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collective action

concept · in 109 videos (2007–2026)

People acting together to do what individuals cannot, which John named in 2007 the Law of Compound Nerdfighting. The brothers return to it often, arguing that real work is done in collaboration and no one changes the world alone.

Videos by year: 2007: 2 · 2009: 1 · 2010: 2 · 2011: 3 · 2012: 5 · 2013: 4 · 2014: 4 · 2015: 1 · 2016: 2 · 2017: 3 · 2018: 5 · 2019: 4 · 2020: 8 · 2021: 10 · 2022: 8 · 2023: 17 · 2024: 6 · 2025: 12 · 2026: 12

Also known as: 100 nerdfighters as a group can do things 100 individuals couldn't, we change it as an electorate, when it goes beyond just two brothers

Threads

Also named in the threads: Nerdfighteria's team for the DARPA Network Challenge (red balloons) (2009) · Hank asks viewers to help keep the internet free from anti-piracy bills (2011) · John's AFC Wimbledon FIFA series on HankGames, whose ad revenue sponsors the real AFC Wimbledon with Nerdfighter-designed ads (2013)

Questions

Often together

What comes up in the same parts of the videos; the number is how many parts.

hope (10) · Crash Course coin (3) · tuberculosis (7) · climate change (5) · optimism (2) · curiosity (2) · Crash Course (6) · Project for Awesome (8) · An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (3) · Complexly (3)

What the videos say

The most important statements of each year; all statements.

2007

2009

  • 2009-12-03 (said on 2009-12-04, implied) · $40,000 of Red Balloons — Hank says he, John, the Nerdfighters and YouTube are unusually good at being a tight-knit community that is geographically disparate, making this a chance to 'prove our awesome'. — 00:00:30

2010

  • 2010-05-17 · My YouTube Story is Short — Hank says he is far prouder that people chose to work with them on those projects, since without those people the projects would be nothing. — 00:01:34
    • Hank argues the real story of YouTube is groups of people who do things and have fun together though they rarely occupy the same physical space. — 00:01:40
  • 2010-12-20 · Thoughts on the Project for Awesome — Hank stresses that most of the money came from small donations: thousands of individuals giving what they can, adding up to a huge number. — 00:02:38

2011

  • 2011-09-12 · Adorable Baby and Insufficient Cartography — John says the great thing is that the brothers are not the only Nerdfighters: thousands work together through YouTube comments, Twitter, Tumblr, the Ning and Your Pants to improve the maps, making better maps than anyone could alone. — 00:01:50
  • 2011-09-14 (said on 2011-09-15, implied) · How to Make Ideas Real: Readit1st.com — Hank says he created ReadIt1st for the world but with Nerdfighters, a resource only he and John have, and thanks them for everything they have created together. — 00:03:20
  • 2011-10-07 · Steve Jobs and a Song — Hank: The song says there is so much to be done and many people to do it; it can be hard, but together we get through it, because nobody does it all alone. — 00:01:14
    • Hank says the normal everyday things, like taking care of kids, emptying septic tanks, learning, having fun and being silly, are what make the world work. — 00:02:34

2012

  • 2012-01-20 · Thoughts on SOPA From New Orleans — Hank is extremely proud that the internet banded together, an amorphous anarchy becoming a solid block against the threat, and cast it aside. — 00:02:01
  • 2012-06-08 · How to be More Productive...With Hank! — Hank says he can be more productive because he has help: teams at VidCon, DFTBA Records, SciShow and Crash Course. — 00:02:35
    • Hank says the project with John taught him that he likes to collaborate and be on a team, though none of his collaborators is as good as John. — 00:02:51
  • 2012-08-24 · Happy Birthday John Green! — In the description Hank thanks everyone who is part of what the brothers do: no one does anything alone, and that is truer for the two of them than anyone. — video description
    • Hank says he is impressed that John never forgets their achievements owe more to the people who do things with him than to himself. — 00:01:42
  • 2012-09-21 · You. Must. Vote. — Hank: To 'one vote can't matter', Hank says voting is a community activity: one vote may not decide who wins, but every vote counts toward how politicians perceive their electorate. — 00:00:50
  • 2012-10-16 · Burning Peeps, My OTP, and Velociraptors: It's Question Tuesday — John: From a year of teaching world history, John says humans generally get less miserable when they collaborate and get totally hosed when they choose ideology over actual humans. — 00:03:02

