What makes a good video?
Hank says good videos need interesting ideas, good writing, personality and editing, and above all must capture and hold people's attention. John judges videos by what they do for the community, and since 2007 the brothers have kept videos under four minutes to force concision.
Axis: interesting and personal ... important and informative
Positions by date: 17 records in 17 videos. The position did not change in these records.
John
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-04-10 | first on record | John says important but uninteresting subjects such as drunk driving make bad vlogs, as they make bad books. | Brotherhood 2.0: April 10th: Role Models 00:02:21 |
| 2010-07-20 (said on 2010-07-19, implied) | restate | John rejects the belief that all views are good views: a sensational title and thumbnail would get views, but the brothers are in the nerdfighting business. | I Like Balls 00:01:14 |
| 2021-07-13 | restate | John says any video that weakens that sense of community is by definition a bad video. | The Vlogbrothers Videos I Didn't Make 00:02:58 |
| 2023-08-08 | restate | John explains that since 2007, with a few exceptions, their videos must be under four minutes, a rule to force concision and intentional use of people's attention. | TAKE IT UP A NOTCH 00:02:55 |
| 2024-07-09 | restate | John says much of the four-minute video's benefit was writing the extra material and then deleting it down to about 750 words. | Is the Inside of Your Mouth a Soup? (a vidcon reunion video) 00:03:05 |
Hank
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-05-20 | first on record | Hank holds that a good vlog needs skill rather than equipment, a stage voice aimed at one person, and above all making ideas interesting, with no dead silence. | How to Vlog: From the Vlogbrothers 00:01:58 |
| 2013-08-09 | restate | Hank: PBS succeeds in online video because it has always focused on content that gets loved rather than content that gets views; in a world of infinite content, the content-viewer relationship is all that matters. | What I Learned at VidCon 00:00:55 |
| 2014-08-22 | restate | Hank names good writing, on-camera personality and good editing as the magic ingredients of good online video. | Kidneys, LlamaJohn, Frankenstein, Back to School, and The Nerdfighter Online Video Workshop! 00:01:54 |
| 2016-05-06 | restate | Hank says they must not just make more of what performs; they have to mix it up, because that makes the channel interesting for viewers and for him. | I Hate Only Making One Video a Week 00:00:58 |
| 2017-09-29 | restate | We must think about the stories our world and our selves are built on, which is a great way to make media, from vlogs to books to TV. | What's This Video About? 00:03:41 |
| 2019-04-12 | restate | Hank says creators and media companies in a world of near-infinite content must chase the interesting, sometimes to the point of manufacturing it. | Escalators: We're Not Doing it Wrong (Mostly) 00:02:47 |
| 2022-02-11 | restate | Hank says making a great charity video, or any video, is hard, and the main thing needed is to capture and hold people's attention. | Knowing is not Understanding - Pluto and the P4A 00:01:27 |
| 2023-02-03 | restate | Hank says problem, importance and what to do is the basic format of most YouTube videos and of much human activity, and a good format. | My Mid-Afternoon Existential Crisis 00:02:10 |
| 2023-02-10 | restate | Hank thinks the way they normally make these videos isn't relaxing, though he likes it and isn't going to stop doing it that way. | If it ain't broke don't fix it. 00:00:00 |
| 2024-09-24 | restate | Hank says the video is not made to go viral, not a cause video like We Are the World, not a cameo-packed Taylor Swift video, but an amateur office Christmas party video that happens to star Whoopi Goldberg and George Clooney, which makes it special. | The Forgotten Viral Video that Could Never be Made Today 00:03:53 |
| 2024-11-03 | restate | Maybe Hank hasn't vlogged enough: too many of their videos are produced video, as YouTube now is, and too few just him talking for 40 minutes. | Hank's very messy post-cancer year of mistakes, meaning… 00:18:57 |
| 2026-08-07 | restate | After a week of listening to the conversation, Hank feels more aware of his job right now: a huge part is to be himself, and making more things does not make him make better things. | Just Trying to Figure Out My Job 00:04:52 |
Background
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-07-20 | background | Hank agrees, calling it the whole thesis of Vlogbrothers. (playful) | Making Bad Decisions with My Dad 00:03:50 |
Dates are upload dates, which set the order. Where the speaker gives a different recording date in the video, it is added as "said on YYYY-MM-DD, implied" (derived from the date said in the video).