Losing his mother to cancer, a 9-year-old boy found comfort and joy making YouTube videos
Gabe Piccott lost his mother in October. Since then, online gaming videos have helped him through
Nine-year-old Gabe Piccott of Torbay has big dreams. His Christmas wish list was filled with microphones, lights and green screens — everything he needs to be the next big videographer.
That dream is increasingly within reach as Gabe rushes to his iPad with a new idea for his YouTube channel, Gabe's Wacky Life, each day after school.
The Grade 4 student straps on his virtual reality headset, logs into a game called Gorilla Tag and enters a different world.
Gabe started making videos three months ago. His mother, April Stowe, was sick with brain cancer.
"He didn't realize what he was doing," said Rob Piccott, Gabe's father. "But at the time, he was just making videos for his mom."
It was a way for her to feel her son's presence while she was alone in her hospital bed.
Even if she couldn't keep her eyes open to watch the videos of Gabe playing his favourite video games, she could hear his voice and connect with him despite the distance.
When Stowe died in October, Gabe turned that compassionate gesture into a passion.
"We're just trying to keep everything positive," his stepmother, Melissa Sarjoo-Piccott, told CBC News. "There's a lot of good … it's not just sad times."
To keep that positivity alive, Gabe's family encourages him to be creative and gives him the space to create all the videos he desires.
So, he clears out their living room and turns it into his personal studio.
Sarjoo-Piccott says she might not understand the content of Gabe's Wacky Life — with footage from his games overlaid with his lively voiceover and youthful slang — but it makes her happy to see how much fun he has.
Shooting for the sky
Gabe's goal is quite simple, he says.
When asked about his favourite part of creating videos, he said it's "entertaining people."
He had a modest goal of gaining 100 subscribers on his channel, so he asked his family to enlist the help of the internet. Piccott made a post on Facebook, without grand expectations.
"[Melissa] took my post and put it in a group with all women and moms, and the moms went crazy with it and shot him through the sky," said Piccott.
Now, Gabe is just shy of 2,000 subscribers.
He says he couldn't believe his skyrocketing audience, speechless watching the numbers climb.
Since that post, the family says they've been blown away by the kindness of strangers.
Other parents have connected Gabe with their children so they can play video games together and he's been slammed with positive comments and feedback.
That support has been providing friendship and a distraction during hard times, says Sarjoo-Piccott.
"To be known and to be accepted for what you like is always a good thing," she said.
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