John Green!
Has anyone here read John Green’s popular young adult novel Looking For Alaska? He has many others out as well, but that’s usually the first one that comes to mind. He’s an incredibly talented author, but what I didn’t know while I was reading his books is that he’s also a prominent and delightful Internet personality. He created a youtube channel back in 2007 with his brother, Hank, and with it has come an Internet community known as Nerdfighters. The Green brothers are all about being nerdy and awesome (their youtube “about me” is literally “Raising nerdy to the power of awesome”). Their channel is silly, heartwarming, and even educational (although, they have created spin-off channels to talk about history and science topics that they find fascinating so you’ll find less of that on their main channel, vlogbrothers). John Green has answered fans’ questions while drawing all over his face with sharpie (yeah), but has also posted videos discussing serious political issues (here). What I love most about this channel is that both John and Hank are incredibly educated and intelligent, but still use made-up words and incoherent sentences to get their point across (“you’ll find the link in the doobly-doo” is regularly used). John Green is a firm believer in the fact that being a “nerd” is a good thing: “…because nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff… Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can’t-control-yourself love it. Hank, when people call people nerds, mostly what they’re saying is ‘you like stuff.’ Which is just not a good insult at all. Like, ‘you are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness’.” This quote is the essence of the youtube channel (or maybe it’s Sharpie face, I don’t know) and it’s honestly really great. I hope you all check it out! http://www.youtube.com/vlogbrothers
One response so far
I was so hoping someone would post about John Green! I read Looking for Alaska like four years ago, and to this day it remains one of my favorite books. (Though Paper Towns is far superior, in my opinion.) As an author, John tends to write for the highest possible denominator. Like, even though people classify him as a young adult novelist, his writing defies any sort of expectation that it’ll be trashy and shallow. John expects his readers to be smart, and so his work is filled to the brim with complex metaphors and images. And that definitely translates into his videos. He encourages his audience to be smart and aware, and he does his best to educate while still being ridiculous and funny and charming. The same goes for Hank too, obviously. And together, they’re the Dynamic Duo. The Brothers Green : simultaneously making people laugh and making the world suck less since 2006.