How a Prankster Taught Me to Be Positive

Within the last few months, a prankster on YouTube came out with a disgraceful prank involving sexually harassing young women (that video has been taken down). I believe that even though some people do not have good intentions when pulling pranks, there is one YouTube prankster who is making sure he spreads a positive message to his fans of all ages. "Always remember to smile more!" -- that is how YouTube prankster Roman Atwood ends his daily vlogs, reminding his viewers to be positive.

Roman Atwood is a prankster on YouTube with over 4.5 million subscribers on his prank channel. Atwood shares his life, along with his family's, everyday on his vlog channel which has over 1.1 million subscribers. Roman Atwood started out making sketch comedy bits on YouTube with his hometown friends. Eventually, Atwood began pulling pranks on people (and most notably police officers) in his home state of Ohio. These pranks were surprising to the person being pranked but still caused people to laugh all over the world while watching them. Atwood began to become known as the "cop prankster" and his audience grew.

Then, Roman decided to start daily vlogging his life. However, his vlogs did not only include clips from his life but messages of positivity to his fans reminding them everyday to "smile more!" -- a slogan for his fans. I started watching RomanAtwoodVlogs this year and I have been hooked ever since. I went through a tough time during 2014 because of my anxiety disorder. Watching YouTube has always been a coping mechanism for me, but once I started watching Atwood, I learned that just coping with what I was going through was not going to make it go away. I had to take proactive steps in helping myself.

I started to make sure I was smiling more and being more positive in my daily life. Thanks to Roman's vlogs I began to look at my life in a more positive way. I thought if Roman's positivity can have this much of an impact on me then maybe if I was positive I could help someone else. I am now making sure I enjoy the little things in life, savoring all those moments with family and friends. I, now, make sure I go out and enjoy my life instead of worrying if I am going to have an anxiety attack if I take the chance and go out. I don't really worry about what people think of me, I just laugh it off.

So, to Roman and his family, thank you! Thank you for helping me and millions of others realize that being more positive is not all that hard, you just have to "smile more!"