Anything for Subscribers

The idea had come to Liam almost by accident, he'd been sitting around trying to figure out what to do with his YouTube channel, "Liam's Zone" that he started in the absence of any real work during the pandemic. Unemployement insurance was nice, but he'd always wanted to be a YouTuber since he was a kid and seeing all the success of others in the past year made him think that he could make it happen for himself and make money doing it. Unfortunately, no matter what he did, he barely saw a pittance.

Gaming? Nobody watched his videos and no one showed up to his streams! Pranks were on their way out, and even then, the pandemic had made public things extremely difficult. And he just didn't have the patience and skill to be a video essayist, since those videos took ages to finish and never got decent views anyway. It was the same with cooking, ASMR and vlogging, nothing seemed to work! Sure, his videos were a little boring, since it was usually just him in front of a blank wall with a stationary camera, owed to the fact that he didn't have many friends and those he did have didn't really "get" the whole YouTuber thing.

He was going through the trending page when he spotted a video of one of the most popular male YouTube stars getting his legs waxed at a salon, as suggested by the YouTuber's girlfriend as a dare. Liam didn't think it was that interesting, it mainly being the guy screaming through the pain, but the video had millions of views! But it certainly made Liam think. That type of video wasn't too hard to do, find some painful procedure and scream on camera, and he could probably find a salon nearby that would let him record inside. Copying others exactly wasn't usually the road to success, but if he could just ride this into getting his subscriber count into at least triple digits, he'd have something.

So he called up a local salon and scheduled his appointment, asking if he would be allowed to record the process on-camera. The woman on the phone seemed confused by the request, but after checking with the other employees, told Liam that it would be fine. When the day finally came, Liam made his way to the salon and walked inside, after recording an intro bit outside the door.

"What's up, guys? It's Liam, here with another awesome video! Today, I'm gonna be getting my back waxed! I wonder how much it's gonna hurt!" Liam clicked the stop button on his camcorder and walked into the salon.

He walked up to the reception desk and signed in, being called to the back room. Liam entered the back room to find a young Japanese-American woman, roughly around his own age, prepping the wax in a bowl.

"You're the wannabe YouTuber?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah. How did you know?" Liam replied.

"Not many people ask to record their waxes. Plus I saw you filming your little intro through the window." she smirked, playfully. "I'm Rachel Kisaki."

"Liam McIntosh." Liam blushed.

"Don't be embarrassed, I totally get it. I'm a YouTuber too. I do mostly beauty and fashion stuff, but you've gotta find what works. Lifestyle is pretty in right now, so I bet this will do good."

"I hope so." Liam said.

"Set up the camera, and let's get this show on the road!" Rachel exclaimed.

Liam nodded and set up his tripod, pointing it towards Rachel as she stirred the wax in the bowl.

"I'm Rachel, I'll be, uh... assisting you today. What parts will we be waxing?" she asked.

"My back, please." Liam replied.

"All right, just take a seat and we'll get right to work." Rachel said.

Liam obliged and laid down on the bed, allowing Rachel to slather his back in the wax goop, as Liam spoke to the camera.

“All right guys, let’s see what the big deal is ab-AHHHHH!” Liam shouted.

With Rachel’s help in figuring out dynamic camera angles and her personality being uniquely suited to the comedic timing necessary to make each of Liam’s screams happen at the funniest moments, Liam felt very confident as he edited together the video, making sure to put a special thanks link to Rachel’s channel in the endslate, even though he hadn’t actually checked out her channel yet himself, being too busy editing. They’d exchanged contact information and Rachel told him to reach out anytime if he needed someone to work a camera or brainstorm ideas with, something Liam definitely intended to take her up on. Having spent half the night editing, Liam scheduled the video to upload in the morning at the best time, midmorning but before lunch, and promptly passed out in his bed.

When he awoke, he discovered that the video had performed...