The name's Morgan Long

In elementary school, a friend told me about a secret website called Youtube. Back then NigaHiga, Fred, and that “oh my god, shoes” video were the biggest things on the internet. For a while, I believed her and thought only a few people in-the-know knew about the website but obviously that wasn’t the case. Nevertheless, I was totally absorbed by Youtube.

When I got my first phone, it had internet capabilities but it was still too huge a luxury to have my parents pay for. So I continued to watch youtube on a desktop at the library. I still have the habit of watching youtube on my laptop, I look forward to it when I got home. It must be the screen size. Thanks to quarantine; my youtube watching hours have expanded immensely and I’ve discovered lots of creative new people.

Her name’s Morgan Long. Her channel is all about books and her daily life. The first video of her’s I saw was her shopping in a huge bookstore called Powell’s in Portland. I liked the video but she didn’t say much so I forgot about her.

A little while later I stumbled across a different video of hers and that’s when I fell into the rabbit hole. It was a video about dealing with her fear of being alone -exascerbated by quarantine- while her boyfriend was away for a week. All she had was her dog and books as solace. I connected with her so much, her aura translated from the screen and I felt it all.

She said some really beautiful, resonant things in that video; “It’s ok not to want to be alone. It is the culture of the US to prize and romanticize individualism. We tend to put our career first and family and friends second. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; I think its important to figure out who you are before you dedicate yourself to another person...But maybe you don’t have to feel alone.”

I later came to find out that she is also vegan (woohoo!) and loves the outdoors (double woohoo!). Her videos of her daily walks with Monsieur Roo, her adorable lab, in her backyard forest are so peaceful and adventurous. Even my own two dogs, Elvis the Big Fat Rat and Butter the Demon, love watching along with me when Roo comes on the screen.

Morgan has said that she wants her channel to be a safe, cozy space to soothe stress from the outside world and she has totally hit her mark. Morgan lets you in with open arms and makes you feel like you’ve been friends for a long time. The combination of her soothing voice, beautiful house, super cute dog, and many readathons feel like I’m catching up with a friend while on a walk or at a bookstore or just over a cup of tea in her living room. These used to be some of my favorite activities with friends whom I haven’t been able to see and now I feel like I can just switch on one of her videos and immediately fill that need.

She definitely has different tastes in books than I do, there are so many books I wouldn’t have considered reading or browsed through at a bookstore if it weren’t for her videos. Also, she is a relatively small channel so she’s not inundating her viewers with sponsored videos yet, which is so so refreshing.

Thank you Morgan for being such a good friend. For constantly sharing your knowledge and home with total strangers. This has been a tough time and now recent times have been even tougher for you due to the wildfires in your area. I hope you take the time to accept help, love, and sympathy from all your friends and loved ones. I know you love to look on the positive side of things and always try to find a silver lining or compare your suffering to others, minimizing it. Please don’t.

I am so beyond lucky that I found Morgan’s channel at the right time, I truly feel that I’ve made a new, amazing friend.