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| Image courtesy of www.informationsociety.co.uk |
TomSka is a 27-year old writer, producer, director, actor and filmmaker as it says on his Wikipedia who gained extreme notoriety from YouTube and even before the site was created back in 2005. I first discovered him - like many people did - when my friend Matthew showed me asdfmovie, a comedy animated series that has undoubtedly garnered the majority of Ridgewell's success but alongside that, he has created sketch comedy, action videos and he has also worked on webtoons such as his own Crash Zoom and his late friend Edd Gould's series Eddsworld.
It's safe to say that I highly enjoy what he puts out into the world, but over the years I have come to realise how much as an individual he has really inspired me and taught me a lot in such a short time, and for the most part I never really realised that he had. I thought I'd put this together now, as by the end of this month (providing I do release this in February), Ridgewell will have ended his weekly video blogging series 'Last Week', which he has been doing since the back end of March 2016.
With the current landscape of YouTube personalities being all squeaky clean and disingenuous, it bothers me how we have the odd Jake Paul and Zoella who will get away with doing the most shittiest and immoral things like falsely accusing someone of assault or scam their fans as long as they suck up to YouTube and the corporate greed. Whilst not everyone is perfect, it's nice to know some people try. TomSka is the person who taught me about imperfection, about how it's okay to not force a smile for everyone.
Around 2013, Tom was still grieving the loss of his friend Edd, going through some difficult times in his life and he made a string of videos showing how he wasn't okay, and I was taken aback by this because I was still growing to realise how life was meant to live. After only watching these people who were showing themselves at their best, I aspired to be like them and would often hate myself for showing weakness, that I should always be happy and I just couldn't do it.
Ridgewell has gone through anxiety and depression as well as quite the amount of hardships, along with this he has also made some major lapses of judgement, none of which I would care to bring up in the event he may see this, but I don't think he's afraid to admit any of this. In a world where everyone tries to cover up their mistakes, and bury them and pretend it never happened, it's incredibly refreshing to see someone own up to what they've done and look forward to improve themselves. I admire that greatly. Same with his faults, he never tries to hide them and as a result, it resonates with his accepting audience who see those faults and it adds to his character, if I can quote Kristin Scott Thomas' Clementine Churchill from the new Darkest Hour movie, you are strong because you are imperfect and you are wise because you have doubts.
Another great thing Ridgewell does in comparison to his peers is treat his audience with a bit more respect and perpetuated maturity. What I mean by that is, he doesn't try to treat his audience like a collective, he hasn't called his fans the Tom Ridgewellers, I mean he did call them a collective name back in the day and realised what was happening as a result.
On one of his sketch videos, a subscriber of his wrote a perfectly harmless but critical comment and a load of the 'Turbofans' - which is what TomSka had been calling his collective fans - attacked him, and kept at him until the guy deleted his channel. Ridgewell decided at that moment to stop giving his subscriber base a collective name and just refers to them as the individual, which would stop the fans who were pouring their whole identity into this collective group and slapping that individuality onto this channel and fanbase. Considering that the groups of fans like the Phandom, the Logang, whatever they call themselves, couldn't give a shit for their respective person as anything more than just someone they fancy or want to get in a photo with no regard for their feelings, I think what Tom did was right.
There are a lot of things to really consider when looking at the landscape of YouTube but mostly when it comes to Ridgewell, it's this. He has not just shown himself at his best, he has shown himself at his worst and when I was 14 or 15 years old, I didn't realise until now how much that Tom being honest about himself really shaped a lot of my own feelings and perspective back in a time that I could not have even thought of myself as anything other than perfect 100% of the time.
Any flaw I had, I'd feel shame and whilst it's okay to carry shame for your actions because it shows you grow and regret, you should never be ashamed about who you are and for me, TomSka is the reason that I know that it's okay to not be okay all the time. In a world with pretty boys and perfect girls leading the young, impressionable and weak onto a path of falsehoods and unfulfilled fake promise, we need more TomSka's in the world to show that it's okay to be you.
Tom, in the slight chance you're reading this, I'd like to say thank you for the growing up you helped me with and the lessons I learned because of you. I am looking to meet you one day so perhaps either by then, you have read this or you are reading this as a result of me asking if you can.
Oh whilst I'm here, there has been this idea I have been wanting you to do for a comedy sketch on your main channel. Based on the Garry's Mod game mode Prop Hunt, have yourself, PewDiePie, JackSepticEye and Markiplier all as soldiers in a private hit squad, looking to take down a menace running rampant, the enemy who have disguised themselves as inanimate objects.
Maybe have the props voiced by Eddie, Elliot, Sammy etc. but keep the reveal of their ability until one of them reveals themselves as a chair or something. The big payoff though is having someone be a bottle of milk and is running away, and this quote I have taken from one of PewDiePie's videos from like 2011 or 2012 that always stuck with me. Here it is. "DIE YOU FUCKING MILK". You can have that one on me, you can credit me, I just want to see you do this.
Anyway that'll be all, thank you again Tom for being you and helping me through some difficult and confusing times by showing me just that I'm okay not being okay and not being perfect.
As for everyone else here, thank you for reading. Hope to see you all soon, and if you want to be notified of all my new blog posts, either follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat or put your email address in the Follow By Email option. I hope to see you all soon.
So until we meet again.
Luca.
