Each year, tech industry executives, talent scouters, digital content creators, and prepubescent fans embark on a pilgrimage to Anaheim, California to attend VidCon, a weekend long event that celebrates online videos and digital media, but mostly YouTube and Instagram. While major vloggers and Instagrammers attend the event as celebrity guests featured creators, children and their accompanying chaperones flock to the convention in hopes of kick-starting their digital influencer careers by way of networking, streaming videos on-location, and attending panels on how to combat the inevitable rise of deepfakes.
But it seems that one lucky VidCon attendee didn’t have to do much to break into stardom this weekend. Thanks to a video captured by The Atlantic’s Taylor Lorenz, Twitter user @PugLoca garnered all of the attention with his hilarious cosplay of an influencer apology video.
This kid came dressed as an influencer apology video at #Vidcon2019 @pugloca pic.twitter.com/X8e79czn5A
— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) July 12, 2019
Nevermind one of the Pauls announcing his wedding date this weekend—this kid showed up to VidCon wearing a massive cardboard cutout of an apology video. What he’s wearing is a screencap of a video littered with ads, millions of dislikes, and a length way too long for sincerity. While the camera’s pointed in his direction, the kid apologizes for making a TikTok at his grandmother’s funeral, filming a dead a body, and then takes time to remind his viewers that a subscribe and like grants you access to a gift card giveaway. It’s really that box of tissues seals the deal, though
A glance at his Twitter shows that he’s a major fan of jacksfilms, who was in attendance at VidCon and took the time to give him a co-sign over the platform this weekend.
This dude won Vidcon. Give him some love @PugLoca. He’s going viral with my costume and I’m the proudest dad ever https://t.co/weW7Dpa9wi
— jacksfilms (@jacksfilms) July 13, 2019
Oh, and that costume’s origin? jacksfilms originally made it for a 2018 Halloween video. But hey, digital content stealing is just the digital content game, baby.