Follow Me Page 9

  The average American watches at least five hours of TV a day, and if Netflix keeps churning out more original programming, that number is only going to go up. Even if you stayed active for just one of those five hours you’d be ahead of the game.

  Think about how much exercise you used to get as a little kid just playing on the playground, and you had no idea that what you were doing was good for you.

  As an adult, you have to learn how to enjoy exercise in that same way in order for it to ever become a part of your day-to-day life. If you truly hate exercising, then the trick is finding the fun in it. And if that is totally impossible for you, then you need to create some sort of reward system. Are you a huge music freak and have to hear everything that Spotify releases on Fridays? Don’t let yourself unless you’ve got a barbell in your hand (just make sure that you’ve threaded your headphone wires under your shirt). Or maybe you’re one of the .99 percent of the population that hasn’t read the Hunger Games trilogy and you just got an audio download of the third book. Don’t press play until you’ve sat down on a rowing machine.

  Here’s another tactic. You know that friend you love but you never see anymore because you’re both too busy? Create a buddy system and make a weekly date to go for a run. It can be your special time to reconnect and tighten your butts! Connor and I love to do this sometimes when we hang out.

  The friend doesn’t have to be someone you don’t see often. Working out with any friend increases the odds that you’ll continue. You can push each other to do better, and each promise to always force the other out of the house when one isn’t feeling it. Not to mention it’s literally social time so it just becomes fun naturally.

  If you know that you aren’t into a specific kind of exercise, like tennis, and you have friends who are super into tennis and are always trying to get you to play with them, don’t do it. If you don’t enjoy something, you’re not going to continue it. Spend the time that your friends are off doing their thing to find some kind of physical activity that YOU love. That being said, it is important to try new things, so if a pal invites you to try out a sport that you’ve never played before, at least give it a shot! Even if you end up not liking it, you still got in a good workout and hung out with friends.

  One cool thing to keep in mind is that exercise can be almost anything you want it to be. Frisbee is exercise! Long walks on the beach are exercise! Playing tag is exercise! Walking a dog is exercise! Hopping up and down in your bedroom for five minutes is exercise! Best of all, dancing is exercise. Hit up a club or a school dance, and if you don’t live near a place to go dancing, get Dance Dance Revolution and invite a bunch of friends over to do that on a Friday night. If you don’t have any friends or a video-game system, take a cue from Robyn and keep on dancing on your own. That’s what I love to do—blast music alone in my room and dance while I clean it. I don’t think my room would ever get clean if I couldn’t dance while doing it.

  If you’ve got a boyfriend or a girlfriend then you’re in luck, because working out with a significant other (as long as you’re past the whole I’m-too-scared-to-let-him-or-her-see-me-sweat phase) can be a great bonding process. It gets your hearts racing, you have alone time together, and you’re motivating each other to look and feel better.

  If you’re still not buying any of this, look at the data. I mean, I don’t have it here, but look it up online. There are a million different studies that prove how much exercise can help improve your overall mood. Our bodies are made to move around and grow muscle, not sit around and collect weight. It’s like a crime against nature to not take advantage of these crazy bags of flesh that we live in. I know there’s only so much convincing I can do, and by no means am I trying to force any of this on you. I’m simply hoping to inspire, because fitness is such a positive part of my life and I love seeing it change other people’s lives, too. In the end you are the only one who can convince yourself to work out. But I swear to you on everything I hold dear—if you can learn to make it fun, working out regularly will be one of the best things you can do for yourself.

  CHALLENGE

  #TVWORKOUTFORRICKY

  Make up a new, creative way to work out while watching TV. It can be absolutely anything, as long as some part of your body is moving. The weirder the moves, the better.

  CHALLENGE

  #BLINDFOLDMAKEUPFORRICKY

  Do the blindfold makeup challenge (blindfold yourself and a friend and trust each other to do your faces up) and post the results. Extra love if you go out in public.

  FAMILY

  I know I’ve mentioned my friend Shelby a lot, and I think she deserves her own little section for being my sister from another mister.

  Anyway, she’s family, no question. I talk with her every single day, and we’ve known each other since kindergarten, when I tried to fix her broken marriage with my friend Thomas. They were hitched in that way kids pretend to be, but she’d broken up with him on Valentine’s Day because he drew her a card with a picture of a fish on it. It was a classic communication breakdown situation: Shelby hated fish, but had never mentioned that fact to Thomas, who only knew how to draw one thing well, which happened to be fish. So much drama with young love!

  Thomas came to me incredibly upset over what had happened and begged me to talk to her for him. So I did, but I wasn’t able to do much good. The damage had been done, but at least it put Shelby on my radar.

  Even though she lived only a few streets over, and we even had lockers next to each other in sixth grade, we didn’t become close until middle school, when we were both in band. She was first-chair flute, and we both attended a summer band camp program at the local college. When her mom dropped her off on the first day, she yelled out to me from the car that I needed to look out for Shelby, so I did!

