Much of Australia is currently on fire. The worst of the fires seem to have engulfed Victoria. Entire towns have been reduced to ash, people have lost their homes, properties, livestock and in the most severe cases their loved ones. At the time of writing I believe there have been 65 people confirmed dead and that number is expected to rise. Some of the pictures are truly surreal. The Courier Mail has a gallery of photographs documenting the event. The one that is permanently etched into my mind is one in which the entire frame of the camera is filled with smoke, it seems more like the legacy of a volcano than a bushfire. In the middle of the frame there’s a tiny little black dot. It turns out that little black ‘dot’ is actually a 737 airline. It really gives you a sense of the scope of this ‘thing.’

Ironically elsewhere in the country, we are subject to floods.

My friend John in Minnesota had heard about the fires on BBC Radio and wanted to make sure I was okay before wryly adding, “Any quips about melting will be interpreted literally hence.”

I was fine. I am fine. All I had to contend with was a growing sense of guilt for having complained about how hot it had been.

Elsewhere other people hadn’t been so lucky. Not just people unknown to me either. YouTube personality ChrisOnTV88 (who I got to hang out with late last year in Sydney) became uncomfortably close to the fires. Last night he posted the following video.

Chris is the consumate comedian. I’ve never seen him this serious – or this worried. A little while after posting this he regained his sense of humour, tweeting Billy Joel lyrics. “We Didn’t Start The Fire” no less.

His whole twitter feed (@ChrisOnTV88) reads like a disturbing short-form novel.

I’m going to try and get the family in the car again
about 19 hours ago from web

ITS RAINING GOD YES
about 18 hours ago from web

still wont leave though
about 18 hours ago from web

Okay now there is lightning … more fire is being started
about 18 hours ago from web

Our house is like 100 meters away from the golf course and the fire destroyed it.
about 15 hours ago from web

Still worried about friends though. Haven’t heard from a lot of them.
about 15 hours ago from web

100 people estimated dead.
about 1 hour ago from web

Image Credit: Melbourne Bushfire Smoke #1 by Drew__
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There was a Sydney YouTube Gathering recently. As previously mentioned, I was unable to attend. I did however get up to Sydney a few days before the event to hang out with some of my friends who had travelled from near and far (mostly far) to attend the event.

I was really happy. Firstly because it meant I wasn’t going to miss out on the festivities altogether. But more than that because I was getting to hang out with my peeps rather than the whole of YouTube Australia. I had met most of these people before so we could totally bypass the initial awkwardness of the ‘getting to know you’ phase and revel in the, well, revelry.

I spent Thursday frequenting coffee shops mostly (Gloria Jeans, Starbucks) with Leuke, Mitto, Rohan, Rob and Chris. We swung by a comic book store. We waited for the posse to check into their hostel. We acted silly around Darling Harbour. We didn’t really do very much at all. We didn’t have to! We were just chilling, hanging out, and various other synonyms for the act of simply being in each other’s company.

After the boys checked into their hostel room, Leuke presented us all with gifts from that great island nation of Tasmania. (Okay, obviously it’s not an island nation – it’s just a state of Australia. But saying “state of Australia” just didn’t sound very impressive, now, did it?) There were little trinkets which contained special meaning to each of the recipients. And then he pulled out this gnome. Which gnome? This Gnome. It was Greg! Greg is the subject of a very funny YouTube video which I loved since the first time I had seen it. Many, many gnome jokes followed. And now he was mine! That is so cool.

In honour of Greg’s new home, I gave him his own channel and made him host of Sydney Live (my version of my trip with parody overtones of YouTube’s own recent live event.)

The next day Nick, Loz, Mitchell, Greg (the human; as opposed to the aforementioned Gnome) and Queenie joined us for Yum Cha in Chinatown. Craziness ensued. It was great fun.

After lunch Queenie told me that I was the ‘nicest Aussie’ she had ever met. What a nice thing to say! What really impressed me about this development was that it apparently put me ahead of her own boyfriend, Greg, in the niceness stakes. Yay!

After much walking we ended up at the Apple Store. It was kind of surreal to see so many people who were ‘together’ not really communicating with each other… because suddenly they had computers to look at! There were a few obligatory Apple Store videos recorded (including this one) but by this stage I knew my deadline to be on a train was quickly approaching. I said my goodbyes, posed for a photograph or two, and went on my way. But then something remarkable happened.

Only one person had really expressed disappointment to me before the event that they wouldn’t be able to see me. A young man by the name of Jordan. I told him that it was unfortunate but since he was the closest YouTuber to me, geographically speaking, I’m sure I would see him at another time. Anyway I stepped outside of the Apple store – and there he was, just waiting for a bus. Serendipity in action, surely?

It was so much fun. It was oddly life-affirming. It was amazing to see people in the (sometimes) harsh light of day and in three dimensions! I might not see these people everyday, indeed I am lucky to see them once or twice a year – but I talk to them most days. I talk to Leuke almost every single day. It feels strange if we don’t talk. These people are important to me, these people are an integral part of my life. Or – to borrow a Sarryism – they are VITAL TO MY YOUTUBE EXISTENCE! And yet not merely my YouTube Existence, rather, my existence full stop!

See Also
AusOne Sydney YouTube Gathering (Rohan’s Blog)
A Story Of Great Things (Leuke’s Blog)