Steve Grand has barely slept in days. He hasn't showered. He's lost weight. His family is worried that he isn't getting enough to eat. It's the 4th of July, and two days ago, the 23-year-old singer and Chicago native released his first music video, an independently produced pop-country love song, "All-American Boy," about one gay man's unrequited love for a straight man.

The story, based on Grand's own experiences as an out gay man, was relatively innocent. But as the video uploaded to YouTube, he tells BuzzFeed, he obsessed over how the world — especially his church, where he works as a wedding and funeral singer — might respond to its same-sex content. "I had no idea what people were gonna think," Grand says. "I had no idea how people were gonna respond. I couldn't sleep."

The video wasn't necessarily Grand's coming out. He'd done that officially years earlier, but doing this was a terrifying act of vulnerability. "It's me coming out as totally myself and just standing naked before the world," he says.

Despite the risk and fear, Grand says it was something he felt compelled to do. "I think that we're at a time now where there's no room to be anything but totally honest and totally who you are," he says. "I decided this is who I'm gonna be to the world. Just my true, raw self. I'm putting it all out there."

Within hours, the video racked up tens of thousands of views and hundreds of supportive comments from both gay and straight viewers who identified with the singer's heartache. "I'm still in awe," says Grand. "I'm not a crier, but the comments have been so overwhelmingly positive. They're thanking me for telling my story because they feel like it's a story that hasn't been told before. And that's all I could ever hope for."