Heartwarming / Sarah Z

• A small example, but in her The Once-ler — Tumblr's Weirdest Obsession video, Sarah notes that she's pretty sure there are still some Onceler fangirls out there and says "honestly, good for them", making it clear that she has no intention of shaming them for enjoying something that makes them happy.
• Why 'Friday' Was Made is a sincere apology to Rebecca Black for the sheer vitriol she experienced just because she made a song people didn't like - and received death threats at the age of twelve. The video outlines that twentysomething Rebecca Black continued on bravely and released more music, showing off talent that wasn't displayed in 'Friday'.
• Rise of the Doomer: Why So Many People Are Giving Up ends with a quote that Sarah applies to being part of a movement or cause - "a choir can sing a beautiful note impossibly long because singers can individually drop out to breathe as necessary and the note goes on".
• Her retrospective on Homestuck, while at times very critical of the creators and fandom, is ultimately a love letter to a very dedicated fan community. She explains how, even though the franchise took some strange directions and fandom dwindled in the late 2010s, Homestuck was a unique, complex, and sometimes beautiful experience that spawned a tight-knit, creative fan community. Endearingly, she even shows her and Emily's old fantrolls at one point.
• Near the end of her Dear Evan Hansen video, she brings up that Stephen Sondheim died while she was producing the video, and takes time to praise how he uses the medium of stage musicals to their full potential, with Into the Woods being her personal favorite musical.
• Lindsay Ellis making a voice cameo in ''The Horrifying Panopticon of West Elm Caleb" is heartwarming for multiple reasons.
  • First, Sarah has long been a fan of Lindsay before they became friends, so it's sweet that they finally collaborated.
  • Second, this video went up after Lindsay left YouTube, thanks to the exact same kind of harassment and dogpiling Sarah describes in the video, with Sarah even saying she regrets not doing more to stand up for Lindsay, making the latter's participation rather poignant.
  • Third, if you look at the comments, they're full of people saying they're glad to hear from Lindsay, they miss her, and they hope she's doing okay.
  • Lindsay also was in the chat when Sarah was doing a four-hour livestream with Emily while she visited Canada, and those in the chat were heartened to hear from her.
• In "I Was Wrong About Queerbaiting":
  • Sarah concludes that, due to the harmful real world impact the ever-increasing misuse of the term "queerbaiting" has had over the years — up to and including people being Forced Out of the Closet before they're ready due to accusations of queerbaiting and said accusations cutting off avenues for closeted queer people to explore their sexuality and/or gender identity — she feels like it'd be best to simply drop the term entirely and move on, declaring that she'd gladly let every big corporation that wants to queerbait if it meant that fewer queer people would be pressured and harassed into coming out of the closet.
  • One of the reasons Sarah believes that a lot of this happens is because people are seeking queer representation in the wrong places (namely big corporations) and recommends that people instead seek it from smaller, independent venues.
• In "You Should Watch Buffy Season 6", after a 90 minute defence of the infamous Season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and recapping how she feels the message of the season is still quite hopeful because it acknowledges the harshness of life and her own mental health struggles and she would take that over an unrealistic "life is always awesome", she finishes with...
  "If you're going to tell me to smile, I need to know you see me first."

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