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.

If you guys loved my Draw My Life,

be sure to give it a thumbs up.

And I was inspired by Joe's Draw My Life.

If you haven't seen it, it was amazing.

So I was like, "Joe, how do I make that happen?"

and he hooked me up.

Joe, tell everyone about your job.

- I do stop motion.

I do animation.

I do music videos.

I do a whole bunch of different stuff.

- [Tyler] You do everything. - [Joe] Pretty much

- So, if you guys haven't see him yet, go subscribe.

All of his videos are amazing.

Every video outdoes the previous one.

He is the best.

So, I think that's all.

Do we have anything else?

- We have Eddie.

- Eddie can say goodbye.

- Eddie, what do you think?

No licking my face. (laughing)

- No licking of the face, buddy.

What do you think? - Say bye.

Later y'all.