VidConEU - Meet & Greet with Rhett & Link

I have decided to share my mythical adventure at VidCon Europe with everyone in the Kommunity (who is curious enough to read through this massive wall of text!).

This is only about the Sunday, as it was the day I met Rhett and Link for the first time.

 

My day got off to a horrible start.

I was woken up by a couple of persistent knocks at my hotel room door. Honestly, I’ve never stayed in a hotel with such an aggressive and impatient hotel maid. I tried to ignore the noises, wanting to go back to sleep, while I also feared that they might eventually come in and start cleaning the room anyway.

Getting more and more irritated, I finally grabbed my phone to glance at the time.

It was 9 a.m.

And it had been me, who had decided (the evening prior) to meet in the hotel corridor at 9 a.m. on Sunday.

I was definitely not ready and in the hotel corridor.  

I had overslept.

 

It’s just my nature to get very frustrated and down, when things like that go wrong. I was certain that some higher power had something against the idea of me meeting Rhett and Link.

 

Despite the very rough, and rushed start to my day, I managed to arrive at the convention center at around 11 a.m.

I met up with my friend Laura and walked with her over to the Meet and Greet area.  Even though our Meet and Greet was scheduled at 12 p.m., we were allowed to enter the area an hour earlier.

(The Meet and Greet area was the space inside the black barriers.)

(The yellow squares on the ground indicated the different lines. Every creator had a separate line, because the Meet and Greets featured 4-5 creators at the same time.)

Since I had been to the Meet and Greet with Smosh on Saturday, I knew how everything would be working at the Meet and Greet with Rhett and Link. The next thing that happened was the reason why my Meet and Greet experience was absolutely amazing. I saw that the volunteers were trying to figure out how many more people would fit into the second line.

(Each yellow square contained different lines of people. So the first line stood right next to the yellow line on the ground. The second line stood next to the first line and so on. Once every person from the first line got their Meet and Greet moment, the complete lines moved to the left and the next line starts with their Meet and Greets.)

So as I listened, I decided to take luck into my own hands, and stood parallel to the second line, rather than standing behind the last person from the second line. And that payed off, because soon after explaining to Laura what the volunteers were doing, they said: “Okay, you people need to go to the front to form the third line.”

So I was a very lucky Mythical Beast, who had the opportunity to sit at the front of Rhett and Link’s Meet and Greet!

(This was my view. I was sitting, when I took this picture, but I could not believe how close I would be to Rhett and Link. And for how long! Because like I explained earlier, there were 2 lines of people, who had to meet them before it was my turn. So more than enough time to enjoy the moment and to take some pictures.)

We sat down, because we knew that Rhett and Link wouldn’t be there until 12 p.m.. I saw that Tine, Tanya, Hannah and Conny sat near us as well. It was so weird to think that we would all be meeting Rhett and Link soon. I chatted with Laura for a while, and even pulled out my phone to watch some Buddy System, just to calm my nerves.

But oddly enough, I actually wasn’t that nervous at all. When my phone read 11:58 a.m., I decided to stand up and to get my camera ready for Rhett and Link’s appearance.

And I have to say...

It was epic.

(The first glance we got of the Youtubers, who walked to their Meet and Greets.)

It was very easy to spot Rhett between all of the other Youtubers, since he was (obviously) the tallest. So we watched them walking towards the stairs and Link was even recording a video with his phone.

When they came down the stairs, I was very thankful for my luck, because I had a great spot to watch them talking to some volunteers, while they prepared for the Meet and Greet.

 

(Some “behind the scenes” pictures of Rhett and Link getting ready for us.)

When they both seemed to be ready, Rhett pulled out his phone and filmed us for the rhettandlink instagram story. He then put his phone away and Rhett and Link placed themselves in front of the Meet and Greet wall to take a (test?) picture.

After that, Link clapped his hands in excitement and greeted the first person.

The Meet and Greets were amazing to watch! Some people greeted them rather shyly, other stormed ahead and got a precious hug from them. Some brought gifts, which Rhett and Link seemed to really appreciate.

They were even okay with fans asking them to pose differently for each photo. It was great to see that Rhett and Link really tried to take their time with each fan.  Even when the volunteers had to speed up a few of the Meet and Greets to accommodate all the fans, Rhett and Link were warm and gracious.

I was very happy to be able to watch Rhett and Link up close for such a long time. When they both squatted / kneeled down for a picture, Link had to pull up his pants afterwards, which he did by jumping in the air, for example. Another thing that I noticed was that Rhett was licking his lips an insane amount of times. I also caught Link fidgeting with his hands behind his back, which immediately reminded me of the episode with the fidgeting toys and that he may needs one for himself.

Another wonderful thing about where I was positioned, was that people in general tend to look beside a camera right after a picture got taken. Since I was standing right behind the M&G camera, I caught a few glimpses of Rhett or Link looking directly at me. I’m not saying they did it, because I was “so nice to look at” or because they “totally knew who I was”, but because it’s a natural thing to do, which I was very glad for.

After I took a few pictures of my friends meeting Rhett and Link (and also recording two videos), it was finally my turn to meet the guys.

