32-year-old Portland man chats with 12-year-old self in viral video

PORTLAND, Maine — Filmmaker and actor Jeremiah McDonald has given the world a gift with his latest YouTube video, “A Conversation With My 12 Year Old Self; 20th Anniversary Edition.”

In the video, a 32-year-old McDonald talks to his 12-year-old self about which of his pets have survived (none), whether his love of Doctor Who has endured (it has), and is reminded of his former passion for drawing.

The part of 12-year-old McDonald is played by 12-year-old McDonald. The video tape is the real deal, and appears to be an improvisational experiment by the pre-teen in which he pretended to have a conversation with his grown-up self.

“If I was going to fake it, I would’ve written it differently…but I was locked into what I improvised 20 years ago,” 32-year-old McDonald wrote in a tweet on Thursday.

Grown-up McDonald — who lives in Portland, Maine — is funny and polished and clearly a YouTube expert. He’s been posting popular videos like “Jazz Dispute” and “YouTube is My Life” to the site since 2006. But it’s young McDonald that you kind of can’t believe. He’s hyper and weird, and erratic, and dorky in the best sense of the word. The very definition of a budding theater kid.

“Getting older man, getting older! Get down. get oh yeah…” he sing-songs to his older self, before breaking into some strange dance move.

32-year-old McDonald clearly knew he had something special on his hands. “I don’t say this often…but please share this one,” he wrote in the description field under the video.

And people have. McDonald posted the video on Thursday and it has already racked up more than 65,000 likes and more than 1.2 million views.