- Hi, my name is Maaz and I am a YouTuber.
So make sure to like, comment, subscribe,
and offer your first-born child--
- Oh my gosh.
Are you, is that, are you Maaz from TheAMaazing?
- Uh yeah. Wait, how did you find me?
- Wow, you're a YouTuber!
I watch your videos all the time
and it always manages to cheer me up.
My favorite is the one where you
talk about your brother's scar.
That really helped me track him down.
Oh, and I love your parents, they're so nice.
And we've got so much in common.
We're both Pisces moon, and blood type B+,
and DNA sequence GTACD...
- Hi, my name is Maaz and I'm not used to
being publicly recognized as a YouTuber.
When I first started off making videos
I did it with the purest intentions of doing it as a hobby.
I mean, success and being paid for the videos
is cool and all, but the creative fulfillment
you get from making a great video, oh man, that's just.
Yeah, I haven't made one yet
so I'll let you know how that goes.
For me, because of the contrast between
the methodical environment of the hospital
versus the casual laid-back style of YouTube,
the feeling of being recognized as a public figure,
or the idea that people look up to me for my videos,
it's still, to this day, insane to me.
And I'm grateful for each and every one of you.
(Maaz grunts) (guy yells)
Well, almost every one of you.
But even though it might seem bizarre to me,
I can't deny the fact that I do get recognized sometimes.
I've had to deal with this the most at conventions
or events like VidCon.
And that's completely understandable to me.
It's a setting where people rock up
expecting to meet YouTubers, you know.
So of course, it's not that much of a surprise.
Oh, whoa guys, please, no need to push.
If you wanna meet me, just form a single line, all right.
The first time I ever got recognized
was at VidCon Australia, 2018,
back when I had about 60,000 subscribers.
James had flown down to Australia to attend with me
because we're best friends and he's filthy bloody rich.
So it was bound to be a great time.
Now, when we arrived at the actual convention center
he was immediately swarmed because, well,
you know, he's cute.
But then this one girl came up to me
and asked if I'm Maaz from TheAMaazing.
Now I wasn't sure what was happening,
so I kind of just gave an awkward, yeah, I am.
She then looks up at me with this expression of wonder,
in absolute awe of meeting a YouTuber.
And then starts balling.
Wow, am I that ugly?
So that made her start crying and laughing,
which is probably a little bit better than before, right?
The thing is, I was touched
by how emotional she got by seeing me
because it was clear that she genuinely liked my content.
And I wasn't expecting that
sort of reaction at all back then.
But admittedly, I was also very flustered
because I had no idea how to navigate
through this kind of situation.
So, because I had that kind of YouTube grinding mindset
at the time, I may or may not have raised up
my vlogging camera and recorded her crying when meeting me.
Which I now realize seems like I'm picking on her.
Like, oh my gosh, look at this loser.
What a crybaby, a little bit. (laughing)
But hey, at least she was crying from actual joy
of meeting a YouTuber that she cared about.
And because I was in an environment to expect that
it was overall a pretty positive experience
for both of us, at least I think so.
But there was also a time that I got recognized
outside of these conventions, when I was least expecting it
because I was working at a hospital.
So a year after the crying incident, I was rostered to work
with the pediatric ward, which meant that I was gonna be
taking care of a bunch of minors.
On this specific day, I was taking a history from a mom
because her daughter had come in
with a pretty rough case of asthma.
It's pretty stock standard though,
so I wrap up the questions and thank both of them.
And as I go to leave, walking away from the girl,
the mother chimes up and says...
- Wait a minute, you sound like one of the YouTubers
my daughter watches.
I think his name is, The Amazing?
- No, no, this can't be happening.
My two lives that I tried so hard to hide
were crashing, colliding with each other.
It ain't right, Cynthia.
Cyn-thi-a.
But this is where I decided to use an ancient,
tried and tested, unfailable technique called bluffing.
Ma'am, do you really think that I, a mere junior doctor,
would also have a secret double life as a YouTuber?
Hm?
A modern day brown Hannah Montana, perhaps?
- Hm, I guess not.
- Ha, I thought as much.
Hi, my name is Maaz and I'm officially a doctor now.
Frick!
But see, this kind of recognition
is when it's all face to face.
And that's pretty manageable to me,
because even if I'm caught off guard,
like I was at the hospital,
I can rely on my tried and trusted social skills
to carry me through it.
But it all gets into weird territory
when people start to use the internet to invade my privacy.
