Play It Again is about two YouTubers who bridge a huge distance gap to fall in love. Dovid, a famous blind vlogger, lets people see life through his eyes–or lack of them. Sam, a Let’s Player, narrates the game he plays while also slipping in tidbits about himself. Both reach viewers by tapping into interests and humanity, and it’s primarily their personalities that make them successful.

I watch a fair amount of YouTube, and while I mostly watch videos on things that catch my interest, there are several YouTubers that I watch regularly. Or, if I don’t follow them as they update, I tend to check in on their videos pretty often. I wanted to share a few of them with you:

Eat Your Kimchi 

Whenever I think of vlogging, Simon and Martina from Eat Your Kimchi are the first people who pop into my head. They’re a couple who moved to Korea to teach English, and they decided to make vlogs about their experiences and lives. Eventually they transitioned to making videos full-time, and, more recently, left Korea and moved to Japan. I started watching them right around the time they’d just moved to Korea, so it’s been almost a decade that I’ve been following them. This means I’ve seen their channel grow and evolve as they changed up their content and figured out what they wanted to produce. They’re a fun, silly couple, and I enjoy watching their adventures. Martina also has EDS (Ehlers-Danlos syndrome), and they sometimes release videos about living with chronic illness.

Mikey Chen (and Strictly Dumpling)

I came across Mikey’s videos while deep into a YouTube wormhole of “if you liked this video, you might like this one too” clicking. It was about the first class experience and review of a particular airline, which I found interesting to watch. He had quite a few airline reviews, so I started with those, and that led into watching the videos about what he did once the airplanes actually landed at his destination. Mikey does a lot of traveling and showcases that in his main channel; while he does plenty at the places he travels to, he talks a lot about the journey, which I don’t see as often and really enjoy. His Strictly Dumpling channel focuses on food. He does food challenges, explores restaurants, does food tours and comparisons, as well as all-you-can-eat buffets. He’s easy and personable, and I enjoy living a little vicariously through his vlogs.

Volx

Or Lieutenant Volx, is a Let’s Player I’ve been watching for several years now. I found him while looking for let’s plays for the game Don’t Starve (the inspiration for the game Sam plays in Play It Again). Don’t Starve wasn’t very popular when I started my search, and I wasn’t a huge fan of the play styles or narration of a lot of the players I found. Volx was a good fit for me in terms of play style, and he’s a bit unusual in that he mostly streams on Twitch and then uploads the videos to YouTube after the fact. Twitch allows him to chat with his audience in real time and he’s very interactive, which I like. As a note, sometimes his humor doesn’t mesh too well with mine and once in a while he’ll make a joke I’m uncomfortable with, but even with that he’s still one of my go-to Let’s Players. I actually listen to him a lot for background noise–sometimes by accident. I’ll be watching a video and go to another tab, get started on something else, and he’ll just be playing in the background. I can be very easily distracted by noise, especially talking, but for some reason he works for me. And fun fact: Volx has some pretty regular viewers he’s been interacting with for years, and back when I started watching him, there was one in particular who came up more and more. Fast forward to present day, and they’re married!

Pixielocks

Jillian Vessey is a total delight. Her channel is primarily fashion-focused (specifically pastel-cute alternative fashion with heavy Japanese influences) and not something I normally am interested in, but she’s a sweetheart and once I saw stumbled across a video of hers, I just kept visiting her channel. She’s positive and cheerful and her videos reflect that, but once in a while she also releases videos on heavier topics such as mental illness. She does videos about being a YouTuber as well, and was one of the resources I used for the behind-the-scenes portions in Play It Again. Her videos are very candid, genuine, and entertaining, and she literally has a video about accidentally buying the wrong microwave, it’s thirteen minutes long, and I’ve watched it more than once.

Title: Play It Again
Author: Aidan Wayne
Series: standalone title
On-sale Date: eBook & audio April 22, 2019 / MMP April 30, 2019

The videos are fun.

But it’s the host who has him coming back for more…

When Seattle-based blind YouTuber Dovid Rosenstein finds Sam Doyle’s Let’s Play channel, playitagainsam, he’s instantly captivated by the Irish gamer. Everything about Sam is adorable, from his accent to his personality, and Dovid can’t get enough of his content.

Dovid’s glowing shout-out on Don’t Look Now, his own successful channel, sends Sam’s subscriber numbers skyrocketing overnight. He has more comments than he can read. And while the sudden surge in popularity is anxiety inducing, Sam decides it’s only right to dedicate his next episode to Dovid…which soon leads to a heart-pounding exchange of DMs.

They may have never met in person, but Dovid’s never felt this close to anyone before. What they have feels worth exploring—no matter the distance. But is it possible to already be in love with someone who’s half a world away?

Goodreads | Carina Press | Amazon | Audible | B&N
Release Date: April 22nd

Aidan Wayne lives with altogether too many houseplants on the seventh floor of an apartment building, and though the building has an elevator, Aidan refuses to acknowledge its existence. They’ve been in constant motion since before they were born (pity Aidan’s mom)—and being born didn’t change anything. When not moving Aidan is usually writing, so things tend to balance out. They mostly stick with contemporary romance (both adult and YA), but some soft sci-fi/fantasy has been known to sneak in as well, and they primarily write character-driven stories with happy endings. Because, dammit, queer people deserve happy endings too.

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Genre: Contemporary Orientation: Asexual (+ace-spec) Orientation: Bisexual Orientation: Gay Pairing: M/M Publisher: Carina Press Tag: Celebrity / Famous Person Tag: coming of age Tag: Guest Post Tag: Long Distance Aidan Wayne Play It Again