Interactive Introverts - An Experience ❤

Hello there Internet,

I hope you are doing well today 🌏

I’m not going to start this one with my usual bullshit about how I’m sorry I’ve posted this way later than planned, or that I’m asking you to excuse me for posting my second YouTuber oriented post in a row.

Instead, I’m just going to get straight to the point.

If you happened to read my last post (linked here if you’re interested), then you know that at the end I thought the next post (i.e. this one) was going to be a standard review of the happy, fun time I had at Dan and Phil’s world tour Interactive Introverts.

Turns out, that is only half true. I did go to the show last Sunday night, but the ‘happy, fun time’ part didn’t exactly eventuate....

That in itself is a loaded statement, especially if you are someone reading this who went to the show and did have a ‘happy, fun time’. Don’t worry, I am going to try and explain myself. But as usual, my brain won’t let me have a normal or coherent thought, so this could be difficult. Please bear with me....

“So, uh, what are we doing here Dan?”

“Giving the people what they want, Phil!”

Two sentences that defined what has been a colossal 2018 for the world of Dan and Phil. A second stage show, a second world tour, but perhaps more importantly -a second chance for an Internet audience to congregate in a public place to see the 2 British guys they’ve been watching on a screen, in real life.

(If you’re still confused about who Dan and Phil are, read my previous post!)

Plus, as the name suggested, the show was going to be interactive. Each audience was going to have direct involvement in the content of the show. Not the ‘shine a spotlight in your face and put you on the spot’ kind of thing. The ‘complete a survey beforehand and then Dan and Phil pick the best answers in each segment on the night’ kind of thing. It was Dan and Phil’s way of giving the people what they wanted. The audience got to choose what the guys discussed and did for all the different segments. It sounded like a brilliant idea, a subscriber’s dream.

Because it’s not everyday that 2 of your favourite Internet people drop in on your city. Moments like that are rare. So  naturally, I was pretty bloody nervous. Going to a show by myself in amongst thousands of strangers and a level of noise akin to a rocket taking off. As a socially anxious human, that was quite intimidating to me.

So I should probably mention the anxiety attack I had an hour before showtime. I had the shakes, a very queasy stomach, emotional fragility, and even a few tears. While everyone else was jamming to the preshow playlist, I did not want to sit in my seat. I wanted to run out the Convention Centre doors, down the Yarra River and all way back home.

But I did not run. I sat my anxious butt down in my seat and watched the damn show.

Long story short, it was very enjoyable. Some highlights included numerous references to koalas, chlamydia and peeing on each other; Dan complaining about Melbourne’s drizzly winter weather; Phil’s apparent lack of self-control in the Tim Tams department; cheering for World War 3 and Satan (don’t ask); and a collective ‘yee’ that this severely out of touch 20-year-old did not understand.

As an audience, we were collectively called Sheila. Our cheers made Phil sacrifice his soul to Satan and Dan die in the female bathroom of an underground furry rave. Yes, the simulation was WEIRD. One of the guys got ‘sacrificed’ on a giant wheel. It was Phil, and Dan enjoyed firing projectiles at him WAY too much. Phil revealed he was afraid to get rid of his iconic emo fringe. Dan revealed that he has been trying to create more authentic content since the official death of ‘danisnotonfire’ (gone, but NEVER forgotten).

There was also a friendship test that involved the questionable use of electrocution, and Phil dropped his much-anticipated diss track. Although I don’t think he has any rap career prospects if YouTube tanks, it was still legendary. They closed the show with the Interactive Introverts song; an adorably wholesome duet that involved some quality piano melodies from Dan and a cheeky little harmony on the last phrase.

There was no denying the love, adulation and admiration that people had in the Plenary that night. The connection that Dan and Phil have with their fans, and their fans have with each other – it’s passion and community at its craziest. For the past few months, the Interactive Introverts hashtag on social media has been filled with stories of fans who met their Internet friends in real life, cried, laughed and cheered so much they lost their voices. Many people would describe Interactive Introverts as the “best night of their life”.

But this was not my experience. I could join the gushing crowds and tell a similar story, but I would be lying to you and to myself.

Please don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I laughed, I gasped, I cheered. It was a good night.

So why did I walk away thoroughly underwhelmed?

Reading all that gushing, crying, amazing, ‘best night of my life’ stuff – it built something in my brain. Suddenly, without even really realising it, I had this expectation for the show. Just because thousands of other people had that reaction, I thought I was supposed to cry and gush as well. So you can understand the confusion and guilt that has permeated in me when I didn’t.

Looking up to the cloudy Melbourne sky as I walked towards the venue....

That’s why I think I’m so emotionally confused by it all. Because it didn’t live up to that ideal expectation I’d cultivated in my subconscious. No wonder I didn’t really feel anything. I wasn’t measuring it against my own expectations.

I was comparing it to the quintessential ‘fangirl’ reaction... and I am certainly not the quintessential ‘fangirl’.

I didn’t get a great return on my emotional investment. To be honest, I’m not even sure what my emotional investment actually was. These guys have been in my subscription box and social media sphere for over a year now, and that period of time has also included some really difficult emotional stuff for me. Obviously they mean something to me, you don’t put that much time into something and not develop some kind of emotional connection. But I didn’t come out feeling any closer to them, or like I’d unlocked some fountain of fandom knowledge by seeing them in person.

They still feel as far away as ever. It’s like I was watching some fancy VR livestream the whole time and I wasn’t even in the room at all! The craziest fever dream of all time, an out of body experience where everything was slightly out of focus. For a show that was described as optimal audience connection, I felt strangely disconnected from the rest of the audience and what was happening on stage.

In the end, I’m hoping that the messed up conglomerate of feelings running round my head is OK. Because it makes me feel guilty that I had the opportunity to be involved in that experience, that chapter of Dan and Phil’s story, and I’ve come out the other end largely unmoved. Just emotionally confused.

I’m grateful I got to see Interactive Introverts in person. But it’s been 72 hours, and I’m still not 100% sure how I feel about it because after everything, it wasn’t what I expected it to be.

I only hope it will be become a beautiful memory....

★☆★☆★☆★

There you go. I hope you got something out of that, despite its largely melancholy tone.

I could’ve chickened out and not written anything at all about the night of Sunday the 19^th August. Usually when I go to watch something and come out with this reaction, I save myself the brain ache and controversial opinion by staying silent. But not this time. Instead, I decided to be honest and offer a different perspective nobody on Earth probably shares.

Writing this was very cathartic, and publishing this was very scary. If you’re still reading, thank-you for sticking with me.

If you would like to know when I post new things on my blog, remember to follow me @miss_memphis98 on Instagram and/or Twitter.

Thanks for reading,

Love and red and white graphic design, Emily xx ☀