Viral video: 32-year-old man chats with 12-year-old self

A YouTube video where 32-year-old actor and filmmaker Jeremiah McDonald talks to his 12-year-old self has gone viral, receiving more than two million views in just a few days.

McDonald, who lives in Portland, Maine, begins the four-minute piece with the title, “20 years ago I left a tape for myself.” The younger 12-year-old McDonald then appears on the screen, saying, “I think I’d like to talk to myself in the future.”

What follows is a skillfully edited chat between McDonald the Older and McDonald the Younger, covering subjects such as the state of his pets (they’re all dead now) and the Internet.

Of course, McDonald the Younger, speaking in 1992, has no idea what the Internet is, so McDonald the Older tries to explain: “It’s going to completely take over your life and you’re going to spend many hours sitting in room staring at a screen,” he tells his younger self.

While some have questioned the authenticity of the McDonald the Younger video, the creator assures viewers it’s genuine, tweeting, “If I was going to fake it, I would’ve written it differently…but I was locked into what I improvised 20 years ago.”

To us it looks like the real deal, culminating in an amusing, touching and above all entertaining piece which, incidentally, has so far received almost 80,000 likes on YouTube (against 483 dislikes). Check it out below.