload of “Pikachu Parkour” and this video wasn’t at my normal one hundred views. I logged on my computer to check my channel and Pikachu Parkour was at fifty thousand views. My heart stopped for a whole second but then I just didn’t believe it. I thought it was a prank. I reloaded the page and no, it wasn’t a prank.

Three Months Before

Thursday, August 25th
“MOMMMMMM,” I yell. I walk over to her bright spacious workroom. I talk trying to hold back the laughter, “This is a strange question. But could I order a pikachu onesie?”
She responds confused, “Jake, tell me what this would be for.”
“It’s for a video. I’m going to do flips in a pikachu costume.”
“Okay, how much is it?”
“Only like twenty dollars, that’s it. I’ll pay you back, I promise.”
“Okay, let’s go order it.” So we walk over to the old computer and order the costume. It’s shipping out of China so it’s going to take about a month. I don't think I can wait.

Two Weeks Later

Monday, September 12th
Just another boring day. All the green trees around me with a cool summer breeze. Finishing school was rough and I was just trying to get through the long day. When I finally got home I saw a package. I was bursting with happiness like a little kid in a candy shop. A huge smile comes over my face as I run up my front steps. I quickly scurry inside and grab the bright white scissors. Tearing through the package I find a necklace and am just frozen. I guess it was just a package my mom got. But I don’t give up. I’m a cheetah as I run through the slippery green grass and slide into my mailbox. Slamming open the mailbox, I check the small area. A super small white package is surrounded by a mound of letters. I grab the package not caring about the letters and run up into my house. After scrambling to open the package, I see yellow cloth and know it is the pikachu costume. Just a little bit longer and the video will be done, two months in the planning.

Four Days Later

Friday, September 16th
Today is the day. Finally, I don’t have to wait any longer. It’s time to film the video. Chase, Tyler, and I all ready to jump into the costume with Gianna behind the camera. On our way to open gym, we all are super excited, checking the camera equipment and making sure we have our money. We walk into the amazing facility. So bright and colorful with the color blue. Now for warm ups. Once the twenty-five minute warms ups end, we all get nervous. We all thought it was going to be the most embarrassing thing ever. So we played a game of “rock-paper-scissors-shoot.” Tyler loses and without hesitation puts on the costume. At first he was insanely embarrassed walking out onto the velvet blue mat but after many strange looks and funny laughs, he feels as comfortable as a coach potato. After one clip in I thought this was going to be the best video ever. Even the owner of the facility came out and posted a video of us on their Instagram page. After throwing down our most crazy tricks, including double front flips, side in back outs, castaways, and even backflip and frontflips on ground, the session ended feeling like it was ten minutes long. I couldn’t wait to post this video.

One Week Later

Saturday, September 24th
About one week later, we are back at it again. This time we plan to film at the green and sunny White Oak Park. But there's just one thing about this. It’s not just the normal non-crowded White Oak Park, it's the day of the country fair with over one thousand people. This time no one else was there except for ten other of my friends that weren’t in the video. This is really the test about embarrassment, if you're dedicated or not. At one point I was pacing and talked myself out of it. Seeing people come and go was really starting to stress me out but I decided that once we had the camera rolling, nothing could stop me. I finally got up and put on the costume. Flipping was a way to calm and relax me so it really helped. We filmed the video and got some awesome clips with the fun fair in the background. I couldn’t wait to start editing this video and even better, uploading the video. After we had enough clips then I dropped my camera equipment back at my house and finished the relaxing day at the park with all my amazing friends.

One Day Later

Sunday and Monday, September 25th and 26th
After a nice long sleep, I wake up wanting to do nothing but edit. I jump right out of bed and run straight into my chair. Opening my worn out camera bag, I see the GoPro looking straight into my eyes almost pulling me in. After slipping out of the trance, I grab the GoPro delicately. I plug it in and boom I’m ready to start. Opening GoPro Studio (my editing software), I go on to chrome to download my music. Once I start editing, I don’t come out of my hibernation until I’m done. Three short hours later, I click the export button knowing this is it, I can’t change it after this. While it started to export I almost clicked cancel thinking that people wouldn’t like it. Or maybe I would be humiliating myself and a bunch of other “would if” questions. But I kept it because I know I’ve been working and planning this for a long long time. It was now my time to shine. The software said the video was done and I proceeded with caution onto YouTube. I remember the moment so vividly. Slowly typing in my title, and the description, and the tags, and the everything else, I had the biggest smile on my face. I clicked the upload button and just stopped. I must’ve been sitting there thinking for at least a solid five minutes. The project was done and the world's weight was finally off my back. I took a deep breath and went on with my day like nothing happened.

One Week Later

Tuesday, October 6th
It’s finally a week after the upload of my newest and greatest video “Pikachu Parkour.” So far the video has around three hundred views and I’m insanely happy. That is almost triple of what my normal videos get. But once the day has gone by my video started to grow and grow at a rapid rate. It gained one thousand views by the end of the day and I was literally freaking out. Just thinking about one thousand people is crazy but watching my video, it’s absolutely crazy. I thought that that was where it was going to end but what I didn’t know that it was going to be almost fifty times that.

Three Weeks Later

Friday, October 28th
It’s finally Friday and I get to go home from a long day at school. Happy as normal right now because my video is growing at the craziest rate. Once I get home, I log onto my computer and check my video. It hit thirty thousand views! I almost fell down my carpeted stairs as I was at a full sprint around my house. Virtually tripping over anything I pass by, I stop right near my mom.“Mom, I finally did it! The video hit thirty thousand views,” I say almost screaming.
“Oh my gosh! Good job! I knew you could do it,” She replies back in an upbeat tone. I can’t hold back the biggest smile of my life. I am totally astonished and can hardly speak.

One Week Later

Sunday, November 6th
This was the day. My life goal for YouTube has finally happened. I was in so much shock, I could hardly move. I tried to talk but I couldn’t. No words were coming out of my mouth. I raced over to where my mom was on her computer and push her hands off the keyboard. I search up “Fballmaster” on YouTube and click on my channel. Now I look at my mom and she has the biggest smile ever. I just need to post this on snapchat so I do and get so many congratulatory messages. That’s when I finally came back to reality and thought of how many people that actually was. When I first ever started my YouTube channel it was for fun and no purpose to go this far. But here I am now with fifty thousand views and the video was even trending on the parkour section. My video went viral.

Three Weeks Later

Sunday, November 20th
Here I am, happy as ever with my video hitting sixty thousand views. My life goal has always been to get fifty thousand views on one video and it finally happened plus more. So here I am now writing this draft to finish my homework on a late Sunday night. I still don’t believe that I, myself starting with some of the most unnecessary stuff on my YouTube channel but here I am now and have finally hit my goal. Just to think of sixty thousand people gathered together is crazy. Sixty thousand is about four times the amount of people living in Branchburg. As I’m saying this, I now know that hard work does truly pay off and anything that is currently happening just remember that there is nothing there to stop you. Do what you love and love what you do.