 

Rhett stood on the left and Link stood on the right. Both turned to me and that was the moment, in which I thought: “Oh god. It’s your turn now.”

So I walked up to Link and stretched out my hand to greet him. He smiled at me and while I was saying “Hi!” he said “Hi! Oh hey, I know that shirt!”

He was speaking of the shirt I was wearing, one of my favorite shirts, that he owns as well. He wore it the first time in a Buddy System behind the scenes snapchat video and shortly after I had seen it, I bought it.

Much to my disappointment, Rhett cut the shirt in half during the GMMore episode ‘Hobby or Sport Debate’, by claiming “His hobby is cutting Link out of his shirts after every show.”

So the second thing I said to Link was: “Yeah, and I loved that shirt! And I was so...mad at you that you cut it!” He was looking at me kinda surprised, but I was already turning around to Rhett, to continue with: “Well, I’m actually mad at you, because you cut the shirt, even though it was your hobby to cut Link out of shirts- whatever!” I literally threw my hands in the air and then put my palms together to signalize my stupid rambling was over. I at least made them smile with that, so my goal was achieved.

I looked up at them and smiled, while I said with an honest voice: “Thank you so much for coming to Europe!” They probably replied with a “You’re welcome” or something, but I honestly can’t remember. I was so focused on saying everything correctly (since my native language isn’t English, I’m always afraid of mistakes when I speak English), that I didn’t pay much attention to such “normal” or “expected” things.

I then looked at Link and asked him: “Link, can I-...can I give you a hug?” I don’t know how he was able to understand me, because that was the only sentence that I kinda mumbled instead of saying loud and clear. Link answered with “Sure!” and I went in to give him a hug. When I stepped back from Link, I saw Rhett out of the corner of my eye going in for a hug as well.

But much to his surprise, I held my hands up and said: “I don’t want to ask you for a hug,-” (You should’ve seen his face. That rejection must’ve felt like a punch for him) “-because I’m very concerned for your back!”

He looked at me pretty surprised, before he laughed shortly and started grinning. He replied with “Oh come on, girl! You can give me a hug!” (And that “girl” was more of a beautiful southern “gurl”, so sweet!) and he bent down to give me a hug as well, which I obviously didn’t deny. I then looked at the guys and I knew in the back of my mind that it was time for the picture. So I gathered my courage and asked Link a question, which I had been thinking about for the last two weeks prior to VidCon.

“Link, could we switch glasses for a picture?” Without hesitation, Link reached for his glasses and I couldn’t believe that he would actually agree to do that. I also need to admit, that my breathing stopped for a split second, when I saw Link without his glasses up close. He is very handsome.

So I grabbed my glasses and handed them over to Link, before I placed myself between the guys. I put Link’s glasses on and was surprised to see how strong they were. Since I have a very weak and almost not noticeable lens strength, I needed a second to find the camera at all. I didn’t even think about making a good pose or anything, because all I could think about were the glasses on my nose.

After the picture, I took his glasses off and I remember looking at them for a second, before handing them over to Link. He seemed to have thought I wanted to take them with me, because he said in a joking voice: “Yeah, I need those back.”

I immediately answered him: “Oh, I don’t want them!” But in the back of my mind, I thought that sentence sounded very rude. As if I didn’t like his glasses or something. So without really thinking about it, I continued with: “I love you with those glasses!”

I have to say that it’s much easier to write this sentence, than it is to repeat it in a conversation, because I still feel embarrassed for that. But Link just looked at me surprised and all I said after that was just a “Thank you.” and a “Bye”, before I went over to my friends, who were waiting for me.

After that moment, I was luckily enough to catch Rhett and Link walking back from their Meet and Greet area later that day. They stopped to watch their children having fun at some VidCon activities. I didn’t want to disturb them at first, but some other Mythical Beast had already gathered around them to get some autographs. I was just interested to get some pictures, so after debating for a moment, I followed my friends over to them.

I won’t go into too many details about the Dynamic Duos or the Q&A panel, since this thing is already long enough. But there was one pretty great moment during the Dynamic Duos panel for me. The moderator asked the question: “Are there some quirks that you can share that you have? Like how you sit, etc.” And Rhett and Link started that panel by switching chairs in the beginning, because Rhett sat on the wrong side.

So Rhett explained the typical thing about how they would sit differently in the beginning of their career, because of his guitar and how they switched after seeing their names being displayed behind them at some kind of event.

They were also asked how it became “Rhett and Link” and Rhett answered: Well, Link and Rhett sounds like a person’s name. Lincoln Rhett. [...] It’s confusing so we went with Rhett and Link, because it’s alphabetical also.”

I was sitting in the second row and I immediately opened my mouth in protest and started shaking my head. What surprised me was that the moderator just went with what Rhett said and that no one else from the audience (except my friend beside me) seemed to have noticed the mistake.

I then saw Rhett looking at me, smiling, pointing into my direction and mumbling into his microphone: “Some people got that!” And I have to say...getting noticed by Rhett for getting his joke was a great moment!

(Doesn't he look cute, when he's smiling at me?)