2013

  • 2013-05-31 · Optimism is Not Insane — Hank says every year we avoid the apocalypse not through one superhero but by working together as activists, scientists, writers, politicians and even bureaucrats: we are the superhero, together. — 00:02:27
    • Hank says it is not just super-smart people but all of us working together to make the world work; we are good at solving problems, but they do not solve themselves. — 00:03:20
  • 2013-09-24 · Started from the Bottom: Benjamin Franklin and Drake Compared — John says the idea of the self-made individual who builds a successful career on their own is deeply flawed; as long as we believe it, we collaborate too little and judge others too often. — 00:02:26
  • 2013-10-22 · Question Tuesday: The Fault in Our Stars Movie Edition — John: Massive collaboration of hundreds of people makes movies possible, which is why John argues the urge to collaborate, not curiosity, is the most important human trait. (hedged) — 00:03:24
    • Many animals are curious, John argues, but only humans can cooperate to make online communities, space telescopes, Imaginariums and movies. (hedged) — 00:03:24
    • The great thrill of the film experience was seeing humanity do what John thinks it does best: not competing but cooperating, though we do compete a lot. (hedged) — 00:03:24
    • John tells Hank directly he disagrees: cooperation, not curiosity, though he might be wrong and Hank, usually right, is probably right. (hedged) — 00:03:24
  • 2013-10-25 · When Was it a Million Seconds Ago? — Hank: Returning to the earlier conversation, Hank allows the best quality may instead be our capacity and tendency to collaborate to make things bigger than ourselves. (hedged) — 00:02:42

2014

  • 2014-03-25 · I Gotta Go: Signing Off and Thinking about Inspiration — John says we imagine creative work as singular feats of genius, like James Joyce writing Ulysses or Beyoncé's surprise album, but even they rely on vast networks of influence. — 00:02:36
  • 2014-10-07 · I Kind of Hate Batman — John asks why we celebrate the vigilante ambitions of individual billionaires, when the real work among humans is done in collaboration, not isolation. — 00:03:05
  • 2014-10-10 · I Kinda AM Batman — Hank says Batman reflects our anger, ambition and powerlessness, and simplifies all of us who do the good that makes the world work: we are all bat-people. — 00:01:15
    • Hank says our vigilantism is everyday: building roads, teaching children, cleaning sewers, inventing light bulbs, caring for each other and bettering ourselves. — 00:01:41
  • 2014-11-13 · The History of Pizza and the History of John: Pizzamas Day 4 — John: history is not really about great individuals but an ongoing collaboration among everyone who has lived. — 00:02:11

2015

  • 2015-03-20 · A Sacrifice of Individuality and the Internets — Hank says from the stage he sees both a human herd jumping in unison and individuals deciding; in an audience or crowdfunding campaign he feels his actions matter only in combination with many others. — 00:02:38

2016

2017

2018

  • 2018-07-13 · Why Do So Few Countries Have Nukes? — Hank: Decades of non-proliferation and only two wartime uses are a remarkable testament to people working together. — 00:08:36
  • 2018-09-11 · Surprise . . . — John sponsored groups and teams because An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is a beautiful exploration of what humans can accomplish when they collaborate effectively. — 00:02:55
    • From rugby fields to robotics labs, John says, we really can accomplish so much more together than alone. — 00:03:24
  • 2018-09-18 · On the Participation Trophy — John thinks we need to raise teammates who know how to collaborate and strive together; in short, we all need to learn how to participate. (hedged) — 00:03:24
  • 2018-10-23 · Why Are Humans Suddenly Getting Better at Tetris? — John: Humanity is better at Tetris because enthusiasts built spaces online and off that connect people over a usually solitary hobby. — 00:02:44
  • 2018-12-11 · When the Internet Came Home — John says what he loves about the internet is also what he fears about it: we can do so much more together than alone. — 00:03:21

