The Tapper Twins Go Viral

CHAPTER 2

JENS KUYPERS BROKE UP WITH ME IN A TEXT MESSAGE

CLAUDIA

Jens ^{Ed. Note: "Jens" is pronounced "Yens" (he is from the Netherlands) (where J's sound like Y's)} Kuypers and I went out for about four months. And we had gotten pretty close. So I really thought I knew him as a person.

Which is why it was basically devastating when he randomly texted me on a Tuesday night and broke up with me.

Since Jens has only lived in America for about six months, and his English still isn't great, at first I didn't really understand what he was saying.

JENS AND CLAUDIA (text messages)

CLAUDIA

For the record, "mad" does not really come close to describing how I felt. It was maybe 10% of my total feelings. ^{Ed. Note: other 90% of feelings were: -shocked -betrayed -confused -sad -barfy -heartbroken -MURDEROUSLY RAGEFUL}

REESE

You were SO sad after that breakup! I felt so bad for you, I tried to get Mom and Dad to get a puppy to cheer you up.

CLAUDIA

You were just using my breakup as an excuse! You've been trying to get Mom and Dad to get us a puppy for YEARS.

REESE

I know. But I still felt bad for you.

PARVATI

Jens was just the worst. And I STILL think you should get back at him by posting that totally embarrassing pic on your ClickChat page.

CLAUDIA

I'd never do that. No matter how much he deserves it. It's just too mean.

CARMEN

On the bright side, though, you DID get an awesome song out of it.

CLAUDIA

Like I said, I wrote a lot of songs about the breakup.^{Ed. Note: FULL LIST OF BREAKUP SONGS I WROTE: -Devastated -It's Over -Brown Eyes, Black Heart -Deleted (aka The Swipe Left Song) -Textless -Jens Is a Yerk (WARNING: explicit lyrics) -Empty Vest -Brand New Me -Windmill} But "Windmill" was definitely the best. It had an awesome riff, and the chorus ("One day you're up and the next day you're down / Life is like a windmill going round and round…") was super catchy.

So I kind of suspected it was good. But I didn't realize HOW good until I played it for my guitar teacher, Randy.

RANDY RHOADS, Claudia's guitar teacher

I'm not jiving ^{Ed. Note: Randy is from the 1970s} you, kid. "Windmill" is a HOT song.

CLAUDIA

But you say that about all my songs.

RANDY

Well, yeah. But… I'm a guitar teacher. Being encouraging is half the gig. So even if some cat brings in a tune that makes me want to stab myself in the ear with a pencil, I gotta be all, "Great job, kiddo! Keep at it!"

CLAUDIA

Umm… this is actually kind of awkward. How many of MY songs have made you want to stab yourself in the ear with a pencil?

RANDY

Don't go there, kid. We're just talking "Windmill" right now. Which is HOT! No jive. That song could be on the radio.

CLAUDIA

After Randy told me it was great and helped me write a bridge ^{Ed. Note: bridge = part in mid-song that's different from the rest of the song} for it, I played "Windmill" for my friends while we were all on a ClickChat video hangout.

And they pretty much loved it.

SOPHIE

If that song came up on a playlist, I would DEFINITELY check to see who the artist was. And I would get ALL her songs.

PARVATI

OMG IT WAS THE MOST AMAZING SONG EVER!

I was like, "I can't believe this! You're going to be a star! And I'm going to be in your entourage! SQUEEEEEE!"

CLAUDIA

Until my friends heard it, I hadn't even been thinking about putting "Windmill" online. I knew for a fact that my idol, Miranda Fleet, didn't start putting songs out until she was fourteen. So I figured I should wait until I was at least in seventh grade.

But after I played it for them, all three of my friends told me I absolutely had to put it out there and get huge.

So I did.

CHAPTER 3

GETTING HUGE IS MUCH HARDER THAN IT LOOKS

CLAUDIA

The first thing I had to do was make a video. Because on the Internet, you can't just ask people to listen to a song—you have to give them something to look at while they're listening.

Carmen is very artistic, and she agreed to direct the video for me.

CARMEN

I've been wanting to get into filmmaking for a while. So this was a great opportunity. And it was kind of a challenge. Because you wouldn't let me show your face in the video.

CLAUDIA

I didn't want Carmen putting my face in the video because A) I wanted to keep the focus on the music, and B) sometimes when I play guitar, I scrunch up my eyes in a weird-looking way, and I didn't want people seeing that and trolling me for it.

REESE

It's hilarious when you make that guitar face! You look like you're pooping!

CLAUDIA

This is EXACTLY what I mean by "trolling."

Instead of filming me playing the song, Carmen shot close-ups of my hands playing the guitar. Then she intercut those with shots of a pinwheel that we filmed on the roof garden of my building.

The video turned out great. And Carmen was totally right that a pinwheel was just as good as an actual windmill. So I'd like to officially apologize to her for the fight we got into about that.

CARMEN

It's all good. I mean, it's not like I didn't WANT to use a real windmill. It's just that it's basically impossible to find them in New York City. And when you do, they don't look like windmills.

CLAUDIA

After Carmen finished the "Windmill" video and all I had to do was upload it to MeVid, I got incredibly nervous. Because the way my friends were talking, this video was going to be MAJOR. And it seemed like once I put it online, my whole life might change forever.

CLICKCHAT POSTS (PRIVATE CHAT)

CLAUDIA

It took me a whole day to get up the courage to put "Windmill" on MeVid. When I finally did, I posted on ClickChat to let everybody know about it:

CLAUDIA

Then I shut down my computer, because I didn't want to spend all night constantly reloading the MeVid page to see how many views I'd gotten.

But I couldn't help myself. So after half an hour of pacing back and forth in my room and reminding myself to stay totally down-to-earth no matter how huge I got, I went back online.

Then I spent the rest of the night constantly reloading the MeVid page.

It turned out I didn't have to worry about staying down-to-earth. Or about my life changing forever. Or even for five minutes.

Because nobody watched the video. That whole first night it was online, it only got 37 views.

And at least 30 of those were Parvati.

PARVATI

I had it on repeat. Because it was SO AWESOME!

CLAUDIA

By the next morning, "Windmill" was only up to 41 views. And I realized if I wanted to make it a hit, I was going to have to do a TON of promoting it.

Which felt a little icky. But fortunately, my friends helped a lot.

CARMEN

We pretty much forced the whole Culvert Prep sixth grade to watch it.

PARVATI

It wasn't just sixth graders. I was personally responsible for at LEAST ten page views from eighth graders.

AKASH GUPTA, eighth grader/older brother of Parvati

My annoying little sister parked her butt at our lunch table and refused to leave until my friends and I all watched Claudia's video on our phones.

PARVATI

Aren't you glad I did? You LOVE "Windmill"!

AKASH

It's pretty catchy. Not my kind of music, though. If there was an EDM remix, I'd be more into that.

CLAUDIA

The reaction I got from kids at school was VERY encouraging.

KALISHA HENDRICKS, sixth grader/extremely smart person

It's a really excellent song, Claudia. You should be proud of yourself.

DIMITRI SHARANSKY, sixth grader/moderately smart person

Big ups! It was cool.

CLAUDIA

Although not everybody was encouraging. The Fembots ^{Ed. Note: FEMBOTS = annoying 6th grade rich girls who look down on everybody else for not being rich/annoying enough} all ragged on it. Then again, they rag on everything.