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50 THINGS!! That I'm Thankful For

2009-11-24 · list · Hank · 3:56 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Everyday life · mode: Comedy & performance · tags: calendar ritual, self promotion, community lore

For Thanksgiving, Hank says he likes the idea of many things (the national anthem, the birthday song, a day of thanks) more than how they are done, and instead lists 50 things he is thankful for, ending with gratitude for 'this marvelous life'.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Hank likes the idea of things more than how they are done: the US national anthem, the Happy Birthday song, Thanksgiving gluttony

  • ★★ Hank says he likes the idea of a national anthem but not the US one, which he jokingly sums up as bombs and war; there are things about America he likes more than explosions and war. (playful) — 00:00:00 · United States
  • ★ Hank loves that everyone knows a shared Happy Birthday song but thinks the song itself is bad and just wants to get to the cake. (playful) — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank likes the idea of a day for saying what we are thankful for, but says Thanksgiving mixes it with gorging on food and beer, which confuses what we are thankful for. (playful) — 00:00:30

00:00:58 — List of 50 things Hank is thankful for (open source, YouTube, science, giraffes, his shirts, Mashable Award voters, his cat, Nerdfighters)

  • ★★★ Instead, for Thanksgiving, Hank says he will list 50 things he is thankful for. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Hank is thankful for open source software, his new phone running on it, YouTube and the first generation of YouTubers. — 00:00:58 · YouTube
  • ★ Hank says he is a little ashamed to be thankful for video games with adorable main characters and more ashamed of games where he kills people with guns. (playful) — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Hank is thankful for science and knowledge: medicine, investigative journalism, Moore's Law, Carl Sagan, XKCD, libraries, teachers and evolutionary theory, thanking Darwin and later researchers. — 00:01:44
  • ★★★ Hank thanks buyers of his This Machine Pwns n00bs shirts and people who don't think selling what he has created is selling out; he sells things he is proud of. — 00:01:44
  • ★ Hank says he is very thankful for GPS, especially after his tour. — 00:02:20 · Tour de Hank
  • ★★ Hank thanks everyone who votes for the vlogbrothers in the Mashable Award. — 00:02:43
  • ★★ Hank is thankful for personal things: being his age and still finding farts funny, a wife who does too, friends, his bed, his cat, his guitar, Nerdfighters and Nerdfighteria, and his wife. (playful) — 00:02:43 · Katherine Green, Nerdfighteria

00:03:24 — Thankful for his wife; food and football; thankful for this marvelous life; sign-off

  • ★★★ Hank admits he also wants food and football, but mainly wants the world to know how thankful he is for the marvelous life we all get to live. — 00:03:24

Humor (significant)

  • Hank explains why he dislikes the US national anthem. — 00:00:00

    “Bombs, explosions, and war. That's what America's about.”

  • After singing a line of Happy Birthday, Hank complains about the song. — 00:00:30

    “Just get it over with so we can get to the cake”

  • Hank lists zombies as something he is thankful for, but only zombies that dance. — 00:01:44

    “If you're not dancing zombies, I'm not thankful for you.”

  • In his thankful list Hank names giraffes, with a qualifier. — 00:02:20

    “Giraffes, especially giraffes who are mating.”

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: Thanksgiving

Also: People: Carl Sagan · Charles Darwin · Katherine Green · Ze Frank

Projects: Tour de Hank

Works: Happy Birthday to You · The Star-Spangled Banner · This Machine Pwns n00bs (album) · xkcd

Organizations: YouTube

Concepts: evolution · Moore's law · open-source software · young adult literature

Places: United States

Events: Mashable Open Web Awards

Characters: Wolverine

animal: Cameo

Also centred on Thanksgiving: November 21st: What I'm Grateful For · Thanksgiving in Asheville · Black Friday: An Accident of History · personal risk · societal risk · It Wasn't Supposed to be Thanksgiving Yesterday

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