It's an hour before showtime, and Kurt Schneider can't remember his own song. It's blaring from the speakers mounted nearby—"Shadow," a ballad he wrote and produced with his friend Sam Tsui a few years ago—but he hasn't played the song in a while, and can't remember the piano part. (When you've arranged, recorded, produced, written, directed, edited, and mixed more than 300 songs and videos, you tend to forget a few things.)
离开场时间只剩一小时了,科特·施耐德还记不起来自己写过的歌。周围的扩音器嗡嗡地播放着一首他几年前与好友萨姆·徐一起创作的情歌——《Shadow》,但他已经有一段时间没有弹过这首歌了,也记不起来钢琴的部分。(当你已经安排、录制、创作、写词、导演、编辑、混录了超过300首音乐或视频,你总会忘记那么一些东西的。)
Schneider hunches over his Yamaha keyboard, boxers sticking out the back of his jeans; after a minute of banging around, the muscle memory kicks in, and the part comes back. Then, just as suddenly, it's time to go. He slips on his shoes, runs his hands through his messy hair, and jumps in his car to head to tonight's shoot.
施耐德俯身在他的雅马哈键盘上,(甚至没有注意到)牛仔裤后面突出来的平角裤。几分钟的试曲后,肌肉记忆开始起效了,(忘记的)部分终于想起来了。接下来,突然间就到了需要出发的时间。他套上鞋子,用手抓一抓乱蓬蓬的头发,驱车前往今晚的录制地点。
Over the next several hours, Schneider will direct, produce, and perform in a music video for a cover of the song "Roses" by the Chainsmokers. Schneider arranged, mixed, and recorded the audio on this one—but he's not the star of this video. That would be Tsui, his closest collaborator, who recorded the vocals yesterday in Schneider's home studio.
接下来的几个小时里,施耐德将会导演、创作并在一首烟鬼的歌曲《Roses》的翻唱音乐视频里出演。施耐德安排、混录、录制了这首歌的音频,但他却不是MV里的明星,而是昨天在他家里的工作室录制了声部的徐,他最亲近的合作人。
Schneider's rarely the star of his videos, but he's without question the star of his channel. And like many of the platform's stars, YouTube has made him famous. Like, 7 million subscribers and more than a billion views famous.
施耐德很少是他自己视频的主角,但毫无疑问他是自己YouTube频道的明星。与其他平台的明星一样,YouTube让他变得非常出名,七百万订阅者以及超过10亿播放数的那种出名。
One of Schneider's biggest fans is actually in town: Kayla, the 16-year-old whose only wish for Christmas vacation was to fly to LA to meet Schneider and Tsui. They both know who she is, because she's one of the super-duperfans who comments on and shares absolutely everything they do.
施耐德众多铁杆粉丝中的一个其实就在镇上:凯拉,一个16岁的女孩,而她圣诞的唯一愿望就是飞到洛杉矶去见施耐德和徐。他们两个都认识她,因为她是那些评论并分享他们所有视频的超级粉丝之一。
Her mom reached out to Schneider months earlier, and Schneider and Tsui decided to surprise her. So they told Kayla no, sorry, too busy, but offered to have a friend give her a tour of "a studio they shoot in sometimes" that's owned by Alex Goot, another well-known YouTuber. As she enters an abandoned-looking building in an industrial neighborhood of downtown LA, Kayla has no idea what's waiting for her upstairs.
她的母亲几个月前联系了施耐德,而施耐德和徐决定要给她一个惊喜。所以他们告诉了凯拉说“不行,对不起,太忙了”,只能安排朋友带她参观另一位出名YouTube歌手艾利克斯·古特的一个“他们时不时用来录制的工作室”。当她来到这个洛杉矶市区工业区附近的看似荒废的建筑时,凯拉完全不知道在楼上等待她的是什么。

图源:Julian Berman为WIRED网站提供