Love,Dad

Travis fidgeted with his tripod, tilting the camera this way and that way until the little air bubble on the small level was right in the middle of the two little black lines.

Flipping the little screen out to the side, so that it faced him, Travis positioned himself in the middle of the shot.

Backing up into the vomit green chair, he shoved his hand into the pocket of the custom jean jacket Samantha, his girlfriend, had made him. Pulling out his sunglasses, he unfolded them and slid them onto his face; his Casey Neistat mode had been activated.

“Hey kiddo, if you’re watching this, I’m dead. Or you know, sitting beside you, watching with you.” He said with a laugh as he imagined his nonexistent child’s horrified face.

For months, Travis had been attempting to journal. He started off the old fashion way, with pen and paper but the blank pages of his notebook felt like coming face to face with darkness as a little kid. So, Travis tried to type out his feelings, and still that blank page was far too overwhelming.

“What if you had a vlog?” Samantha, Travis’s girlfriend, suggested, one day as they sat at the kitchen table.

The second the words left her mouth, Travis felt like an idiot for not having thought of that. Travis loved vlogs; after top surgery, when all he could do was lie in bed all day, vlogs were the only thing Travis watched.

Travis had always been jealous of vloggers, especially the ones who were his age; here they were, documenting their lives, and later on, when they had kids, those kids would be able to see what their parents were like before they became parents.

“Would it be weird if I made vlogs for an imaginary child?” He asked Samantha one night while they were in bed.

“No, that would be so fucking cute! You could call it, Love Dad!” She said excitedly.

Though they were still children themselves, Samantha and Travis knew that one day they’d become parents.

And so, the project was born.

Travis was intentional about it all, from the camera he used, to the things he decided to film, Travis was purposeful in everything he did when it came to the series.

What started off as a silly little joke, blossomed into an examination of the process of going from being a child to becoming a full-blown adult.

Travis talked about his process of transitioning, his choice not to go to college, and documented the entire process of going from living under his parents’ roof, to him and Samantha getting a place of their own.

Each vlog ended with the sign-off of Love, Dad, followed by a meaningful track that you’d find at the end of a sweet indie movie.

And then, REAL adulthood came. Travis had started his YouTube channel in high school, well before transitioning, but he hadn’t considered making YouTube videos as a career until he began following the vlogs of The Man-Made Men; a group of trans filmmakers who were documenting their journey of making their first feature film.

After watching their first vlog, Travis fell in love, and began following them on EVERYTHING; from Tik Tok and Instagram to Tumblr and Pinterest. Travis was obsessed, and after a year of watching their videos, Travis decided he wanted to try his hand at vlogging.

“Is this silly of me?” Travis asked after setting up the tripod.

“What starting a YouTube channel?” Samantha said, looking up from the comic book she was reading.

Travis nodded as he tucked his bottom lip between his teeth and awaited her answer.

“No! You’re putting yourself out there and trying new things. At worst you’ll learn some new stuff about yourself, and at best you’ll become the next Spielberg. Or you’ll have a bunch of content you can look back on and laugh at.” She said.

And so, Travis hit the ground running; he made a rule for himself, he would post one video per week, no matter what, and began.

Travis tried a couple of different versions of his channel. First, he made short films, then, after realizing his acting was trash, he moved onto gameplays, then movie reviews, then book reviews, tv shows , and then for a while, just reviews in general.

While Travis enjoyed every phase of his channel during the phase, nothing ever really stuck.

In the beginning, Travis was a little insecure about all the topic hopping he was doing, but comments like; ‘I love this guy’s energy’ and ‘I don’t even like cars, but I’d watch this guy talk about anything!’ began to roll in and Travis felt his confidence in his channel begin to grow.

Then, about a year into making videos, Travis was finally ready to get top surgery. If he was being one hundred percent honest with himself, Travis’s desire to make YouTube videos stemmed from him wanting to give other trans folks, like himself, a role model; someone they could look at and say; “Now that’s trans joy!” So, as the day for top surgery approached, Travis sat down and recorded the most vulnerable piece of content he’d ever created.

Travis bared his soul in his top surgery/ direction shift video and the video ended up being an hour long, pre-edit. To Travis, it felt as though his whole life had been leading up to the creation of that video. He spent weeks and weeks on it, and even after it was completed, it sat on his computer, waiting to hit the internet.

“Are you ever going to post that video?” Samantha asked as the credits on ‘Clown High’, Travis’s favorite indie film, rolled.

Travis felt a sea of butterflies’ swarm in his stomach. For weeks he’d open his YouTube dashboard and place his mouse over the ‘publish’ button and hover his finger over the trackpad, but he never had the guts to hit publish.

“Honey! Just hit the damn button! You’ve told such a beautiful story about your experience as a trans man, and people need to see this movie! It could literally save lives!” Said Samantha, as she knocked her shoulder against his.

Running up to his office, Samantha grabbed Travis’s laptop, and forced him to hit publish.

For Travis it was nerve racking, but his vulnerability was just what his audience needed.

From there, Travis began making more vulnerable videos, and soon he was full on vlogging.

From sharing his transition to vlogging, and journaling, it all felt like it had been leading up to the moment Samantha told him she was pregnant.

For months, they had been trying and trying with no luck, and Travis had been documenting it all on a privet YouTube channel that was reserved for only close friends and family. Then, once she finally got pregnant, a whole new area began for Travis.

As Travis stared into the camera, he felt overwhelmed with joy; every moment in his personal and professional life had led him to this moment.

Wrapping up his thoughts, Travis stared into the camera and imagined that he was sitting in front of an adult version of his child.

“I can’t wait to meet you kiddo.” He said, with a smile.

After cutting the camera off, Travis removed his shades and wiped a few tears from his cheek; this was the start of something magical, he could feel it.

If you’ve made it all the way down here, I wanna take the time to thank you for reading this story! If you liked it, make sure you hit that star; and if you REALLY like it, consider buying a cup a coffee! A single cup is only 4$, and it goes a long way in helping out the site. You can also share this video with a friend that you think would enjoy this as well! Until next time,

Thank you-C

Buy Me A Coffee Please