There’s a guy who reviews cut-price food from his sofa, 

Another who debates the finer points of obscure media formats from behind a cardboard box, 

So Nigel knows he’s not so unusual, 

Even if he only lets you see his hands, 

And even if his channel primarily revolves around unboxing. 

(Although he has been known to rant about Marvel movies, 

And his eight-part series about the Snyder cut still has four hour-long episodes to go). 

With the support of his patrons –  

And he’s into double figures now – 

Nigel buys that latest book or Blu-ray they’re interested in, 

Gets it in early because he knows a guy in the trade 

(Or so he says), 

And breaks into the shrink-wrap for the camera. 

He knows how much the viewers want it to be them, 

Because he can feel it, even though the lens, 

And he needs those “likes”; he needs them to subscribe, 

And it feeds the frenzy, 

As he flicks through the discs and the pages, 

Leaving fingerprint smears and creases (or so say the comments; 

The – he thinks – envious, and oh-so-needy comments). 

But you can only be first the once, 

Or so he used to think, 

Until YouTube, 

Where he can be first always. 

And that’s worth the fingerprints. 

That’s worth the merch he puts straight into storage. 

That’s worth coming out of his box. 

Mike Hickman (@MikeHicWriter) is a writer from York, England. He has written for Off the Rock Productions (stage and audio), including 2018’s “Not So Funny Now” about Groucho Marx and Erin Fleming. He has recently been published in EllipsisZine, Dwelling Literary, Bandit Fiction, Nymphs, Flash Fiction Magazine, Brown Bag, and Safe and Sound Press. His co-written, completed six-part BBC radio sit com remains frustratingly as unproduced as it was the last time he updated this biography. Even so, it’s going on hiatus over the summer. Before returning as a Hollywood blockbuster. Perhaps direct-to-video. Unless Netflix are interested???