  We started doing everything together. Well, as much as two people who don’t party can do in Alabama, which it turns out isn’t much. We were both obsessed with American Idol and would watch it live and vote. Any time a franchise movie like Harry Potter or Twilight premiered we’d be waiting in line at the first midnight screening, and would sometimes go to the twenty-four-hour gym at 3:00 a.m. so we could work out and have the place to ourselves and be as loud as we wanted.

  We also spent a lot of time just driving around and talking. One day we decided to take a road trip to the ocean, and right before we left she won a little stuffed monkey from a vending machine and hung it from her rearview mirror. She called it her Lucky Monkey. It was anything but. She got pulled over for speeding, and we got hopelessly lost, so she ended up throwing the animal out the window after yelling at it for being an Unlucky Monkey.

  Band trips were much more fun, since we didn’t have to worry about driving. The school would charter a bus for away games and we always made sure to sit next to each other and play Mario Kart on our Nintendo DSes. Some football games ended up being super far away, so we had some trips that were fifteen-hour bus rides. I remember the first one vividly. We were freshmen and sat together and bonded even more than ever before. We really do have band to thank for getting us so close.

  Since we didn’t march in the same section, we’d always scramble to find each other whenever we had a break. It was always a struggle, since all two hundred band members looked EXACTLY the same in our uniforms, especially when we had to warm up in a dark parking lot near the field.

  Shelby and I even dated on and off. It was never anything serious, we’d just sort of slip into being a couple, and just as quickly go right back to normal. It wasn’t weird to either of us because we were already so tight. I think we both just realized that we make for perfect friends instead of a couple. But who knows, we could end up getting married someday!

  When I was recording my album it was her idea to sing together on “Got Your Back.” We’d spent countless hours singing together in the car when we were younger so I thought I really knew her voice, but I was surprised at how great it was when she focused. When she sang in the car it was a bit more reserv
ed, but she fully opened up in the studio and did a fantastic job, especially considering it was her first time doing any sort of singing on a professional level. It’s one of my favorite songs on Gold!

  She’s finishing up college at UAB in Alabama now and plans on moving to L.A. as soon as she graduates. Her plan is to become a manager or publicist or something similar in the social media world. I’ve definitely got her back on that.

  CHALLENGE

  #BFFFORRICKY

  Post a picture of your best friend—doesn’t matter if it’s someone you’ve known since kindergarten, your mom, your pet fish, or your laptop.

  CHALLENGE

  #THANKFULLISTFORRICKY

  Make a list of all of the things you’re thankful for in life and put it in a place where it’s easy to look at whenever you’re feeling down.

  SELF-EMPOWERMENT

  I can count the number of girlfriends I’ve had on just over one hand, and all except one were during high school. There was always this sort of unspoken pressure to date at mine. It was the social norm, so if you weren’t dating anyone, you looked and felt kind of out of place. Therefore, I sort of went along with whatever came my way. I don’t want to say I didn’t have a good time with any of them, or that the relationships were fake, but they definitely weren’t something I would have necessarily sought out. More thoughts on that later.

  My first girlfriend was named Lucy, and we got together when I was in ninth grade. She was on one of the off-campus tennis teams with me, and had a great energy. We had crushes on each other but I doubt I would have acted on it if her friends hadn’t seriously pressured me into asking her out. It felt forced at first, but we ended up being together for eight months. The problem was that her schedule was really busy, so we only ever saw each other at school and during practice. We hung out with big groups of people but never had any alone time. We finally called it off when it was clear it was going nowhere, but we stayed friends.

  Girlfriend number two was my first kiss! She’s also now married to Mason. I first met Chelsea one night when I went out bowling with Mason my sophomore year. One of his friends had invited her, and we instantly connected and talked nonstop the whole night. It was the start of spring break and I was heading off to my family’s lake house for the week the next day, but we exchanged numbers and continued to text and talk the whole time I was gone. I couldn’t believe how much we had in common. She was on the tennis team and played really well, but for some reason we’d just never talked. She also loved singing, and way before I ever made my own YouTube channel I helped her set one up for herself so she could record covers of songs and upload them. I was kind of like her unofficial manager/videographer.

  There was a trail that led up into the woods behind her house, and that’s where I had my first kiss. It should have been perfect—warm weather, a bright moon shining down, a soft wind that rustled the leaves—it was a textbook first-kiss scenario.

  Instead of appreciating all that, I got kind of weirded out. I felt like things were moving too fast, like she was suddenly already planning our whole future. We still gave the relationship another good four months before eventually breaking up because she thought things were moving too slow. In hindsight, dating in general has just always freaked me out for some reason, so I couldn’t keep up with the normal dating pace that she naturally wanted to go at. It wasn’t an awkward breakup; we stayed friends, and a month later both she and Mason needed a date for homecoming, so I set them up. The rest is history.

  Junior year brought Juliana into my life, and I honestly don’t remember why she didn’t work out. It was good at first but for one reason or another we just broke up. From the start, though, it had never been too serious, so it was no big deal.

  I’d known Mallory for years, but we didn’t get together until my senior year. I was interested in becoming a drum major (the person who conducts the marching band) and she had been one so she started coaching me. One thing led to another and then we were dating, but she’d had a serious boyfriend before me whom she still had feelings for, and they eventually got back together.

