Catching Feelings with Connor Franta

YouTube sensation and all-around amazing human Connor Franta has been one of our faves since he exploded on the YouTube scene as a member of O2L. Now, Connor has grown up and gone out on his own, but he’s still the amazing, hilarious vlogger we fangirl for. Connor just released his first book, a memoir about his life. Don’t think that just because you’ve been subscribed to his vlogs for five years you know everything there is to know about Connor though. He says there are a lot of surprises in the book, even for his most obsessed fans.

We caught up with Connor to talk about his memoir, A Work in Progress, and to talk to him about all of his feels for our Catching Feelings column.

HG: What inspired you to write a memoir at this stage in your career and what can fans expect from it?

CF: For me, YouTube has been literally like a vlog. Like, I put everything about my life on it, as it’s happening, right then and there. And I felt like I wanted to go deeper than that. So, when I had this opportunity to write a book, I thought, well I need to talk about what I know best and that’s me and talk about it like more in depth and go beyond that five minutes that I do every single week.

HG: What was your process like writing the book?

CF: It was very much like you would do when you get a very big assignment. You procrastinate a little, think about it a lot and then eventually just kind of pump it out. So I wrote the majority in my living room, but then I wrote on planes and in other countries and other states and everything. But a lot of it was just sitting down and reflecting on my past and my present and putting it on paper.

HG: Is there anything in the book that you think will surprise even your biggest fans who have been following you since the beginning.

CF: I think there are numerous things, but I think the one thing that most people will be interested in is my coming out experience and my coming out process. That’s easily my favorite chapter and the most in-depth chapter in the book. I think it will really resonate with a lot of people.

HG: What was it like writing that? Was it cathartic? Was it hard to put that out into the world? It such a vulnerable thing to try to articulate.

CF: It was honestly both the easiest, but also the hardest chapter to write. It was the easiest in that it was so fresh in my memory and it was so clear what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it that I pumped out, literally, like 15 pages in just like an hour. I just let it flow onto the paper and knew what I wanted to say, but it was hard because immediately after I was like, “oh my god, I have to give this to an editor. I have to let people read this.” That’s scary and then I have to put this in a book that lots of people are gonna read. So it was very scary to be that vulnerable and open about the process and the downs of it and the negative feelings, but I really think that it was very therapeutic and I’m sure that it will help a lot of people.

And now, without further ado, Catching Feelings with Connor Franta…

HG: What do you consider a romantic gesture?

CF: Something that is very personal, but I’m surprised with it. So it’s something that’s very, very well thought out, but personal.

HG: What makes you earnestly happy?

CF: Early morning coffee makes me genuinely very happy. And also kittens.

HG: What makes you irrationally angry?

CF: Either rude or arrogant people. I can’t deal with it. Mostly rude people. If I see someone being rude around me, even if it’s not about me or towards me, I have a really hard time biting my tongue. That’s definitely the Minnesota nice coming out of me.

HG: Is there a movie or song that makes you a little teary-eyed?

CF: I honestly like movie wise I cry at any movie and I’m really open about that. Like, I cried at Toy Story 3. Song-wise, anything by Adele kind of tears me up because it’s so open and personal. Also Sam Smith. Also open and personal. They really put it all out in songs.

HG: What hurts your feelings?

CF: Probably when people don’t feel like they can be honest with me because I like to be an open person for like anyone in my life. So if they don’t feel like they can say something to me, that hurts my feelings because I’m like “aww, why wouldn’t you think you could tell me about that?”

HG: How do you handle it when you get your feelings hurt?

CF: Oh, I like to immediately talk about it because I can’t keep anything like built up in me. I’m like I need to just put it out into the world right now or it’ll eat me alive. So I talk about it immediately to try to fix the problem, whatever it is, right away.

HG: Can you describe what it feels like to fall in love?

CF: It’s really just when you are completely obsessed with another person in the least creepy way possible. It’s when you just want to be close to them all the time, whether you’re doing everything or doing nothing, you just feel like you want to be around that person and be in their presence forever. That’s what love feels like to me.

HG: What’s your favorite childhood memory?

CF: My family has a cabin up in northern Minnesota and I just think about our summers there, just playing in the lake water and going fishing and having campfires and doing all that midwestern stuff.

(Image via here.)