Vlogbrothers
Encyclopedia
The Vlogbrothers are two American
vloggers, John Green and Hank Green
, who host a YouTube
channel together. The two began with their Brotherhood 2.0 project before continuing their channel as regular vloggers. While they frequently use their channel to educate their viewers, the Green brothers also claim their vlog has no true format. “Really, it's not about anything in particular. Whether we're talking about our lives, making each other laugh, or trying to get something more important across, people seem to enjoy it.”
and Hank Green
in 2007. It started on January 1st of that year with the premise that the brothers would cease all text-based communication for a year and instead converse by video blogs
every weekday, made available to the public via YouTube
and on their Brotherhood 2.0 website. On July 18, 2007, Hank Green uploaded a video of himself playing and singing his song "Accio Deathly Hallows" in honour of the seventh Harry Potter book. This video was the first Vlogbrothers video to make the front page of YouTube, and the starting point of the brothers' success as vloggers. The project supposedly ended on December 31st, 2007, but due to their popularity, the brothers continued making videos even after the final day had passed.
The duo also created a sub-project of Vlogbrothers called Truth or Fail, an interactive game show on Youtube that is most frequently hosted by Hank in addition to a variety of guest hosts including Charlie McDonnell
, Elmify, and many more.
On January 21, 2010, John Green went on paternity leave and "Secret Sister" Maureen Johnson
made videos in his place until February 10, 2010. John's only vlog during that period was on January 28, when he read from J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye
as a eulogy/tribute to the author. Miles, the narrator of Green's first novel Looking for Alaska
, is frequently compared to the narrator of The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield
. John Green introduced his son Henry Green upon his return to vlogging on February 15, 2010.
is an annual conference for people who love online video. The conference was created by the Vlogbrothers in response to the growing online video community. Hank states, “We wanted to get as much of the online video community together, in one place, in the real world for a weekend. It's a celebration of the community, with performances, concerts, and parties; but it's also a discussion of the explosion in community-based online video.”. The event draws many popular YouTube users, as well as their fans, and provides room for the community to interact. Also the event hosts an industry conference for businesses working in the online video field. The first Vidcon was hosted in July 2010. The second Vidcon took place on July 28–30, 2011.
Nerdfighters, no matter why they personally chose to adopt the term, unite under the mantra of being “made of awesome,” as stated by John and Hank, and are banded by the idea of fighting to make the world a better place, and eliminating the negative aspects of the world (referred to as “worldsuck”). More generally, a nerdfighter can be described as a person who enjoys learning for themselves for their own entertainment and benefit, rejoicing with others who enjoy a similar ideal, and being an individual who wishes to help make the world a better place through a tight-knit community that spans the globe. Nerdfighteria is an open community, and anyone can join. The only rules of the community are: 1) Don’t be mean, and 2) DFTBA (an initialism, not an acronym, as an acronym is pronounceable) coined by the Vlogbrothers meaning: Don’t Forget to Be Awesome.
The Vlogbrothers interact directly with the Nerdfighting community and the community aids the Vlogbrothers’ various endeavors, primarily by promoting and supporting Hank as a musician and John as a novelist. Nerdfighters also participate in different events including the Project for Awesome, raising $10,000 for the This Star Won’t Go Out campaign (a cancer benefit fund), lending over $100,000 to entrepreneurs in developing countries on Kiva
, and various personal projects of individual nerdfighters. Nerdfighters tend to interact through community events, but primarily via social media, including but not limited to: YouTube
, Tumblr
, Twitter
, Ning
, and a community wiki.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
vloggers, John Green and Hank Green
Hank Green
William Henry "Hank" Green II is a professional vlogger and entrepreneur. He is the founder of VidCon and EcoGeek.org and the co-founder of DFTBA Records. He is also a singer/songwriter and has released three studio albums...
, who host a YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
channel together. The two began with their Brotherhood 2.0 project before continuing their channel as regular vloggers. While they frequently use their channel to educate their viewers, the Green brothers also claim their vlog has no true format. “Really, it's not about anything in particular. Whether we're talking about our lives, making each other laugh, or trying to get something more important across, people seem to enjoy it.”
Brotherhood 2.0 Project
Brotherhood 2.0 was a project created by JohnJohn Green
John Willison Green is a retired Canadian journalist and a leading researcher into the Bigfoot phenomenon. He is a graduate of both the University of British Columbia and Columbia University and has a database of more than 3000 sighting and track reports, leading some to affectionately refer to...
and Hank Green
Hank Green
William Henry "Hank" Green II is a professional vlogger and entrepreneur. He is the founder of VidCon and EcoGeek.org and the co-founder of DFTBA Records. He is also a singer/songwriter and has released three studio albums...
in 2007. It started on January 1st of that year with the premise that the brothers would cease all text-based communication for a year and instead converse by video blogs
Vlog
Video blogging, sometimes shortened to vlogging or vidding or vidblogging is a form of blogging for which the medium is video, and is a form of Web television. Entries often combine embedded video or a video link with supporting text, images, and other metadata. Entries can be recorded in one take...
every weekday, made available to the public via YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
and on their Brotherhood 2.0 website. On July 18, 2007, Hank Green uploaded a video of himself playing and singing his song "Accio Deathly Hallows" in honour of the seventh Harry Potter book. This video was the first Vlogbrothers video to make the front page of YouTube, and the starting point of the brothers' success as vloggers. The project supposedly ended on December 31st, 2007, but due to their popularity, the brothers continued making videos even after the final day had passed.
