I’m not saying that all famous people understand this. Definitely some of the worst, like, most horrible people I’ve ever met are famous people. But most of those people are only kind of famous, or even pretty famous, because for them, like, they’re still a part of the normal people world—they’ve still got a normal people mentality—but they just feel like they’re at the top of that world, you know? They feel like they’re the KINGS and QUEENS of the normal people world. And those people are the fucking worst. But the truly famous people, the like, insanely famous people—the kinds of people who have their faces on buses in countries they’ve never heard of—most of those people are pretty chill. I’ve honestly never met a single one of those people who I didn’t immediately get along with. And I think it’s because we all have something in common. We all speak the same language. We all understand that in a hundred years, even if our records are still available to stream online, even if our merchandise is still lining the shelves, even if our autobiographies are still bestsellers, we’re all gonna be gone, you know? And when you’re gone, you’re GONE. It doesn’t matter what it says on your Wikipedia page, or if you even have a Wikipedia page in the first place. Life’s funny like that. LOL.

But let’s backtrack a bit. I want you to get the full picture. I want you to know where I’m coming from—I want you to feel like you have a firm foundation for understanding the person who’s writing these words—so let’s go to the beginning.

This is kind of weird for me to say, but it’s actually kind of hard for me to remember anything that happened in my life before I was famous. I guess it’s hard for most people to remember the stuff that was happening to them before they were twelve, but for me it’s especially hard because the video blowing up and all of that shit happening marks a very clear line in my life. The life that I’m living now is still in some ways the same life that was birthed the day I uploaded that thing, and so the life before that feels like … another time. A different movie.

I was born in St. James Hospital in St. James, Minnesota. My mom was a dental assistant. My dad was a sound engineer at the local radio station: KLRX. I say “was” with my mom because she’s not a dental assistant anymore—I gave her a BUNCH of money so she’s good—and I say “was” with my dad because he’s dead.