An Open Letter To The Ghost Using My YouTube Account
I’ve got a few questions, such as: You’re a ghost, right?
Dear Sir or Madam,
It was three months ago that I first noticed your presence. One evening, I came upon a section on my homepage called “Rude Chicago Hotdog Vendors.” I was surprised that this was a category at all, let alone a recommended one.
I went into my Recent Searches, and it was clear right away what the algorithm was responding to: “rude hotdog man wicker park;” “the loop hotdog wiener guy super mean;” “humboldt rudest ever all beef franks fuck you.” As you know, these were not my searches.
I figured you were a living person using my account by accident, so I changed my password and wished you well. Then, the next week, I started getting recommendations for time-lapse videos of yogurt going bad. Again, my Recent Searches explained why: “streptococcus thermophilus gone wild” and “don’t eat that yogurt please just don’t oh god you’re eating the yogurt why would you do that it’s obviously gone bad.”
At this point, it seemed clear that you must be me in a fugue state. So, I did what any rational person would and hired a security specialist to change my password for me. She chose a random string of characters, wrote them on a card, and placed the card in a time-locked vault. The vault opened exactly one month later. I then logged back onto my account, hoping against hope to see no recent activity. Instead I found the following searches:
“alan greenspan asmr”
“quebecois car accidents”
“what is spanish?”
“tv commercials november 1996”
“firemen being fancy”
“sisterhood of traveling pants worst scenes”
“adam brody breakfast HD rare”
“flash mob fail compilation lol”
“5 day forecast november 1996”
“really loud bells”
Obviously, I had a lot of questions, such as: You’re a ghost, right? And: How have you never heard of Spanish? And: What is your interest in November 1996?
Perhaps the more obvious question was why I didn’t just start a new YouTube account. At this point, though, I no longer wanted to be free from you. I just wanted to understand.
That’s when I started trying to communicate. I searched, “Who are you? Why have you come?” Receiving no answer, I added, “Does this have something to do with the boy who fell down that well in November 1996? Danny, right? Danny, is that you? If so, listen, I’m really sorry about suggesting a game of one-on-one night-tag at that Well Museum and then not telling anyone about your fall. I just got scared because I already had two strikes for playing night-tag there, so I would have gotten in a lot of trouble. Are we cool?”
Your response was as enigmatic as ever: “farmers saying it’s time to put the old girl out to pasture.”
What does this mean? Am I the “old girl?” Are you going to kill me? No worries if so, but can you just let me know?
Or maybe you’re the “old girl” and you need me to lay your soul to rest so you can pass onto the next life? If this is the case, please tell me what I need to do. I asked Quora but all I got were joke responses, and now I’m getting bizarre recommendations on that site as well.
Anyway, you can find my phone number in our Recent Searches. I hope to hear from you soon and clear this all up — ideally, with as few jumpscares and spooky animal suicides as possible.
Sincerely,
Alex Connolly
P.S. I watched the “really loud bells” video and it was actually pretty good. Those bells were loud!
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