Tomorrow begins the 7th annual VidCon. Conceived in 2010 by the VlogBrother, Hank and John Green, VidCon is a convention where YouTube creators, fans and industry can get together and interact, have a good time, and just overall celebrate one of the craziest things of the new world we live in, online content that is created by everyday people just like you and me. This is the second year I have gone.

Last year I decided since I like going to various conventions in the LA area (E3, Wondercon, Comicaze, Long Beach Comic Con) that I would try out another one, VidCon. I honestly don't remember where I first heard about it. It may have been mentioned by Grace Helbig on something, or possibly by Hank or John Green themselves, I don't know. While I didn't watch as much online content then as I do now, I was watching a lot (that's a story for another day). So I bought a Community pass to the show (they have 3 tiers, Community, Creator and Industry) and showed up the first day having no idea what to expect.

Well that's not fully true. You see one of the biggest appeals of the show is the signing lottery. You are given a list of hundreds of online creators and you list the top 25 that you would like to meet in the signing hall. Then through whatever random selection they use you get to have a meet and greet with 3 of those people. I actually had a hard time filling up my list of 25, but I succeeded. The main things I remember is that I'm pretty sure I had Grace Helbig as number 1, and I had Rebecca Black somewhere near 25.

Lindsey Stirling being interviewed.  She wasn't available for the meet and greet lottery, but I got to see her interviewed anyway. — Lindsey Stirling being interviewed. She wasn't available for the meet and greet lottery, but I got to see her interviewed anyway.

Why would I have put Rebecca Black? Well it's simple, I actually greatly respect her. Here is a girl that at 16 years old became the most shat upon person in the world. The music video for Friday was the most dislike video in history until it was taken down. A less stronger person probably would have killed themselves, and no one would have been surprised. But what did she do? First off she started her own channel, and the first thing she did was have the original posting of Friday taken down, thus losing all those dislike, and re-uploading it on her own channel, where it currently sits as I believe the 3rd or 4th most disliked video. Why is that smart move? Well, people still have to watch it to dislike it, and now she gets all that revenue. So they can shit on it all they want, she's getting paid. But it isn't just that. She also started releasing vlogs and other videos, including one where I think it was 3 years after Friday came out, she watches it for the first time since its release and laughs along with everyone. But I digress, because honestly when I started writing this, I didn't mean to go on a Rebecca Black detour.

Before getting back to the signing lottery, let's actually go back a few months before VidCon 2015 to E3 2015. Two of the people on my list were iJustine, who I had seen a lot of because of Call of Duty, and BrizzyVoices, who at the time (and maybe still) was best known for releasing a video where she did an impression of all 151 orignal Pokèmon. Well at E3 2015 I ended up meeting both of them. Cut to about a week later and I got my signing lottery results. First up was iJustine. Huh, that's funny. Next was BrizzyVoices. That's ironic. Third was someone I had always wanted to meet at E3 but never ran into her, and that was Falicia Day. So on the first day of VidCon I at least knew I had a meet and greet with iJustine.

I had to track down Brizzy the day after our Meet and Greet because I'm terrible at taking selfies and the one I took at the signing was terrible.

What I didn't know was that registration was going to take me 2 hours, and they'd give me the wrong wrist band for her (it was actually for some guy the next day that I hadn't heard of, all though by now I probably have). So I totally missed out on that. Ah well, I met her at E3 so no worries. But now I had no clue what to do the rest of the day. The way the show was laid out is as so, there are 3 huge convention rooms at the Anaheim Convention Center. The first 2 rooms have some booths for various things, honestly I can't remember what, and 2 interview stages for one on one interviews. The 3rd room has the main stage which is giant and there is seating for about probably 3,000 people, probably more. So I pretty much just went between interviews and panels between those 3 stages for the 3 days. I had my meet and greet with BrizzyVoices (who I have seen at pretty much every convention since, except for this years E3) and I finally got to meet Felicia Day.

Finally meeting Felicia Day.  Hank and John Green are on the far right. — Finally meeting Felicia Day. Hank and John Green are on the far right.

Honestly I felt a little out of place because the vast majority of the attendants to VidCon are girls from the age of like 9 to 15. It's a really surreal experience. The weirdest part would be when you'd walk around the lobby and there would be this huge line of girls, and at the front of the line were 2 young teen girls talking to each other. Then one of them would walk away and the next one would walk up. That's when you realize, "oh, this other girl must be some famous content creator". There is so much sqeeeeeeing and screaming. But the thing that there is the most of, is positive energy. These are people getting to meet the entertainers they love and being able to let them know how much they mean to them. This would be like at the height of Beatlemania if the Beatles held a convention to meet and greet all of their fans. So in November when I got notice that tickets for VidCon 2016 were going on sale, I decided I'd go again, but this time I was going to do it a little differently...