Yesterday I Asked You…

In the modern world today, people are trampling over themselves to get some of the spotlight. However, you don’t need to fight for the spotlight; you just need to know when to sit back and let creativity drive itself to fame.

Jack Douglass, known online as his personality as jacksfilms, has acclaimed 4.7 million subscribers (as of 12/3/19) in the 13 years he’s been on YouTube. His most popular series, Yesterday I Asked You or YIAY, has expanded to nearly 500 episodes since February of 2015 and most of his fanbase participates in the challenges. Several miniseries have stemmed from YIAY including Roses are Red, where users write “Roses are red” poems, Fake Facts, where users create fake news facts and Fix Your…. Examples of the Fix Your… series are “Fix Your Pix” and “Fix Your Twitter Bios”. But by far, his most famous miniseries, with 8 episodes, is fixing and creating flags.

I have an adoration for flags and vexillology, the study of flags. So when I heard that one of Jack’s challenges was to design a flag for YIAY, I jumped on the opportunity. The rules were that it needed to have the word YIAY, and that it needed the color scheme of YIAY on it. I decided on a simple four-bar flag with the words “YESTERDAY I ASKED YOU” on it.

As I submitted the flag, I thought nothing of it. Jack has 4.7 million subscribers, and maybe 2 million were gonna submit flags. A few days later, Jack posted the video, and lo and behold… 

The flag was accepted.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. A simple little design, something that wasn’t even my best work, shown to over 4 million people on the Internet? I was beyond ecstatic.

He said the flag was simple and elegant, and that it kept the color scheme in mind and that it got the point of YIAY across. And I didn’t do anything except let my creativity run loose.