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  • - Hey everyone, my name is Tyler Oakley

  • and this is my life.

  • I was born March 22nd, 1989 in Jackson, Michigan

  • at Foote Hospital.

  • My parents were divorced when I was a toddler

  • so I've always had two families.

  • Between my sisters and my step-brothers and my step-sisters

  • and my half-brother and my in-laws,

  • I have 12 siblings total.

  • In elementary school I had to get glasses

  • so my parents let me pick out whatever pair I wanted.

  • So I got these big round glasses that were bright purple.

  • It was basically the start of my fabulosity.

  • Back then, I began to develop a bit of an

  • addictive personality:

  • No matter what it was that I was obsessed with,

  • I had to have everything involved with it.

  • When it was Pogs, I had my own Pog maker.

  • When it was Beanie Babies, I had tag protectors

  • and value handbooks.

  • When it was Pokemon, I competed at local video game stores

  • in tournaments.

  • I guess that's why nowadays I can't get off Tumblr.

  • When I was going into the sixth grade,

  • I moved to a new city and I knew nobody,

  • so I turned to choir and drama for a new group of friends.

  • I met Dolan and we instantly became best friends.

  • Leading up to this point in my life,

  • I had an addiction to food and I had always been

  • unhealthily overweight and very unhappy about it

  • and so I took matters into my own hands.

  • Unfortunately, I wasn't smart about it

  • and my addictive personality took a 180

  • until I developed an eating disorder.

  • I refused to eat and I became addicted to exercise.

  • I went from one unhealthy way of living to another.

  • And even after losing 30 pounds, I was still unhappy.

  • Luckily throughout my middle-school years

  • I developed a close relationship with the choir teacher,

  • Miss Borton, and she noticed the fluctuation

  • of my health and happiness.

  • She was always there to talk and was

  • always supportive of me.

  • By the time I reached high school, I was able

  • to overcome my eating disorder, even though

  • sometimes I still do have body image issues.

  • When I was 14, a freshman in high school,

  • I decided to tell everybody the truth about who I was.

  • Although some family was not supportive of

  • me being openly gay, I was lucky enough to have so many

  • friends and family that were, and I knew that nobody,

  • no matter how important society deemed my relationship

  • with them, had the right to denounce me for who I was.

  • So I cut the people who didn't support me out of my life

  • and I never regretted it for a second.

  • In high school, I got involved in drama club and choir

  • and I found my people.

  • Dolan and I met Eric and the three of us

  • became inseparable.

  • My senior year I joined yearbook and

  • became obsessed with it.

  • In yearbook I met Rachel and we couldn't believe

  • that we had never been friends before.

  • And soon she was added to the posse.

  • My high school career came to a close

  • and I spoke at my commencement ceremony about how

  • all the world's a stage, right before I went off

  • to find my own stage.

  • I went to Michigan State University where I studied

  • communications with focuses in marketing and social media.

  • Although I was doing my own thing at MSU,

  • I still really missed Rachel, Dolan, and Eric

  • from high school and I wanted to find a way to

  • keep in touch with them.

  • Somehow I stumbled upon YouTube and I saw people

  • talking into cameras.

  • I had just saved enough money to buy a laptop

  • so I figured, "why not give it a try?"

  • My first videos, which are now private, were 15 minutes long

  • talking directly to my three friends and showing them

  • all around my dorm room.

  • I even remember one video getting 100 views

  • and that freaked me out because I was like,

  • "I don't know if I even have 100 friends,

  • so who are these people watching?"

  • Around that time during my freshman year,

  • I met Korey, an RA in my building.

  • We bonded over MarioKart and soon became inseparable

  • through our mutual love of YouTube and blogging.

  • After my junior year, I decided I needed to get

  • out of Michigan and spend a summer interning.

  • I had two internships: One at a celebrity PR firm

  • and the other at the Trevor Project,

  • both of which were in LA.

  • Half my summer was spent working for an organization

  • that saved lives every day

  • and the other half was spent doing nothing of importance.

  • I soon realized that if I was going to be working

  • in social media, it had to be something that I cared about

  • and something that was fun.

  • Slowly but steadily my YouTube presence was picking up.

  • It hadn't really hit me until I reached one moment

  • where I found out that more of you guys

  • were watching my videos than could fit

  • into my university's football stadium.

  • That's when I knew something big was going on.

  • With my college career coming to a close,

  • I began applying for adult jobs,

  • but none of them were sticking.

  • With rejection after rejection, I started to think

  • that maybe my online life was keeping me from

  • getting a job.

  • I was so discouraged,

  • and so I decided to take advantage of the situation.

  • Me and my best friend Korey took a chance.

  • We flew to San Francisco, a place we had both never been to,

  • and we fell in love with the city in just one weekend.

  • And in that weekend we signed a lease.

  • We flew back home to Michigan, packed our bags,

  • and said goodbye to our families, and headed off

  • to the San Francisco Bay.

  • We lived in The Castro, which is a gay neighborhood

  • in San Francisco, and continued making videos together

  • and have done everything from a video of him buzzing my head

  • to the Chicken Nugget challenge.

  • I had my own group of friends, a community that embraced

  • who I was, a city full of life with something crazy

  • happening every weekend, but one thing was missing.

  • My career.

  • I had a couple of jobs here and there to help me

  • pay the rent, but nothing that inspired me

  • to wake up every morning loving life.

  • I decided that if I wasn't going to enjoy my job,

  • I was surely going to start loving my hobbies.

  • And with that I went full speed ahead with YouTube.

  • I started making more videos and dedicating

  • more of my time online.

  • Every week more and more of you guys tuned in

  • and about a year later, so many of you had found me

  • that I began to think that maybe my life online wasn't

  • keeping me from getting a job,

  • my job was keeping me from my life online.

  • After careful consideration, I decided that

  • if not now, when, and I put in my two-weeks notice

  • and became a full-time YouTuber with dreams much bigger

  • than YouTube itself.

  • Although San Francisco was amazing socially

  • and culturally, not much was going on there

  • when it came to taking my online life to the next level,

  • and with every opportunity that came up,

  • I was spending more and more time traveling

  • to make it happen.

  • I got to the point where I was spending so much time

  • living out of a suitcase that I didn't feel

  • like I had a home anymore.

  • And so, with my U-Haul packed to the brim,

  • I cried while driving alone down the

  • San Fransisco Bay bridge, leaving behind

  • my favorite city and so many of my favorite people.

  • All because I knew that if I wanted my dreams to come true

  • I had to take the leap and move where it all could happen.

  • Los Angeles.

  • Now, so much is happening and when I'm not

  • making videos, I'm working on so many projects

  • that I cannot wait for you guys to see.

  • What boggles my mind the most though is that

  • as of this week, I have a million people

  • who have chosen to push "subscribe" who care enough

  • to tune in to see all of my dreams come true.

  • I can't thank you guys enough.

  • My life is only just beginning and I'm so excited

  • to take you all along for the ride.

  • So that was my Draw My Life.