DADWAGON

I am the father of a fourteen-year-old boy named Jack, and he, his mother and I are journeying from our home in the Catskill Mountains to JFK Airport, where we will fly to L.A./Anaheim for the third annual VidCon.

VidCon is the brainchild of musician Hank Green and New York Times bestselling author John Green, known collectively as the Vlog Brothers. At VidCon, online video enthusiasts—fans and creators alike—meet in real time to schmooze, gawk, praise, and otherwise engage one another. (Smackdowns are possible but unlikely.) Panels include “Redefining Celebrity in the Post-TV Era,” “The Evolution of Storytelling on the Web,” and, of particular interest to you, dear reader: “The Parent’s Panel: Encouraging, Protecting and Enabling Your Kid/Teen’s Passion for Internet Video.” In addition to panels, VidCon offers constant meet-and-greets and a never-empty performing stage; it’s kind of a mash-up of SxSW, Fan Fair and ComicCon.

The plan for this trip was hatched last year, when Jack, an avid YouTuber, asked us to combine several present-giving occasions— Christmas, birthday, middle school graduation—into one splurge, so he could meet the pop-culture icons who fire his imagination. These include authors, musicians, commentators, actors, personalities who do all of the above, plus the occasional ill-defined YouTube celebrity.

Like most of his peers, Jack looks to YouTube as radio, television and My Weekly Reader, all rolled into one. For comparison’s sake: it’s like fourteen-year-old me getting a chance to meet S.E. Hinton, Rush, John Belushi, and John Hughes, under one roof, down the street from Disneyland. (We’re going there, too.)

Meme creators The Gregory Brothers, whose Songify This (AKA AutoTune The News) made stars of Antoine Dodson (“The Bed Intruder Song,” 102 million views) and Yosemite Bear (“Double Rainbow Song,” 30 million views) will be there (as will Dodson and Yosemite Bear). Like many other performers and panelists, the Gregory Brothers have ascertained and perfected the science of “going viral,” and monetized it. They recently freelanced with Sony. Also on hand will be hundreds of vloggers, who, via their laptops, webcams, and FinalCut Pro, are storming the castles of Stewart, Colbert, and SNL.

While it is a gift for our son, this trip also offers my wife and me—both writers— chance to check out the expanding world of various online platforms (and an opportunity to meet Yosemite Bear). While our TV gathers dust, screen-oriented entertainment, promo and social networking are an ever-bigger part of our household, and not just in Jack’s room. VidCon is an opportunity to meet the mover-shakers behind this tectonic shift, in all their nerdy glory.

Much is afoot. As you may have heard, YouTube is morphing from user-generated content to original programming, with Netflix, Amazon and Hulu following suit. Companies that provide and/or enable that content will be on hand at VidCon. Jack, incidentally, scoffs at them. Like his mother, who once stored her punk rock singles in a balsawood crate and abhorred all notions of “corporate,” he is drawn to scrappy indies, especially when they are changing the entertainment world free of influence, and fielding offers from advertisers who seek not to alter them, but to co-op some of their DIY street cred. (Some YouTubers affix ad banners and pre-rolls to their vlogs, some don’t. See VidCon panel “How YouTubers Can Be Professional With Brands.”)

It’s a good we got our tickets months ago, as VidCon is sold out. Jack is more excited than he’s been since Santa Claus days, which of course is a thrill for his parents. I will be reporting from the floor of the Anaheim Convention Center and thereabouts, where the ground, no doubt, will be moving beneath my feet.

Robert Burke Warren is a writer-musician currently residing in the Catskill mountains with his wife and teenage son. He blogs at Solitude and Good Company. You can find him on Twitter at @RBWUncleRock

Normally, Sasha is a pretty good kid—and pretty good at playing on her own or with other children. But lately she’s been getting on our fucking nerves, and it’s her damn doll—Baby Pizza, as she’s decided to name it—that’s to blame.

Every morning, every evening, we hear the same thing: “Daddy, I want baby to talk to me.” (When she addresses Mom, she says it in Chinese.) The idea is that one of us will hold Baby Pizza, a Corolle doll recommended by a reader long ago, and engage Sasha in conversation and play.

Very quickly, this became an annoying burden. Unlike other games Sasha likes to play—hide and seek, drawing, Lego building, dancing, etc.—this just requires a level of imagination and child-logic that neither Jean nor I can muster. We want to play with, though! We want to engage in stories and make-believe! But something about this is just impossible. Maybe it’s because Sasha wants us to start the activity, to come up with a storyline. Shouldn’t that be her job?

We’ve tried to turn this back on her. “Sasha,” I’ll tell her, “I want baby to talk to me!” But she absolutely refuses, and so now Jean and I are absolutely refusing. We’ve run out of clever things for Baby Pizza to say. And now I’m considering “losing” Baby Pizza entirely. I mean, I wouldn’t throw the doll away. We paid for it! But that doesn’t mean Baby Pizza couldn’t find her way to a far-off, hidden shelf in the closet, to be rediscovered years hence, when Sasha’s imaginative skills have developed a little more.

Is this bad? Really, I want to play with Sasha—or I want to want to. But it’s so hard! I just can’t think the way she does, I can’t be entertained on her level (unless we’re talking about farting or other silly matters). And I can’t figure out how to distract her from this goddamn doll. Maybe when Baby X—our real child—arrives in mid-September, Sasha can shift her attention to a sibling who can actually talk back. Ah, I get it: This is why people have second kids, right?

This morning I registered Sasha for pre-K—partly as a hedge, since we’re still somewhat on the fence about her going there—and among the many, many forms I had to fill out was one that asked about her race. That’s a pretty normal thing, I suppose, but I was disappointed to see that I was only allowed to pick one option.

So, what was it to be, White or Asian/Pacific Islander? I’d never realized what a strange choice that is to make, since she’s exactly 50 percent one, and 50 percent the other. How do you weigh those things? And what difference does it make?

There in the school office, I called Jean to ask her thoughts. “Asian,” she said, “in case there’s any kind of affirmative action she can get.”

That, I guess, was good enough for me: Sure, we’ll take affirmative action. Does that come with a lollipop? I checked the box. My daughter is now, officially, in the eyes of the New York City Department of Education, an Asian/Pacific Islander. (I’m glad I don’t have to choose which of those two categories this half-Taiwanese kid falls into!)

Did I feel like I was slighting my ancestral contributions? Not really. “White” always reminds me that for centuries it did not include Jews, so I wouldn’t be that jazzed to check it anyway. (Incidentally, you should read this Times story on Asian-Jewish intermarriage.) And actually, once I’d declared Sasha to be an Asian/Pacific Islander, it wasn’t she who suddenly seemed more Asian, but me. I’m married to an Asian woman, I have an Asian kid, hence I must be Asian, too. Not that the Department of Education cares about that.