Yesterday
, I was writing my post about awesome Cory Booker. I thought, “instead of just saying he made a video for me, I should link to it.”
When I went to my Waywire channel, it didn’t exist!
What? How can my channel not exist?
Before we go deeper into this horrible, horrible, awful story – let me remind you this is a video where Cory Booker explains that he is standing next to a column because I blow him away! Cory Booker himself says I blow him away. He calls me by name. This is one of the most prized things I’ve ever had.
And my channel is nowhere to be found.
Uh, okay. Let’s just check his channel.
It’s not there either!
Oh goodness. Um, okay. I scroll down in my twitter feed ’til I see the tweets about it. You know, let’s just go to the source – the link to the direct video.
NOT THERE.
At this point I am freaking out. I go to Waywire’s homepage. I can’t even sign in. Apparently my account is gone. I can’t find any of the normal accounts I used to follow. Apparently all non-famous accounts are gone. (But Cory Booker IS famous, so where’s his?!)
I use the search function to search everything I can think of – wire challenge, Cory Booker, Aurora De Lucia, even just my first name, honesty in politics (which is what I asked him about)… on and on. It’s nowhere to be found!
But how can it just all of a sudden not exist?
I google for it. Nothing. I check Cory’s YouTube page to see if he perhaps did a double post. NOTHING.
Of course it’s not on YouTube. The whole point of his “Wire Challenge” – people asking him questions and getting video answers – was so he could promote Waywire and get people over to that site. So why would the videos be anywhere else?
Now, I will completely admit I should have never let this happen. When a video means that much to me, it’s time to rip it from the internet. That should just be obvious. I say all the time to backup anything you really love, because you can’t fully trust any person/company/website to keep anything up forever. So why didn’t I grab this video?!
I don’t know! I always said I would. Then I’d just do something else instead. It was constantly on the bottom of my priority list because I know Cory Booker’s online philosophy is to never delete anything. Knowing that, and knowing he was an owner of Waywire, I figured it would always be up there.
That was a horrible, horrendous, terrible assumption.
I tried to figure out what in the heck was going on. Turns out, Waywire was apparently sold 3 days ago to Magnify. In that short time (with no warning whatsoever!), apparently they just gutted the site and got rid of normal people’s accounts.
I emailed them. I sent them a direct message on twitter. But nothing yet.
I’m devastated – like openly sob for 15 minutes after realizing I may never see this video again devastated.
So, if anyone out there somehow, for some reason, has it, or has a link to it – it’s a Wire Challenge response from October 23rd, 2012 (or at least, that’s when they sent out the tweet). He told people to ask questions and he’d give responses.
I remember so vividly watching my tape before I posted it, and thinking I phrased everything stupidly.
I’d already tried filming it two other times (in different places, with different outfits and hairstyles) before I decided to be more impromptu, filming it at the end of a race.
My friend Josh can tell you I (as he was almost certainly annoyed) that we sat in Starbucks for probably over an hour (maybe two) to worry about some short internet video.
“Should I cut this part?” “Can I keep this part?” “I’m taking too many pauses.” “I called politics an industry, but that’s not really the right wording, is it?” “Am I complimenting him too much?” “Should I keep the part about my races or am I being a braggart?” And on and on and on.
Finally I thought, “He’s Cory Booker. He’ll get so many of these, there’s no way he sees this or responds anyway.”
…Until he did!
I was shaking when I read the tweet. Then I watched the video approximately a million times and told everyone I knew to do the same.
And now it’s gone. And my heart is broken. Technically, I have no one to blame but myself. If anyone out there can help me find it, I can’t even tell you how much I’d owe you.
xoxo and lots of tears
[Edited to add: Cory Booker’s amazing team got it for me!]