And that's really scary to me because I've got this
one story about how this weirdo almost knocked on my door
to figure out where I lived.
And that's why I'm really glad to have
Private Internet Access, a leading VPN provider,
sponsor my video about well, privacy.
Wow thanks, that actually worked out.
What's a VPN, you ask?
Well it stands for virtual private network,
which is a fancy way of saying that you create
a secure connection to another network
over the internet, privately.
It does this by hiding your IP address by replacing it,
effectively concealing your location and digital footprint.
Which honestly, I wish I used a bit sooner.
Also look, as an Australian,
the amount of content that we get on our streaming platform
is nothing compared to the US.
So with a VPN like Private Internet Access
you can switch it up to another country.
And then bam, you can watch content
from streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime,
Crunchyroll, from whichever country you just set up.
Basically unblocking geo restricted content.
Private Internet Access is available for all platforms,
from Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and many others.
Which is great because you can use one subscription
to protect up to 10 devices at the same time.
With the strict no logs policy
and a 30 day money back guarantee,
it's a pretty solid VPN service to grab.
And if you use my link, you can get complete digital privacy
for about $2 a month, with two extra months for free.
Thanks again to Private Internet Access,
who's helping support my channel and fend off
some of the weird messages that I get.
With that being said,
the real creepy thing was when people
would reach out to me specifically
with information about the places where I used to live.
This is probably because of my older videos,
behind the scenes, and TikTok, where I recorded them
all in my old houses, dorms, and apartments.
And yeah, that really used to freak me out.
So when I would get somebody saying that, hey,
you used to live at 420 Bingus Lane, right?
Or, yo, I went to Baba Booey University too.
What they didn't realize was that
I was already on the phone with the police,
with super specific instructions on how to apprehend them.
Get them officer.
Now honestly, it wasn't until I went to university
that I dealt with the really weird message
that was posted up on a confession page for our dorm.
This is basically a private group on Facebook
where people would send anonymous confessions to each other.
At least that was the intent of it.
It slowly but surely became a bit of a meme,
as it always does, when people started posting up
anonymous parodies of actual confessions.
It was sometimes difficult to work out
what was real and what was not.
But then one day, I got tagged in a post
in which a random stranger with no mutual friends
said something along the lines of...
- [Stranger] Hey everybody, I just realized
that my favorite YouTuber
was living in the same building as me.
What should I do?
Should I go up to him and maybe introduce myself?
I mean, each of the doorway in the university dorm
has the resident's name labeled outside of it.
So I guess I could just climb the floors
and find the room that he lives in, you know. (laughs)
Maaz, if you're reading this, I love you,
and I think we should make babies.
- Now this wasn't the exact post word for word,
because I left the group out of fear
and I refused to go back.
But my initial reaction was, oh, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
(door pounding)
- [Stranger] Hey, is this Maaz?
- Get them, officer.
Now look, I'll be the first to admit
that this definitely could have been
an elaborate prank or meme from my fellow dorm mates.
But I'd argue that somebody acting like a stalker,
to go and manually find your room, to invade your privacy,
to see you, is universally scary
and not just a me thing, all right.
Thankfully I was moving out in a month,
so it wasn't the worst thing in the world.
But living in fear for one whole month
about people finding out where I lived
was not the way I imagined graduating university.
Because yes, I might be a YouTuber,
but I'm also just a normal dude at the end of the day.
I wake up, eat, work, interact,
and sleep in the same way that you guys do.
I just get paid to record it and put it up on the internet.
So please don't come up to me when I'm at home,
or my family's home, or if I'm occupied with work.
Because yeah, I'm not gonna take that well.
Because imagine being in my shoes
and seeing random people message you
personal information about yourself and your family.
Y'all wouldn't like that either.
I, I hope.
If you genuinely like my content,
or it's impacted the life in some way,
which again is still crazy to me,
approach me and strike up a conversation
when I'm out in public.
Nine times out of 10, I'd react to that very positively
and have a chat with you for a bit.
That is the right way of recognizing people. (laughs)
All right, and with that, laters, and stay amaazing.
What are you doing?
- I'm taking a blood sample from my favorite YouTuber.
- Oh.
Okay, I just wanna quickly say,
99% of you who come up to me
are always super respectful, super kind,
and I have a great time with you.
It's just that 1% that really weird me out.
Remember to like, comment,
subscribe with the notification bell.
And if you've made it this far,
comment how you are actually my stalker.
All right.
And with that, laters, and stay amaazing.