It All Started With a Camera in the Back of a Van. . .
Which Sounds Way Weirder Than It Really Was
In September of 2009, we were all super awkward. Not that we're not awkward anymore, but like. We were more so.
Anthony and Taylor had been friends for a few years, but Spencer was sorta the new kid. He'd been at the same school as us for like a year, but he was so anti-social and everyone knew so little about him that he might as well have been brand new.
Anyway.
Because the new American Heritage of South Jordan building was still under construction, we were all sent on a field
trip that was basically designed to waste like six hours of our day. I don't exactly recall what the place was called, but I know it had a lot to do with old automobiles, trains, and there was a lobby that seemed unnecessarily grand. We took a lot of pictures for some reason. Mostly of ourselves making dumb faces.
We became pretty alright friends during the field trip, but what followed was really what forged the bonds...
It should be here noted that Anthony's mom was crazy. She was our "shuttle" driver that day, and she had no qualms with us cranking up the jams.
So on the way home, Anthony whipped out his adorable 480p pocket-sized digicam and began recording.
As the video starts, you can clearly see that Spencer and I were not having it. Too awkward and
camera shy to even know how to react, we chose to ignore the camera completely, and opted instead to break the fourth wall by discussing how awkward it was to be on camera.
Thankfully, Quin was not so camera shy, and he took the spotlight long enough for Spencer and I to start dancing. Jeff and Connor mildly participated.
This sparked a chain of videos throughout the whole ride home, mostly stuff that would be considered TikToks today: What is Love? and Bye-Bye-Bye singalongs, and simple reenactments of video segments by the only famous YouTuber at the time, Ryan Higa.
We're not exactly sure what it was, but the videos we made that day came to define our relationships with each other. We started carrying digicams in our pockets everywhere we went! Soon, Anthony discovered iMovie on his computer, and things got real.
(yup, there's more!)