| Vlogbrothers | |
|---|---|
Hank and John Green |
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| Known for | Video Blogging |
| Years active | 2007 - present |
| Website | http://www.youtube.com/vlogbrothers |
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.”[1]
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Brotherhood 2.0 was a project created by John 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.[2][3] 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.Now Hank and John continue to create vlogs, but less frequently (every Tuesday and Friday, as of 2012).
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, 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.
In 2007, John and Hank introduced the charity project entitled the Project for Awesome (P4A),[4] 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 and 2011 Projects for Awesome each 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 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.”.[5] 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 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" .[6] 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”).[7] 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.[8]
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.
Notable "Nerdfighters" include actor Wil Wheaton, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and internet vlogger Charlie McDonnell.
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