Late one night in April of 2013, I was doing what any 15-year-old at the time would be doing at 10 p.m.: browsing Tumblr. I spent more time than I could count on that site and dedicated a crazy amount of time to make sure that my blog aesthetic was perfect.
I was scrolling through my feed when I moused over a video titled "Rage Quit: The Impossible Game" and thought, huh, I've heard of that game before and started watching the video. What followed was a night of my teen self slowly spiraling down the hole of videos that were created by internet gaming guys turned production company, Rooster Teeth, and my life hasn't really been the same since.
Teenagers are pretty impressionable - we see it all the time. They start hanging out with the wrong people or get way too into a hobby and basically forget to do everything else. Well, this is kinda what happened with me and Rooster Teeth, except it ended up having a positive impact on me.
Rooster Teeth started in a spare bedroom with five guys in Texas in 2003 with a web series called "Red v. Blue." They are now housed in the Stage 5 Production Facility in Austin, Texas and have close to 400 employees, and I hope to be a future one some day.
It's hard to explain to your parents why you want to work for a company that uploads its videos to YouTube. And trying to explain to them how it is fulfilling work is even harder. But I want to work at Rooster Teeth because they gave me role models - people that were like me that were comfortable with the person that they were and successful in their own right.
Two of the main ladies that I look up to are bisexual, are married and have kids. They're still proud of their sexuality even though they have chosen to be with a male partner, something I have struggled with ever since I realized my boyfriend was quite possibly the one. I have been watching this company now for about five and a half years and I watch at least one of their videos every day. I listen to all of their podcasts and have seen all of their movies.
This company gave me a dream that I want to achieve. I'm not expecting it to be easy, but getting where you need to be in life never is. And I'm ready to work for it. It's weird to say, but this company has had such a huge impact on my life. These people I've never met don't know that and maybe they never will, but it's enough for me to know that I have direction and vision in my life thanks to the people that work there.
