Darla from YouTube is cool. Darla from YouTube uploads weekly videos that capture her various ways of being cool, to the delight of her 178,950 subscribers. She is cool because she is pretty and reads books, but she is also cool because she admits to feeling like she isn’t pretty, like she isn’t reading enough books. Here’s a testimonial: “omg u just continue to be the COOLEST,” writes one fan, @flyingviola2, in a comment under the video A Social but Productive Week in my Life. @flyingviola2 has left similar comments under Darla from YouTube’s other videos (the cool dorm room tour, the cool skincare routine, the one where she cuts her cool hair and writes a poem about it).
Offline, @flyingviola2 is Helen from Dayton, Ohio. Helen is a sophomore at Meadowview High School, Home of the Flying Squirrels. Though she has friends and good grades, Helen is haunted by Other Helen, the perfect version of herself, the self she could be (if only she would work harder, get her thoughts right). For months, Helen has been having nightmares in which Other Helen, with perfect bangs and an inability to procrastinate, chases Helen into a creek. A hundred swampy hands reach up—grabbing, twisting, pulling, drowning her—as purple murk clouds her vision and distant laughter blooms like ink.
Under the video A Girl’s Guide to Finding Casual Magic in Everyday Life, @flyingviola2 comments: “does anyone ever feel like the better version of u is always looking over ur shoulder and judging u?” (This comment is liked by thirteen other soldiers, also enlisted in an inner cold war.) Another comment: “sometimes i think one really good night of sleep would be enough to make me who i want to be!” (Twenty-nine likes.) Two more comments on two more videos, and then—to the sound of great, orchestral thunder—the machine lowers the goddess over the stage…
@DarlaFromYouTube: It’ll be okay, @flyingviola2. Frustration with yourself is part of the process 🙂
@flyingviola2: omg hi darla!! yes yes i know i just wish i knew what i was doing wrong!
(The reader is invited to imagine an old-timey amphitheater. A girl in a bonnet falls on the stage. She has dropped the wildflowers she was collecting for her horse’s birthday. She looks up: another girl, with flowing hair and too-white teeth, floats in a creaky harness.)
@DarlaFromYouTube: You are doing nothing wrong. You just need to accept that you are perfect.
@flyingviola2: if i were perfect i probably wouldnt have these dreams about chasing myself into a creek haha but ok i see ur point thank u!!
@DarlaFromYouTube: Perfection takes many forms!
…so concludes their correspondence.
Darla stares blankly out her London window and closes her laptop lid. The muffled click of the lid is her signal: for now, the performance is over. Should she have told @flyingviola2, whoever and wherever they might be, that she too has nightmares? Yes, this would have been the more sensible move. Why did she go with the proclamatory, high-and-mighty tone? Who wants a preacher? Better to be human than to preach. That’s a nice line. She should make that her new mantra. She should have told @flyingviola2 that she doesn’t get up at 5:00 a.m. to roll out her yoga mat; she gets up at 4:00 a.m. to do her makeup, do her hair, set up the tripod, swap the camera battery, adjust the ring light, and reorient the flower pots in the background. And she should have told @flyingviola2 that all of this happens after those regular nightmares, those nightly visions of a cosmetics store—fluorescent and empty, with tinny overhead speakers chanting their pop music—in which Darla stands paralyzed, in the middle of an unmarked aisle, not knowing which way is the exit. Every display in this store features Darla from YouTube, promoting the latest lip gloss, the most natural fragrance, the highest-quality shampoo.
A new livestream: Study With Me / Cozy Sunday / 2hr with break (cloud emoji) (coffee emoji). It is afternoon in London, and Darla from YouTube is addressing her loyal subscribers. Her hands are wrapped around a steaming mug. “I’ve seen these videos go around and I’m so so SO excited to finally make one with you all. I’m going to set a timer for half-hour increments, with a break after an hour. We’ll put our heads down, we’ll study, we’ll get through it. Whatever else we’re dealing with, we can put that stuff aside, we can fight those fights later. Right now, we’re giving ourselves permission to focus on one thing at a time. Ready?”
In the top right corner of the livestream, a countdown starts. 30:00. 29:59. 29:58. It’s 9:00 a.m. in Dayton, Ohio. Helen opens her textbook, uncaps a highlighter.
Illustration by Sarah Feng.
—Cal Barton