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Joel smiled again, but this time his smile was different, still sympathetic, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“I’m sure you’re right,” he said.
“Setting up alliances already?” said a voice from behind Joel, and we both turned to see Conor standing there, arms folded. He was wearing swim shorts, and although he was smiling, I found it hard to keep my eyes on his face. Instead they kept straying to his torso, which was (a) impressively ripped, and (b) extensively tattooed, with what looked like two huge eagle wings spread across his abs.
Joel had evidently noticed the same thing, because he turned and said admiringly, “Nice ink, man.”
“Thanks,” Conor said. “You’re Joel, right?”
“That’s right. I know who you are of course.”
“Yeah?” Conor looked disarmed and a little flattered. “You a fan?”
“Um…” To my surprise, Joel looked a little awkward. “I mean… it’s more a professional interest I guess. I’m a lecturer in media. My girlfriend’s a YouTuber though—Romi Ellison?”
He offered the name up as if Conor might have heard of her, but Conor only nodded encouragingly without any sign of recognition.
“Always pleased to hear about female fans,” he said. “My audience has a rep for being very male, but I get a lot of correspondence from women.”
“The NFT stuff was news to me,” Joel said with a laugh. I had the slight, puzzling impression he was trying to change the subject, though I couldn’t say why.
Conor rolled his eyes.
“It was news to me too. I made one video about buying bitcoin, and they’ve obviously extrapolated out from there to make out I’m some kind of tech kingpin. I think they’ve decided I’m their key to drawing in the NFT bros. Either that or they’re trying to set me up as the douchebag. Every show needs a villain, right?”
The remark took me aback, but now he said it, I realized he was right. Every reality TV show did have a villain. Who was it going to be?
“I think you’ve got other qualities, mate,” Joel was saying, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.
“Other qualities…?” Conor said. Joel jerked a thumb towards his bare torso, and he laughed, a little sheepishly.
“In my defense, I was sunbathing. I’m not planning on walking around topless for the whole series.”
“I think the production team’ll be confiscating your shirts now you’ve shown them the goods,” Joel said dryly.
Conor laughed properly at that, throwing back his head, and I decided I liked him. He wasn’t what I’d expected somehow. I don’t know why, but I’m always a little suspicious of extremely good-looking people. If they know it, it usually comes over as preening. If they seem like they don’t know it, I don’t believe them. No one can go through life being a ten to most people’s five or six and be unaware of the fact. Conor seemed like the right combination of self-aware about his looks, but not dickish about it. And he seemed articulate too, which should maybe have been less of a surprise. I didn’t really follow YouTubers, but I knew enough to figure out that it was hard to build up a successful following without having something interesting to say, and a fair amount of personal charm alongside.
“Sorry,” I said now, standing up and smiling at Conor, “I feel I should know this, but I don’t watch a lot of YouTube. What’s your channel about?”
Conor shrugged.
“Politics… current affairs… general chat. I guess it’s kind of like a talk show, except mostly I’m the only guest. I just talk about what I think people will be concerned about. Anything that’s current. I have other people on sometimes.”
“And you do all right?”
Joel laughed at that.
“You could say that. He’s got ten million subscribers—”
“I’m sorry, what?” I broke in, too surprised for politeness. “Did you say ten million subscribers?”
Conor grinned a little sheepishly.
“I think it’s about 10.4 now, but yeah, something in that region. And another five or so on TikTok.”
“What the fuck are you doing on this show, then?” I blurted out, and Joel laughed. Conor smiled.
“I guess… one, the production company came to me, and I was flattered. And Zana was keen. Two, if I’m being completely honest—” He stopped, and for a moment there was something surprisingly vulnerable in his expression. “I want what everyone wants: credibility. YouTube’s great, but there’s still a snobbishness there from mainstream media.”