2019

  • 2019-03-05 · Way, Way Down the Rabbit Hole — John says mysteries large and small usually aren't solved by one person: we talk about competition, but our species' secret weapon is collaboration. — 00:02:55
  • 2019-05-03 · What Game of Thrones is Really About — Hank: In Westeros, winters come at random and can last years; preparing for them is a collective action against famine and death, and going to war just before one ruins it. — 00:01:32
    • Climate change is the first global-scale collective problem our species has faced, so it is no surprise we don't know how to face it. — 00:05:10
    • The geopolitics are the same: a nation that sacrifices hurts only itself while helping all, so the game isn't stacked for solutions and the best individual course is to do nothing. — 00:08:32
  • 2019-09-27 · Crisis — Hank says every crisis so far was solved in ways nobody foresaw; not knowing how is normal, and by working as individuals and as a collective we get there, so far. — 00:03:30
  • 2019-12-06 · It is Much Easier to Destroy than Create — Hank: Therefore everything that stays built, every solved problem and cured disease, remains so only through human action: billions of people placing puzzle pieces carefully every day. — 00:02:01

2020

  • 2020-01-17 · It's Like Shark Tank, but for Charity — Hank: Looking honestly at where the value came from, Hank feels much of it came from the employees and the community, less from him, one person. — 00:01:20
  • 2020-01-28 · Looking Away (Again) — John thinks that if the project works, it will be because thousands of people come together in solidarity with people in Sierra Leone. — 00:05:45
  • 2020-03-17 · together. — John says togetherness is the superpower of our species: humans are smart as animals go, but collective knowledge is what made us so successful. — 00:00:00
  • 2020-04-10 · Things I'm Finding Encouraging — Hank says he just realized we are in the middle of the largest collective intentional action ever taken. — 00:02:22
  • 2020-08-21 · The Water's Getting Warm — Hank: If collective means everyone contributes and can affect it, however slightly, through their actions, then maybe global warming is the first large-scale collective problem the world has faced. (hedged) — 00:00:29
    • Over the last six months Hank has watched collective action unlike anything he has seen in his lifetime, maybe ever. — 00:02:43
    • Having seen collective action of the kind, if not the magnitude, climate change needs, Hank is more fearful of a less prosperous world but more hopeful, since people make sacrifices when they see what's on the line. — 00:03:12
  • 2020-11-10 · On Immunity, Inoculation, and Individuals — John says true innovation is almost never a heroic individual succeeding by his own effort, and almost always a growing body of expertise and evidence making new breakthroughs possible. — 00:02:55
    • John says Jenner's work was extremely important and contributed to smallpox's eventual eradication, but he was participating in a massive, centuries-long, species-wide collaboration. — 00:03:24
  • 2020-11-13 · How We Teach: Individualist Stories — Hank picks up John's point that great accomplishments are told as stories of individual genius rather than collective progress, a theme the brothers have discussed a lot and Hank wrote a couple of books about. — 00:00:00
    • Hank says we need stories recognizing that nobody does anything alone and nobody contributes nothing: everybody adds something to the human story, if only through conversations with friends and family. — 00:03:23
  • 2020-12-08 · A Love Letter to My Brother, Basically — John says one of the most important parts of realizing an idea, maybe the most important, is collaborating with others. — 00:00:58
  • …and 3 statements more in 2020 — all statements of 2020

