Gender & Pronouns: Demi man, he/him
Date of Birth: July 10th, 1984 (36)
Place of Birth: Busan, South Korea
Length of Residency: Since August 1989 — Returned January 2017
Occupation: YouTube Personality and Yoga Instructor
Jay (born Song Jae-eun) didn’t remember much of the place that he was born. In fact, as far as he was concerned when he was growing up, his life started at five years old when his family moved to Santa Catalina Island in the United States of America (a fact he would one day become extremely saddened by). His father had recently remarried to a woman that could only have been described as the epitome of a California girl at the time. She’d been a walking cliché. Blonde hair, deep tan, short-shorts, constantly walking around with a surf-board under her arm. If he’d been old enough he might have understood it, but he really, really hadn’t at the time. She was one of the kindest people he’d ever come to know, though, constantly doing things for charity and raising money at every opportunity. A journalist that his father had met on a day out a little further north. It was an odd match, but it seemed to work.
His schooling and the childhood that followed was pretty average on the whole, he excelled in mathematics, but only had an interest in one thing. Acting. As he grew he realized pretty quickly it was all that he wanted out of life. He spent his days involving himself in school productions and talent shows, attended every audition he could track down and frequently got the ferry out to the mainland. His father wasn’t particularly impressed by any of it, but his step-mother encouraged it, even if she didn’t entirely agree either. Despite his continuous efforts, though, he only ever managed to land a couple of commercials.
When he graduated high school he chose to opt out of going to college, something he knew came as a major disappointment to his father. He had always wanted to make him proud, ever since he was small, but over the years he became a law unto himself. Jay was the type of person to wear his heart on his sleeve at all times and he found it almost impossible not to follow his dreams, even if it ended up hurting others in the process. So he dug down and he attended audition after audition, took on extra work in his spare time, worked nights at a diner on the island. He did whatever he could to give himself every opportunity going. It didn’t matter what he did, though, it never seemed to work out for him, the best he could ever do, it seemed, was commercials for toothpaste and ‘coffee drinker number 2’ in the background of some TV pilot.
Hope came a couple of years later when he managed to bag an audition for what he could only describe as the dream role. The decision to take a friend along with him, however, proved to be the wrong one, when his friend was the one who ended up winning the part. It was safe to say that following that day, their friendship took a rather dramatic turn into nonexistent.
Several months later, Jay chose to move to New York City and try and get onto Broadway, much to his family’s dismay. He took what little money he had saved and hopped on a bus, with absolutely no plan to what he was going to do when he got there. It was risky, he knew that, but he wasn’t going to let anything stop him now, he knew what he wanted and he’d do whatever he had to, to try and get it. The problem was that this plan, much like his others over the years, failed too. He was left disappointed over and over again, forced to work several jobs to keep a roof over his head —- in the end finding himself as a city bus tour guide. The pay was awful but the tips were fantastic if he entertained the tourists enough. Somehow he managed to make it work, even if he wasn’t having any success at all in following his dreams. Heading home was out of the question, afraid he would be greeted by shouts of ‘I told you so!’.
It was a couple of years before Jay’s life took a turn for the better and he met the woman that was to be his wife. Some would have said it was a whirlwind romance, but it was a year before they were married and another six months before their family of two became three. Not long after that, what was once a part-time venture of hers soon turned into a fulltime job for them both as the YouTube channel she’d launched a couple of years prior saw a surge in popularity when she turned the focus on her family. Before either one of them knew what was happening it had taken over their lives in a way they couldn’t have possibly imagined. He was glad to have something to focus on, though, and had found over the years that acting wasn’t exactly his thing, but apparently the real him was something that people really wanted to see. Even during his early days in the city he should have realized that, evenings spent entertaining customers in TGI Fridays by relaying silly stories that made their evening that little bit brighter.
For years they made it work, their family expanded and the popularity only grew, their subscribers following them through everything. But then things changed, Jay discovered a lump and was soon diagnosed with testicular cancer. He very quickly stepped away from the channel and very quickly stepped away from his wife and children, too. For him, it was easier to deal with it alone and he wasn’t going to give them much choice in the matter. He was told he was stupid time and time again, but once he’d made a decision, he very rarely went back on it.
Following a year of back and forth, surgery and an intensive course of chemotherapy, he was told he was in remission. What he should have done in that moment was to go back to his family, but instead, he chose to travel to South Korea to finally meet the family he had out there.
A period of self-discovery was something that he quickly realized he needed. He spent a good six months out in Busan, staying with a cousin that he’d only ever spoken to via social media up to that point, exploring the city that he was born in. He took the time to visit some of the temples there and get more of an understanding of Buddhism, a practice that he wanted to bring into his everyday life. He also finally came to terms with something that had been plaguing his mind for years, the fact that on some days he didn’t feel entirely male. It wasn’t something that he’d ever chosen to discuss, keeping it to himself, somehow unable to say the words until then. A shake up of his entire life was what he’d needed to become exactly who he needed to be.
When Jay returned to the States again, it was to his family in New York. Things were different now, but he wanted them to be at a place of understanding before he made any other kind of move. He and his wife made the decision to get a divorce, even if deep down they both did care about one another a lot. As far as work was concerned, their YouTube channel became solely hers again and her adventures with the children —- what had happened with Jay never came up and she left it open for him to address if he ever wanted to.
He eventually made the move back to Catalina Island with the intention of starting over and reconnecting with his father and step-mother, not to mention the friends of his younger years. After settling back down, he launched his own YouTube channel, a platform to speak about his various experiences over the years and how he’d come through it all stronger. He also took up yoga in a big way, having found a passion during his time in Busan, training up to become an instructor and taking classes on the beach every Sunday morning. His children now come to stay with him during school vacation time and his ex-wife visits in a ‘just good friends’ capacity. That’s one thing that will never change between them, their undeniable friendship, something Jay will always be grateful for.
Positive: Honest | Adaptable | Self-sufficient
Negative: Petty | Fanciful | Messy
Jay Song is portrayed by Heather.
