Tyler Oakley Interview at SXSW 2014

For film, music, and digital geeks, the annual pilgrimage to South by Southwest is basically one week devoted to superfanning out. At the conference, Top That! cohost, YouTube star, and professional fangirl extraordinaire Tyler Oakley paired up with fellow hilarious YouTuber-in-crime Grace Helbig, Bravo's Andy Cohen, and BuzzFeed's Ze Frank to talk about their Super Fandom in the Digital Age. The group talked about everything from the one social network you keep for yourself (Snapchat, in Tyler's case) to how to keep being and doing you even with hundreds — OK, millions — of followers. Pro tip: be true to yourself, in social media and in business.

After the panel, we talked to funny friends Tyler and Grace on navigating the world of social media, group texts (ugh), and the critical issue of our time, emojis.

POPSUGAR: Which emoji appears at the top of your most recently used in iMessage?

Tyler Oakley: Oh, the smirky!

Grace Helbig: The winky smirk or the side smile smirk?

TO: The side smile. But when I'm flirting and gross, I do the tongue winking, which . . . I don't know if that translates to sexy?

GH: I love the sunglasses. I use sunglasses emoji, because on Gchat, they get animated. They turn and they blink, which is hilarious when you put 50 of them together and they all turn at the same time. But otherwise, I just send slices of pizza all the time; interpret it as you will.

PS: Most used emoji is one thing, but what is your emoji spirit animal?

GH: I'm that old man with the bald head and the gray hair on the sides, who's just having a great time.

TO: I'm the woman who's going like this [raises hand]. She's just like, "Ughhhh. What? What do you want?!"

PS: We can't live without texting, but sometimes people have some bad habits with it. What are those texting crimes you can't deal with or wish you could quit?

GH: My worst texting thing is that I will forget to text people back.

TO: Me. Too.

GH: I'll look at it on my phone and be like, "OK, I will text them back in a second." Put my phone down, answer some emails, and then just instantly forget about it. And then I'll see it and go, "Oh. Well, there went that relationship."

TO: Unwanted group chats, where you can't get out of the group chat. And you're like, "I don't care about these people." Or, someone includes a million people and you don't know any of the phone numbers. And you're like, "This is not what I signed up for." But if you leave a group message on Facebook, it says, "Tyler has left this conversation," and it's very dramatic. Especially when other people are like, "Hey, y'all, can you please support this cause?" . . . "Tyler's left this conversation."

PS: Obviously, we wouldn't be at SXSW Interactive if we didn't love technology, but it can be frustrating to a ridiculous level. What is your personal techy first-world problem?

TO: When my laptop's really hot on my legs! And I have to go find a nice pillow to separate it [from my lap]. That is the struggle. I think I'm going to lose all sense of my legs in like 10 years.

GH: When my wireless mouse battery dies . . .

TO: You have a wireless mouse?!

GH: For my desktop computer. You've been to my place; you've seen it. It's the highlight of all my videos. I would say when my mouse battery dies, even though it's warned me for days and days it's about to die, and I don't have batteries to back it up. Life sucks.

TO: I just a got a TV, and I have four clickers. I just went through a range of emotions about it. So I just don't watch TV. I can't be bothered.

PS: GIFs and the Internet just won't let some slang die (ahem, "fetch"). What phrases would you like to bring back to the online world?

GH: This is a phrase I love so much: "WTF*ck." Instead of saying, "WTF — WTF*ck."

TO: I like when people say, "What to heck," because Bill Ray Cyrus once tweeted, "What to heck." So now I have to say it.

GH: In what context?

What to heck ????

— Billy Ray Cyrus (@billyraycyrus) May 19, 2013

TO: That's all he said: "What to heck." Instead of "What the heck" or "What the f*ck." I'm always like, "What to heck," but no one knows, so I would like that to be a thing.

GH: I still like "I can haz."

TO: Oh, you're still in that phase.

GH: Sorry, I'm an old person.

PS: OK, guide us here. When should someone completely refrain from tweeting?

Source: Reddit user upvoteking01

TO: When you're in love! I don't want to see lovey tweets or crushy tweets.

GH: I hate when people tweet at their significant other and they have a conversation with each other on Twitter . . . You guys, I think, have each other's phone numbers.

TO: It's literally gloating their love. I'm like, "Go home. I can't wait for you to break up."

GH: You just shouldn't tweet or Facebook at each other when you're in love.

Take note, Interwebz.