By Katherine C.
The YouTube Sensation
The day my brother came running into my bedroom screaming about a kidnapping, I wasn’t too surprised. He was always screaming about something so I had gotten used to his sudden outbursts. Most of the time he was screaming at his computer so I thought about maybe paying attention to what was going on. At least this time.
I knew Mitch was big into YouTube and wanted to copy some of his favorites as an online personality, but he had so many interests, I didn’t know what he would choose. He described his current YouTube hero as “a viral sensation who talked about gaming like it was his religion” and I tried to not tune him out all of the time. Just part of it.
“Please, please, Mary, please,” Mitch stuttered between his sobs. “We need to call the police.”
“What? The police? What’s happened? Are you okay?” I turned in my chair to find Mitch collapsing on my bedroom floor.
“Finn96… Kidnapped… Host… Livestream.” Mitch continued to babble as I tried to make out what he was going on about when I finally followed him into his room. I saw the YouTube homepage up on his screen and slowly started putting two and two together.
FInn96 was Mitch’s favorite YouTuber who made his fortune and fame from streaming some video game I had no interest in. And now he had been unceremoniously kidnapped on screen. He had now reappeared, blindfolded, handcuffed, and making a plea for his life. All I could think was it just had to be a hoax. Or was it?
Booked Solid in Santa Fe 