I Hate Myselfie
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Thank you for downloading this Keywords Press/Atria eBook. Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Keywords Press/Atria and Simon & Schuster. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP or visit us online to sign up at eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com This book is dedicated to my hilarious and caring mother. Thank you for giving me so much unconditional love and fuck you for giving me your fat arms and wonky eye. CONTENTS About the Art I Hate Myselfie: An Introduction My Destinee My High School Musical Two First Kisses The Original Catfish Between Hollywood and an Abortion Clinic Denny’s and Death My Birthday Suit Internet Famous How to Survive a Horror Movie The Mean Girl Got Fat My Girl (SPACE) Friends My Strange Addictions YouTube Got Me Fired Astral Projection Just a Pretty Face My Leg Twin Shocktuber Prom Acknowledgments ABOUT THE ART I have a lot of really talented fans. So I thought it would be fun to ask some of them to create pictures inspired by the essays. I sent each of them an excerpt and asked him or her to draw whatever they felt like. As you’ll see, the results are sometimes amazing, sometimes hilarious, and always unflattering, considering I have a VERY hard face to draw. I HATE MYSELFIE: AN INTRODUCTION ABOUT THE ARTIST Isabella Piccione is currently a freshman in high school and has had a passion for art for as long as she can remember. She lives in Connecticut, and you can follow her on Twitter at @stylesftdawson. Hi. I’m Shane Dawson. Some of you might know me from my videos on the internet. Some of you might know me from the movie I directed entitled Not Cool. And some of you might know me as the guy you saw on the cover of this book who has an incredibly punchable face. I’m all of those things and more! I also have an incredibly punchable body, but none of you will ever get to see that. For the record, I don’t really hate myself, but I do hate the way I portray myself online. Hence, “myselfie.” See what I did there? Online I’m this loud, outrageous, confident guy who acts like nothing bothers him and he has the whole world at his fingertips. In reality, I’m a shy, quiet guy who would rather spend his nights lying in bed watching Netflix than being a valuable member of society. If I could spend my entire life underneath a heating blanket with a handful of my own balls I would happily do so. I’m not saying that I don’t like the stuff I put out into the world, because I genuinely enjoy my videos and think they are funny. What I’m saying is that I embrace the fact that I have a punchable face, and that if I could punch myself without feeling it I would. Sometimes I scroll through my Instagram page and audibly groan. What is the point of posting four pictures a day of yourself doing the same duck face in four different locations? If you go through my Instagram feed it’s like a flip book of me thinking I’m WAY more attractive than I am. It’s nauseating. But feel free to follow me at @SHANEDAWSON! You can also follow me on Twitter, where I post important tweets like: “I think I just pooped blood. Should I go to the doctor? Nvmd, just gonna google it,” and “Ugh. Is Emma Stone still a thing? Can that be over yet?” It gets really deep. I’m a social warrior, clearly. In this book, you’ll get to see the real me, not the “me” you see on YouTube. You will get to know what’s really in my head, and I’m warning you it’s not pretty. It’s a twisted land of self-hatred, sadness, and lots of repressed anger toward every person who’s ever hurt me. ENJOY! Don’t worry, I threw in some dick and fart jokes to make the stories a little easier to handle. Kind of like mixing in some peanut butter with your medicine, which by the way my mom used to do. You haven’t lived till you’ve had a Vicodin peanut butter marshmallow fluff sandwich. I can still taste the numbing of my emotions. Delicious. I urge you to sit back, enjoy, and know that in the end things have gotten better for me. And they will for you too, if that’s anything you’re worried about. Feel free to laugh at my misfortune and get that feeling of “Wow, my life is SO much better than THAT guy’s.” Obviously joking but semi-serious, Shane Dawson MY DESTINEE ABOUT THE ARTIST Anna Siefken has been drawing her entire life, but it wasn’t until an art class in the sixth grade that she decided to start taking it seriously. She currently resides in Norwalk, Connecticut, and, at just fifteen years old, spends her days drawing, designing shirts, and making YouTube videos. You can find some of her designs at pistachiothegreat.spreadshirt.com. Nothing gives me more anxiety than getting a haircut. Just the thought of going to a salon—I mean barber—and having a stranger touch my head while asking me personal questions about my life makes my nerves shoot through the roof. It’s the same feeling a wicker chair gets when a circa-2006 Kelly Clarkson takes a seat. TENSE. But sometimes you have to bite the bullet and let Kelly Clarkson sit on your face. The day after my high school graduation was one of those times. I had rocked the same shoulder-length frizzy do since I was twelve years old, and the style had run its course. There was only so much I could do with it. Actually there were only three things I could do with it: wash it, let it air-dry, and pray to God I didn’t get lice. My hair was lice’s dream habitat. The amount of poof and waves made it practically a tropical getaway for those little fuckers. I’m sure every time I walked by a homeless dude his lice would only WISH they were having an adventure in my twisted, knotted labyrinth of a hairdo. I might not have had girls double-taking when I walked by, but damn it, the lice wanted a motherfucking piece. So one hot Monday afternoon in June of 2006 I pulled into a shopping center parking lot and stared at the SUPERCUTS sign that was casting a shadow on my car. This was the day. I had prepared myself for this moment for weeks, and I was ready. I took a deep breath, took a bite of a protein cookie—which, let’s face it, was just a cookie—and stumbled through the door with fear in my eyes. The woman at the register looked up at me with a welcoming smile and asked what she could do for me. I asked for a haircut. She paused. Awkward silence. Then she said, “Women or men’s?” Yep. It was definitely time for a haircut. She walked me over to the station and I looked around, scoping out what the situation was. The situation was pretty clear: these people had NO fucking idea what they were doing and it smelled like El Pollo Loco had farted and locked the doors for two weeks. I was too lazy to find another salon—I mean barber—so I just sat in a stained purple swivel chair and awaited my fate. Receptionist: Destinee will be with you soon. She’s in the back talking to her ex-husband on the phone. Me: Definitely didn’t need all that information, but thank you. So I sat and flipped through a Spanish version of People magazine from fifteen years ago, thinking, “Wow, I don’t know who this Selena chick is but she is DEFINITELY going places!” As I skimmed through the magazine my Razr phone started vibrating and playing Ashlee Simpson’s “Pieces of Me.” It was my mom calling. Me: Hey, Mom. Mom: Did you do it yet?! Me: No. Still waiting. I think my stylist is in the middle of a custody battle right now. Mom: Oh! Fun! Are you excited?! Me: Not really. I’m scared she’s gonna make me look like a troll doll. Mom: Awwwww, but you’re MY little troll doll! Me: Not really the response I was looking for, but thanks, Mom. Mom: Well, call me when you’re done! And email me a picture on your pager! Me: That makes no sense. Mom: Love you! As I reached for another decade-old magazine my “stylist” walked up to greet me. I put “stylist” in quotes because her cosmetology certificate looked like it was printed on the back of a Denny’s placemat. My expectations for this haircut were about the same as when I walk into an Eddie Murphy movie. I know it’s going to be bad, but maybe it will give people a few laughs. I like to spread joy even if it’s at my expense. I looked her up and down, and my expectations went from an Eddie Murphy movie to any Adam Sandler film made after 2008. This situation was Grown Ups bad. It looked like she had cut her hair without scissors and had instead chosen to cover her head in peanut butter and raw meat and hang upside down from a tree branch in a dog park.