Dating a YouTuber?!

Chapter 1: Stolen photos

It turns out the guy from the park was neither a musician or an actor, he is a YouTuber and whatever that entailed I had not understood until now. The comments on my site had gone rather crazy and over 500 people had left comments. Some just answering my question with his name, while others where appalled by my description of fangirls and a few of my old loyal site-visitors informed me that the photo was all over Twitter, Instragram even Facebook.

If there was one thing I did not appreciate, it was when people stole my photographs, which was why I had copyright on my site and made it impossible to copy the photos, but of course I knew that didn’t prevent anyone from taking screenshots.

To all of the comments regarding plagiarism, I answered that I would appreciate if they reported the users for plagiarism and leave me any profiles that had any of my pictures up. Some users had even been so naughty as to edit my copyright on the photos away and use filters, which in my opinion ruined the quality of the photos. Granted, a single few did credit me fully and referenced by site, so those I left unreported while I did leave a comment saying that you could ask for permission before using other people’s property.

I even contacted the different social medias to inform them of the incident and while they promised that the users would be reported, it could take a while.

Discouraged I spend my entire morning sorting it out. I had experience that people had taking my photos before but never to this extent at all. I made me annoyed but also really curious as to why this YouTuber could cause so much trouble.  

His name was Nate and he had just shy of 3 million people subscribed to his YouTube channel SillyNate. The number literally made my eyes widen, that was a lot of people. A quick overlook of his uploaded videos made it clear that he mostly did comedy skits, challenges and question and answer videos. I refrained from clicking on any of them, I don’t exactly know why.

Instead I went on to the link to his Twitter to see if I could find more people that had posted my photos through him. His latest tweet made me stop in my tracks.

“Whoever took those photos of me in the Park? Could you please reply to the request in your e-mail? Thanks #PureSimplePhotos”

I was really surprised to see a tweet regarding me. I had not expected that. He even used the hashtag that my loyal site visitors used to talk to each other on Twitter. I had long considered actually making a profile on that social media but haven’t gotten around to it yet. I felt fine just digging through the comments and answering there.

I went on to my e-mail to see I had more mails than usual. Quite a few were just compliments in the photos while others were actually asking for permission to post the photos. I also had one from the website service provider which informed me that I had gotten more than a 1000 visits the last 12 hours alone.

I finally found a legitimate business mail from an agent. It read as follows:

Dear miss Pure & Simple

We wish to book you for a photo-shoot for Nate Chandler for next week. When would be convenient for you?

Best wishes

YouTube space headquarters

I sat back rather flapperghasted, unsure of what to do. My photography had always been just for fun and nothing else. I had never done a photo-shoot before and was convinced that I wouldn’t be able to do a good job with spotlights and a model wanting to be photographed. I usually took photos of nature or people who didn’t know I was taking photos, I made them so much more full of life and I doubted that you could create that artificially but I had to admit that I had never tried.

“Hi Emma,” I greeted my younger sister as she walked into my room half-dressed and carrying two dresses on hangers.

“Which one?” she asked.

“Blue,” I answered.

Emma walked over to my full-length mirror and pulled on the dress. She was fair-skinned with grey eyes and her hair bottle blond. We looked quite similar with only 18 months age difference. Only I still had my dark brown hair its natural colour and I had brown eyes, and she was quite prettier than me.

“Where are you going?”

“On a date with that model I met last week,” Emma answered while still studying herself in the mirror. She had a beautiful made up face, seriously my sister was a make-up wiz, and the dress gorgeously clung to her slim frame.

“Wait? Are you on Twitter?” she exclaimed and grabbed my Mac from my fingers and closed the e-mail tap to access the Twitter window opened behind it.

“You watch SillyNate? I didn’t think you ever watched YouTube.”

“I don’t,” I sighed and took back my Mac. “I just took a photo of that guy surrounded by fangirls in Regents Park and now so many people copied my photos.”

Emma threw her head back and laughed.

“It shouldn’t surprise you that some of your “visitors” are YouTube fans and that guy is one of the hottest in the UK right now, only outnumbered by Zoella, danisnotonfire and JacksGap,” my sister said, though I didn’t recognise any of the other names either.

“Huh?”

“Abby, sometimes I swear you need to look on the social media other than just your website and your one hashtag. May I see?”

Emma swooped the Mac from my grip once again to log onto my website.

“Whoa, these are amazing. I have never seen this good pictures of Nate before, he looks great in front of a camera but isn’t very photogenic in photos.”

“Someone else thought so too. I got a mail from some YouTube company that want to book me for a photo-shoot with him.”

Emma squeaked. “You have to do it! I’ll get to meet him and post it on my Instagram and Twitter, that guaranties a bump up in followers.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think I am going to. I have never shot a photo-shoot before and I never think those turn out so well, people always looks extremely posing.”

“Maybe you can do a better job and anyways we could use some extra cash at least until I turn eighteen in a couple of months and can start doing real modelling.”

We had just moved out to London after Christmas while our parents still lived back in Brighton. I had wanted to move to London for a while but wasn’t able to do it until we where offered an apartment rent-free from our rich uncle. That had been amazing but we still needed to pay for everything else. Our parents wanted us to move back home but Emma and our mother wasn’t getting along very well at the moment.

Emma was certain she could be the next big top model but our mother didn’t want that for her. In reality maybe she could be, she was tall, skinny and outstandingly beautiful but wasn’t allowed to do any modelling before she became a legal adult since our parents wouldn’t allow her to do it while she was still underage. Until then she was interning at a medium size model agency.

“Please just do the photo-shoot for me? I am begging you as a sister!”

If you knew my sister you would know that it is virtually impossible to say no to that face, that is for anyone other than out mother, which of course meant that I sent back an e-mail agreeing to the offer.

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The photo is of Abigail's sister Emma.