2021

  • 2021-01-29 · The Gamestop Short Squeeze in 4 Minutes — Hank: Instead, in this one way, the manipulators were memed out of existence by a few hundred people who figured something out and a few million mobilized in an unprecedented financial action. — 00:03:42
  • 2021-02-16 · A Lovely Winter Walk — John laughed, cried and felt connected again, reminded that humans are really good at being and working together, collaborating across time and space to do what none could alone. — 00:03:10
  • 2021-02-19 · Bean Meme Review — Hank: Everyone puts in work, but Hank says the value that comes out of creating the P4A together is far bigger than the work put in. — 00:13:05
  • 2021-04-06 · How Do You Do, Fellow Kids? — John: We can't make other people's choices for them, but the only way to end this is together. — 00:03:24
  • 2021-04-16 · Gene Editing and Intelligence: A Bad — Hank: Humans are less individual than we imagine: we build systems out of people, and our focus on individuals' power is more cognitive bias than reality. — video description
  • 2021-04-30 · Are We the Baddies?? A Quick Look at a Discourse — Hank: Of the answers to why movie heroes don't solve big problems (Disney vilifying leftists, manufacturing consent, selling tickets), Hank offers a sympathetic one: heroes can't solve them; only we can. — 00:03:20
  • 2021-05-07 · Are We The Same Person? — Hank: Different interests and skills are why people work together, and working together is greatly helped by a shared identity. — 00:00:47
  • 2021-05-14 · This Vlogbrothers Stat Blew My Mind — Hank argues the brothers influenced each other so much that neither created the form of the Vlogbrothers video: they did it to each other. — 00:02:20
    • Unintentionally, everything John makes is also very much something Hank made and vice versa; the collective nature of the project shows in the data. — 00:02:52
  • 2021-10-13 · The Web of Care — Hank's real point: we think of ourselves as individuals, but the world acts on us as a collective. — 00:02:07
    • No individual must care about or do everything, from never getting COVID to cutting maternal mortality in Sierra Leone or cooking every meal: we do all of it in a web of care. — 00:02:36
    • Hank must trust fellow members of the web to do their care; it is good we don't have to care about everything, not least because we can't. — 00:03:35
  • …and 1 statement more in 2021 — all statements of 2021

2022

  • 2022-01-04 · After 15 Years on YouTube, THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING THING — John says the project got here the only way people get anywhere good: together. — 00:08:29
  • 2022-01-07 · For Our 2000th Video: Just a Normal Snowy Day — Hank: 2,000 videos and 15 years of doing things Hank couldn't have imagined because they didn't exist, always thanks to people working together to keep each other honest and push for useful things. — 00:02:26
  • 2022-03-25 · US College Students Need Help — Hank has seen the work and care behind these and knows that when good people work hard together they really can help solve hard problems. — 00:02:55
  • 2022-07-22 · What are These Boys Doing?? — Hank: Crash Course would never have got funding or its initial viewership without this community: it is something Nerdfighteria built, like many of their projects, which Hank sees as things 'we' did. — 00:02:20
  • 2022-09-06 · Some Advice — recommendation: John advises collaborating because you don't do much alone: even reading involves the author, the font chooser and the people who taught you to read. — 00:02:26
    • John says collaboration is how we make meaning together, address the disease of loneliness together and solve shared problems together. — 00:02:55
  • 2022-09-29 · The Kony 2012 of Roads - Solar Freakin' Roadways — Hank says big problems only get solved when many people with widely varying expertise trust each other and work together. — 00:03:26
  • 2022-10-18 · Terraverse Over Everything: Thoughts from London — John calls Plough Lane the physical embodiment of what a community can accomplish when it sticks together and has a shared purpose. — 00:00:39
  • 2022-10-25 · Instantly Debateable — John says nothing was inevitable about that progress: it happened because activists, healthcare workers, governments and charities worked together in messy, hard work. — 00:03:24