  All through high school Shelby and I had been doing our friends/sometimes more thing on and off, but by the time we graduated we were definitely in the permanent friend zone. But, like, in the good kind of friend zone.

  My final girlfriend lasted two weeks my freshman year of college. We both played trumpet in band so we were together all the time and it seemed like the right thing to do. It wasn’t. I guess we just kind of jumped the gun with dating. It was too sudden, and then we realized, Wait, this feels weird. As with all my other exes, we stayed friends. (Good thing, since we had to sit next to each other every day.) I feel really lucky that I’ve managed to stay friendly with all of my ex-girlfriends. I’ve never had any bad feelings about our breakups.

  I know what you’re probably thinking. Ricky, are you sure you aren’t gay? It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard it, but it’s usually used as an insult, which is pathetic since there’s nothing wrong with being gay so it doesn’t even work as a slur.

  It’s actually insane just how dramatic and overly discussed the topic of my sexuality gets in the comments section of my YouTube videos, in my Instagram feed, and on Twitter. The fact of the matter is, it’s not even a big deal to me. I hardly ever even think about it. My sexuality and love life is such an insignificant part of who I am, and I really hate labels of any sort. I’m just Ricky. Don’t get so stressed out and worked up over trying to pigeonhole me, because it really doesn’t matter. I’m just me.

  I will tell you this, though—I’ve never really been all that interested in having a relationship with anyone, period. I like to be alone. It’s easy for me to use my YouTube career as an excuse to not get involved with anyone because I don’t want anything to distract me from it, but I also just simply don’t crave a relationship or love. I have friends who are constantly trying to set me up with a friend of theirs, and I always tell them, “I really don’t want to.” And I mean it. I truly don’t. It’s hard to talk about because most people don’t get it. They think it’s weird, I guess because the evolution of the species dictates that every guy wants to put his wiener somewhere, regardless of whether it will make a baby.

  I definitely get little crushes from time to time, but nothing more serious, and I sometimes wonder if I have a hormone imbalance. Like, honestly, I mean that. It sounds dramatic, but seriously, something is off. Even if I do have an actual imbalance, though, I don’t really mind. I don’t get upset or down or sad in any way about any of this. It feels insignificant and irrelevant to my life at this point in time. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been by far. I lead a really fulfilling life, and I have the most fun when I’m creating things. Who knows, all of that could change in a heartbeat if I meet The One. I do like the idea of maybe having a family someday, but it’s more of an abstract concept than anything else. At least for now.

  So that’s the story of my (lack of a) love life. Not very exciting, I know, but it gives me a whole lot more time to work on things to make you happy, and that’s what fulfills me at the moment.

  CHALLENGE

  #FIRSTKISSFORRICKY

  I want to hear first-kiss stories! But I also don’t want anyone who hasn’t had their first kiss yet to feel left out, so here’s the compromise—describe your ultimate, craziest dream scenario for a first kiss with a celebrity of your choice.

  CHALLENGE

  #ELEVATORSINGFORRICKY

  Get into a crowded elevator and start singing really loud as soon as the doors close.

  SOCIAL

  Remember those iChat sleepovers I used to have in college with the future O2L boys and my other YouTube friends? There were a couple of others who would join us sometimes—Rebecca Black and Jenn McAllister, aka jennxpenn.

  Weird coincidence: Jenn started her YouTube channel exactly one day before mine! I watched all of her videos, and she was watching mine, too. We attracted the same sort of audience, and it didn’t take long fo
r us to start messaging each other as mutual admirers. I think she’s an incredible content creator and it was obvious she worked super hard at what she did—and she still does. I respect and admire her a lot, and it’s really cool to have gotten to know her so well way back in the day.

  I finally met Jenn in person for the first time at the same VidCon where I met the O2L boys. Not long after we all got home, she got hacked. Since I tend to stay up super late at night a lot, I was one of the first to notice when around 3:00 a.m. a suspicious video asking for money suddenly appeared on her channel. I tried reaching her but she didn’t pick up the phone, so I got in touch with someone else I’d met at VidCon who I knew had her home number, so I called and woke her mom up. I apologized over and over but told her it was an emergency. Jenn obviously freaked out, as anyone would have in that situation, and I stayed on the phone with her for hours while she got in touch with YouTube headquarters and tried to figure out what to do. I think that night really cemented our friendship.

  She ended up moving to L.A. a month after Connor and I did, and got an apartment about half a block away from us with fellow YouTuber Andrea Russett. We frequently had Fiesta Nights, where Jc would cook all of us Mexican food, and afterward we’d take long walks around the neighborhood or go to the nearby movie theater. One night Jenn and Andrea broke into our apartment and covered everything in Silly String! That was hilarious until it came time to clean it up, then it kind of sucked. I adore her, though, and whenever we do a collab viewers really seem to like it. She’s definitely one of my favorite people to work with. Normally any video I post will inevitably get some haters, but not when we do stuff together. We have a really strong connection that I think shows through, and always have a ridiculous amount of fun together.