Vlogbrothers after Brotherhood 2.0
In their December 31, 2007 video, the brothers revealed their decision to continue vlogging even though the project had ended. Following the conclusion of Brotherhood 2.0, a website was set up for their community, known as nerdfighters, at http://www.nerdfighters.com. The website was originally maintained solely by Hank Green, but is now updated and moderated by a group of community volunteers known as the “Ningmasters.” New projects, videos and discussions, as well as groups and forums entirely made by the Vlogbrother fan community are uploaded daily. The brothers' videos continue to be the basis of the international community known as Nerdfighteria.The duo also created a sub-project of Vlogbrothers called Truth or Fail, an interactive game show on Youtube that is most frequently hosted by Hank in addition to a variety of guest hosts including Charlie McDonnell
Charlie McDonnell
Charles Joseph "Charlie" McDonnell is a British vlogger and musician from Bath, Somerset, England. , his YouTube channel, charlieissocoollike, is the most subscribed in the UK...
, Elmify, and many more.
On January 21, 2010, John Green went on paternity leave and "Secret Sister" Maureen Johnson
Maureen Johnson
Maureen Johnson is an American author of young adult fiction. She has published eight young adult novels to date, including the Suite Scarlett series and The Last Little Blue Envelope. Johnson is also the founder of the political networking site .-Early life:Maureen Johnson is a graduate of the...
made videos in his place until February 10, 2010. John's only vlog during that period was on January 28, when he read from J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye is a 1951 novel by J. D. Salinger. Originally published for adults, it has since become popular with adolescent readers for its themes of teenage confusion, angst, alienation, language, and rebellion. It has been translated into almost all of the world's major...
as a eulogy/tribute to the author. Miles, the narrator of Green's first novel Looking for Alaska
Looking for Alaska
Looking for Alaska is the first young adult novel by John Green, published in March 2005 by Dutton Juvenile. It won the 2006 Michael L. Printz Award from the American Library Association...
, is frequently compared to the narrator of The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield
Holden Caulfield
Holden Caulfield is the 16-to-17 years old protagonist of author J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. He is universally recognized for his resistance to growing older and desire to protect childhood innocence...
. John Green introduced his son Henry Green upon his return to vlogging on February 15, 2010.
Project for Awesome
In 2007, John and Hank introduced the charity project entitled the Project for Awesome (P4A), a project in which YouTube users take two days, traditionally December 17 and 18, to create videos promoting charities or nonprofit organizations of their choosing. These videos are then uploaded to YouTube, the idea being to inundate YouTube’s Most Viewed and Most Discussed lists with videos about and promoting charity. The third annual P4A in 2009 dominated the YouTube popularity charts, ending the event with solely P4A videos appearing on approximately the first half a dozen pages of the lists for Most Viewed, Most Commented, and Most Favorited. In addition, the hashtag #P4A reached the number one trending topic on Twitter, and remained on the list without fail throughout the entire event. The 2010 Project for Awesome raised over $100,000 for charity. As the Project for Awesome has become an annual tradition, YouTube has become increasingly more involved, contributing to the event in major ways (hosting livefeeds of the event, providing space and equipment for the hosting of P4A events, etc.).VidCon
VidConVidCon
VidCon is the world's first and largest Online Video Conference/Convention. Organized by Hank and John Green of the Vlogbrothers YouTube channel, VidCon is the largest gathering of the online video community that draws millions of subscribers and billions of views.-VidCon 2010:The first VidCon was...
is an annual conference for people who love online video. The conference was created by the Vlogbrothers in response to the growing online video community. Hank states, “We wanted to get as much of the online video community together, in one place, in the real world for a weekend. It's a celebration of the community, with performances, concerts, and parties; but it's also a discussion of the explosion in community-based online video.”. The event draws many popular YouTube users, as well as their fans, and provides room for the community to interact. Also the event hosts an industry conference for businesses working in the online video field. The first Vidcon was hosted in July 2010. The second Vidcon took place on July 28–30, 2011.
Nerdfighters
Nerdfighters are members of the open-to-all internet community that has grown around the Vlogbrothers. The community is often referred to broadly as Nerdfighteria, and consists of YouTube users; fans of John Green, Hank Green, or the Vlogbrothers show; as well as people who adopt the term because they believe they fit in with the community. The term was coined by John when he encountered an arcade game by the name "Aerofighters" which he mistakenly read as "Nerdfighters" . While it was initially passed up as a joke, the term Nerdfighter was quickly adopted as the name for the community that rose up around the Vlogbrothers and the Brotherhood 2.0 project.Nerdfighters, no matter why they personally chose to adopt the term, unite under the mantra of being “made of awesome,” as stated by John and Hank, and are banded by the idea of fighting to make the world a better place, and eliminating the negative aspects of the world (referred to as “worldsuck”). More generally, a nerdfighter can be described as a person who enjoys learning for themselves for their own entertainment and benefit, rejoicing with others who enjoy a similar ideal, and being an individual who wishes to help make the world a better place through a tight-knit community that spans the globe. Nerdfighteria is an open community, and anyone can join. The only rules of the community are: 1) Don’t be mean, and 2) DFTBA (an initialism, not an acronym, as an acronym is pronounceable) coined by the Vlogbrothers meaning: Don’t Forget to Be Awesome.