2023

  • 2023-03-14 · The Seduction of Despair — John says that change was neither natural nor inevitable: many people collaborated across time and space, in anger, frustration and disgust, but not in hopelessness. — 00:02:30
  • 2023-04-11 · Wrexham's Most Amazing Feeling — John says it wasn't just Foster but players, coaches, owners, groundskeepers and fans who held the club together: Wrexham gave each other that memory, which will make it last and burn bright. — 00:03:24
  • 2023-05-09 · on hope — John says that is why, despite everything, he is broadly in favor of humans: what we can do together awes and horrifies him, and he makes space for both. — 00:03:05
  • 2023-05-30 · How Does He Do It? — John: Borrowing a line from W. H. Auden, John says ideas make nothing happen on their own: for things to happen, logistics and systems must build up and people must collaborate. — 00:00:55
  • 2023-06-13 · touched by a king — John tells Hank he is super pissed off that Hank got cancer, but grateful to the people who accumulated, shared and built on each other's knowledge for a healthier world. — 00:03:08
  • 2023-07-14 · The Good News Video — Hank says John got into the rooms where drug-resistant TB is discussed and found a needless barrier; the community asked whether it could go, and within days it was gone. — 00:02:46
  • 2023-07-18 · Tuberculosis Fighters Have a Posse — John says new HIV treatments still did not reach impoverished communities until activists in the US, Europe and the Global South worked together to build that constituency. — 00:01:56
  • 2023-09-19 · So, um.... GOOD NEWS?!?!?! — John marvels that 16 and a half years later Nerdfighteria's organizational and creative talents were harnessed together to expand TB treatment and diagnostics to millions. — 00:05:23
  • 2023-09-22 · A Feeling I've Never Felt Before — Hank says it happened not only through the community's energy but because John spent much time talking to experts and thinking about his tools, so he could, with others, find an opportunity and take it. — 00:03:36
  • 2023-10-05 · America's Second Favorite Fourth Tier English Soccer Team — John says the argument of ten years of sponsoring Wimbledon, and of its fan reformation, is that community-held assets and communal action can work: not easily or always, but they can. — 00:03:45
  • 2023-12-01 · It's OK if you think less of me after this! — Hank says such a business also needs a foundation, as Newman's Own had: Good Store's success wouldn't be possible without this community, though it is already bigger. — 00:07:21
  • 2023-12-19 · End of a Rough Year — John says he finds hope in community and collaboration, in making meaning together by making change together: in the 'we's of his life, TB fighters, Nerdfighteria, his family and Indianapolis. — 00:01:56
  • …and 16 statements more in 2023 — all statements of 2023

2024

  • 2024-02-16 · How Much Does it Cost to be a Nerdfighter — Hank says Partners In Health took a chance and they delivered, not because everyone gave but because there are many of them and those who could or wanted to did. — 00:00:58
  • 2024-03-05 · THE BEST DAY — John points to the 20 years of shared commitment and effort that brought the club to this moment. — 00:03:15
  • 2024-03-19 · Our $80,000,000 Bet — John says that on maternal mortality in Sierra Leone or the global TB crisis, he is astonished by what Nerdfighteria has done by orienting attention and resources in the same direction, and is grateful. — 00:04:23
  • 2024-06-18 · The Tea — John has seen the community's power in reducing maternal mortality in Sierra Leone and driving down TB drug and test prices: never underestimate Nerdfighteria. — 00:05:45
  • 2024-08-27 · How The Internet Is Rigged — John says he has long watched people who create value online fail to realize it, because the internet is rigged against independent creators who lack collective bargaining power. — 00:06:33
  • 2024-09-25 · You have no chance to survive make your time. — John has come to love it more as an extensive collaboration: online there are still moments capitalism can't capture, when people mash up many people's work across time and space into something better than anyone could make alone. — 00:03:20

