5-million-plus views for 'A Conversation With My 12 Year Old Self'

5-million-plus views for ‘A Conversation With My 12 Year Old Self’

By Deborah Netburn

July 9, 2012 12 AM PT

&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;You knew it was good, but who knew it was this good?&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Jeremiah McDonald’s video “A Conversation With My 12 Year Old Self: 20th Anniversary Edition” picked up an additional 4-million views over the weekend.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;The video, which as of Monday afternoon has been viewed more than 5 million times, features a 32-year-old McDonald having a conversation with his 12-year-old self.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;It is funny and well-edited, but what makes it so special is that the young man playing 12-year-old McDonald is actually 12-year-old McDonald.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;(You may wish you too had had the foresight at 12 to make a video tape of your preteen self talking to your imaginary older self, but then again, do you really want to be reminded of your preteen self? Probably not.)&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;So, how did 12-year-old McDonald get the idea to shoot the video?&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;”I was just playing with the camera as I normally did,” 32-year-old McDonald said in an email to the Los Angeles Times. “I was inspired by a video I’d attempted to make at age 10, where I attempted to have a conversation with an image of myself on TV.”&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;”Two years later, I realized I could use this footage to have a conversation with myself two years in the past, which inspired the idea of shooting video to be used in the future,” he said.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;McDonald has revisited this footage before, once when he was 13, and &amp;lt;a href=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rSs80_DKKs”&amp;gt;again&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt; when he was 26. That version, titled “Brush With the Past,” is available on YouTube, but it’s not nearly as well done as the 20th anniversary edition.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;”Not bad, editing &amp;lt;span&amp;gt;could be better. i think you should wait around 5 and a half years and give it another shot,” wrote a commenter named Waybeem on the older video on Sunday.&amp;nbsp;&amp;lt;/span&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;McDonald said he has been working on the 20th anniversary video bit by bit over a period of weeks, starting with the opening montage, and then figuring out exactly how he was going to use the old footage.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;”I was reshooting my 32-year-old footage until about last Sunday,” he said. “How it went viral is largely a mystery to me.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;I uploaded it, posted it on Facebook, then went to work. To my knowledge it started to catch on when it was tweeted by my friend somegreybloke, and went from there.”&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;strong&amp;gt;ALSO:&amp;lt;/strong&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;a href=”http://arstechnica.netblogpro.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-talking-to-12-year-old-self-video-20120706,0,6662407.story”&amp;gt;32-year-old man talks to his 12-year-old self, on YouTube&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;a href=”http://arstechnica.netblogpro.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-nexus-7-review-20120706,0,3168793.story”&amp;gt;Review: Google Nexus 7 hits the 7-inch tablet sweet-spot&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;a href=”http://arstechnica.netblogpro.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-enormous-video-game-ebay-20120709,0,6539757.story”&amp;gt;How much would you pay for every video game ever made? Try $1.2 million?&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Follow Deborah Netburn on &amp;lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/#!/DeborahNetburn”&amp;gt;Twitter&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt; or &amp;lt;a href=”https://plus.google.com/u/0/109675776633752908527/posts”&amp;gt;Google+&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;

5-million-plus views for ‘A Conversation With My 12 Year Old Self’

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