A Conversation With My 12-Year-Old Self (VIDEO)

So many of us wish we could have a conversation with our younger self, perhaps to offer some advice and ask ourselves (yourself?) some questions. This was the concept behind Jeremiah McDonald’s video, “A Conversation With My 12 Year Old Self: 20th Anniversary Edition,” which he successfully created using a tape he created in 1992. “A Conversation” was posted on YouTube on Thursday via McDonald’s YouTube channel, “Weeping Prophet Production,” and was shared to his more than 4,600 subscribers. It shows McDonald talking to a video of himself, recorded in 1992 on videocassette when he was 12.

The video is equal parts funny, eerie and entertaining. It’s especially incredible to consider that this video is 20 years in the making. Leaving the tape to himself, the 12-year-old McDonald’s simply states “I think I’d like to talk to myself in the future,” before the present, 32-year-old McDonald starts answering a few questions, the first of which revolve around whether or not some his pets are still alive (“Are all your questions going to be about pets? The answer is they’re all dead”). The conversation ends up getting a bit sad near the end, when the younger McDonald reminds the older one how much he use to draw, reminding McDonald that he once aspired to be an animator.

Shira Lazar caught up with the man behind the video to ask him about the process of making such an ambitious project, his reaction to the overnight success, and his plans for the future.