The Vlogbrothers interact directly with the Nerdfighting community and the community aids the Vlogbrothers’ various endeavors, primarily by promoting and supporting Hank as a musician and John as a novelist. Nerdfighters also participate in different events including the Project for Awesome, raising $10,000 for the This Star Won’t Go Out campaign (a cancer benefit fund), lending over $100,000 to entrepreneurs in developing countries on Kiva
Kiva (organization)
Kiva Microfunds is an organization that allows people to lend money via the Internet to microfinance institutions in developing countries around the world and in the United States, which in turn lend the money to small businesses and students...
, and various personal projects of individual nerdfighters. Nerdfighters tend to interact through community events, but primarily via social media, including but not limited to: YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, Tumblr
Tumblr
Tumblr is a website and microblogging platform that allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. Users can follow other users, or choose to make their tumblelog private. The service emphasizes ease of use. The site ranks as the 10th...
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
, Ning
Ning
Ning is an online platform for people and organizations to create custom social networks, launched in October 2005. Ning offers customers the ability to create a community website with a customized appearance and feel, feature sets such as photos, videos, forums and blogs, and the service layers in...
, and a community wiki.
Recurring Themes
- The opposite of a Nerdfighter is known as a DecepticonDecepticonThe Decepticons are usually depicted as the antagonists in the fictional universes of the Transformers stoyline and related comics and cartoons, and the enemies of the Autobots and the University of California Davis Aggies...
. (Named after the infamous enemies of the AutobotAutobotAutobot, a faction of sentient robots from the planet Cybertron, are usually the main protagonists in the fictional universe of the Transformers, a collection of various toys, graphic novels, paperback books, cartoons and movies first introduced in 1984. In all but one Transformer story, the...
s TransformersTransformersA transformer is a device that transfers electrical energy from one circuit to another by magnetic coupling.Transformer may also refer to:* ASUS Eee Pad Transformer, an Android 3.2 Honeycomb tablet computer manufacturer by Asus...
based on their shared characteristic of being a team of villains as opposed to a single villain with many subservient henchmen.)
- Every so often John takes on "Question Tuesdays" (which can actually occur on any day of the week) where he answers some of their commenters' questions.
- The Foundation to Decrease WorldSuck was created with the intention to "decrease world suck" by donating money given to the foundation to worthy causes.
- The Evil Baby Orphanage was a proposal to use a time machine to kidnap historical despots in infancy (e.g., baby Hitler) and pre-habilitate them at a mountain retreat in TibetTibetTibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
.
- Hank used to post amusing songs every other Wednesday (hence the day being called "Song Wednesday"). The most famous of these, "Accio Deathly Hallows", was the first Brotherhood 2.0 video to be featured on the YouTube front page.
- "The Yeti" is a nickname for John's wife, Sarah, who has never appeared on the vlog (John, when asked why, insists that "her cute would break the camera"), although viewers will sometimes hear her voice or see an occasional appendage. However, Hank's wife Katherine (sometimes referred to as "The Katherine") will occasionally appear.
- Viewers who post unkind things on the YouTube comments have been given the name "Giant Squids of Anger" and are not considered Nerdfighterly.
- "In Your/My Pants" was a term created by fellow YA author Maureen JohnsonMaureen JohnsonMaureen Johnson is an American author of young adult fiction. She has published eight young adult novels to date, including the Suite Scarlett series and The Last Little Blue Envelope. Johnson is also the founder of the political networking site .-Early life:Maureen Johnson is a graduate of the...
and was originally intended to be added to the end of a book title (e.g., Pooh Gets Stuck... In My Pants). It grew to be the name of a forum on the Nerdfighters website, an online picture book "Everyone Poops In My Pants", and the website Your Pants http://www.yourpants.org/, run by John and Hank Green.
- Both brothers and many Nerdfighters have 'happy dances' that they perform when they are happy.
- The "stuff on your head" phenomenon is the idea, popularized by John and Hank, that "if you put stuff on your head it makes you feel better about life". The original "stuff on heads" reference was made in Hank's video on March 20, 2007.
- "French The Llama" is a term coined by Nerdfighter Kristen Franklin during the Project For Awesome 2009. During a live show, John repeatedly saw Nerdfighters posting "worldsuck FTL" in the comments, and inquired as to what it meant. While everyone else gave him the actual meaning ("For The Lose"), Kristen claimed it meant "French The Llama", to which John replied, "That seems like a very bad idea". To date, it is now an exclamation of amazement meaning something along the lines of "holy cow!". First usage in a Vlogbrothers video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_hF4whnBt4 (it is not yet "a thing", however, despite John's best efforts)