2025

  • 2025-01-24 · Am I OK? — Hank says those projects were incubated in Nerdfighteria and grew from its values; their energy to exist and continue comes from this small community that has done really big things. — 00:03:59
  • 2025-02-18 · Gastrointestinal Hypermotility in Tuatara — John: The P4A gives John hope: he has only his little bucket for the fire, but others have theirs, and together we accomplish vastly more than alone. — 00:02:55
  • 2025-05-23 · I Can’t Believe How Few People it Takes. — Hank says Nerdfighteria, Crash Course, TB Fighters and the Project for Awesome taught him that small groups of people can bring about tremendous change. — 00:05:20
  • 2025-06-06 · The Secret Inside my MIT Commencement Speech — Hank says that even having lived through it he does not understand in detail how all this happened, but knows it is not something he did by himself. — 00:02:20
  • 2025-06-10 · 90,000,000 Lives for $20 — John says calling feels small and insignificant, but when tens of thousands of people do something insignificant together it becomes very significant. — 00:05:21
  • 2025-06-13 · Moving to Hope from Hopelessness (3 ways) — Hank says when they signed on they had no idea how to raise it, but many individuals chose how they wanted the world to look, it is now real, and he can return to it for hope. — 00:07:18
  • 2025-09-30 · WHO ARE WE AND WHAT ARE WE DOING — Hank says in a complex, messy world one person can feel powerless, but people working together can make good ideas succeed that might otherwise fail. — 00:04:23
  • 2025-10-01 · Real Reasons for Hope — John calls it a concrete example of life getting better for the most vulnerable through broad, decades-long collaboration: too slow and still insufficient, but real. — 00:02:26
  • 2025-10-28 · Elon Cancelled This...Let's Do it Anyway — John says it takes many people, from preventive therapy champions to political leaders, to bring lasting change, and he knows lasting change is possible. — 00:03:53
  • 2025-10-31 · We Did It… — Hank says the money came from hundreds of thousands of sock sales, dozens of major gifts, a store that donates its profit, and many Nerdfighters giving once or monthly. — 00:05:47
  • 2025-11-11 · John's Annual Psychophysical Decline — John calls it his proudest moment in 19 years of YouTube videos that their corner of the internet made the MCOE possible: helped by many others, but he doesn't think it would have happened without them. — 00:02:06
  • 2025-11-13 · Fighting TB in Kids: A Discussion with Doctors without Borders — John says TB fighters impress him because they have made a big difference in getting TB care prioritized. — 00:54:39

2026

  • 2026-02-03 · Does the truth still matter? — John thinks real-life collective action matters (protests, videotaping, making one's voice heard inside and outside the ballot box) but doesn't know what to do online. — 00:03:53
  • 2026-02-13 · Project for Awesome 2026 Kickoff! — John says we can accomplish infinitely more together than alone, and the Project for Awesome always reminds him of it. — 01:45:36
    • John says a community is much funnier than an individual, and can do things in fundraising and in creative production that no one could do alone. — 07:03:01
  • 2026-02-14 · Project for Awesome 2026 part 3! — John repeats Joia Mukherjee's point that change needs not a majority but enough really committed, organized people pointing their attention and love in the same direction. — 01:06:46
  • 2026-02-14 · Project for Awesome 2026 part 4! — John says thousands of people had to come together to make the Maternal Center of Excellence happen, as is usually the case with things that truly transform a community. — 00:59:33
  • 2026-02-20 · What We Actually Did. — Hank says he did none of this: at most he had fun ideas that turned people's heads, and they did the rest; John turned his head, and Paul Farmer turned John's. — 00:04:47
  • 2026-03-10 · Is Hank Green Running for Congress? — John says elected officials had something to do with that progress, but so did the quiet, often exhausting work of activists. — 00:05:02
  • 2026-04-14 · Babies. Babies. Babies. — John calls collaboration our species' superpower, to be used carefully, and thanks Hank and Nerdfighteria for using it for good. — 00:05:21
  • 2026-04-28 · What I Can't Show You — John calls it a blessing to stand at a world-class facility in a place too long deemed unworthy of one, knowing the community fought to build it and will fight to maintain it. — 00:06:05
  • 2026-05-22 · Why I Made Crash Course a Non-Profit — Hank thinks the difference is that the community, not he and John, created Complexly: it could not have succeeded without the community's fuel, and it felt like a project of Nerdfighteria. — 00:03:30
  • 2026-05-29 · Chemo Cow Body Odor YouTube Helen Hunt Commute — Hank: Asked by Helen Hunt why he wants to perform alone, Hank had no answer then; the one he has since found is that it has been a great joy to share a stage with John. — 00:04:21
  • 2026-10-09 · The Productivity Lie — Hank thinks a huge piece of productivity is external, something people can give each other. — 00:09:08
  • …and 1 statement more in 2026 — all statements of 2026