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My YouTube Story is Short

2010-05-17 · letter vlog · Hank · 2:13 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Internet & YouTube · mode: Personal essay · tags: timely hook

On YouTube's fifth 'community birthday', which he notes is also Katherine's birthday, Hank tells his YouTube story: he is flattered to be on YouTube's timeline twice, but the real story of YouTube is groups of people doing things together without sharing physical space.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — YouTube's fifth birthday: Hank disputes May 17 as the date

  • ★★ Hank says May 17 is not really YouTube's fifth birthday: YouTube was created in February 2005, and May 17 is apparently being marked as the birth of the YouTube community. (hedged) — 00:00:00 · YouTube
  • ★★ Hank says nothing of significance to YouTube appears to have happened on May 17, 2005, his first problem with the chosen date. (playful, hedged) — 00:00:14 · YouTube

00:00:29 — May 17 is Katherine's birthday; YouTube's call for YouTube stories and its community timeline

  • ★★ Hank's second objection: May 17 is already the birthday of 'the most important Catherine in the entire world', his wife. (playful) — 00:00:29 · Katherine Green
  • ★★ Hank asks viewers to leave birthday wishes for Katherine in the comments. — 00:00:29 · Katherine Green
  • ★★ Hank says YouTube is marking the anniversary by collecting people's YouTube stories, which he found interesting and good, and recommends viewers watch them. — 00:00:40 · YouTube
  • ★★ Hank notes he is the only person besides YouTube's founders who appears twice on YouTube's community-history timeline, while John is not on it at all. (playful) — 00:00:45 · YouTube, John Green

00:00:56 — Hank's two appearances on the timeline: the DFTBA Records announcement and the first-P4A couch song with Katherine

  • ★★★ Hank says one timeline video shows him and business partner Alan announcing DFTBA Records, the record company that represents only YouTube musicians. — 00:00:56 · Alan Lastufka, DFTBA Records, YouTube
  • ★★★ The other shows Hank and Katherine on a thrift-store couch singing about how amazing the first Project for Awesome was; Hank says the P4A has since grown bigger and better. — 00:01:10 · Katherine Green, Project for Awesome

00:01:34 — The real story of YouTube is people doing things together; Hank's own YouTube story; sign-off

  • ★★★ 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 · collective action
  • ★★★ 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 · YouTube, collective action
  • ★★★ Hank gives his own YouTube story: his brother convinced him to do something ridiculous they thought would be about two people, and it turned out to be about many more. — 00:01:55 · John Green, Brotherhood 2.0, YouTube

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: collective action · YouTube

Also: Brotherhood 2.0 · DFTBA Records · Katherine Green · Project for Awesome

Only in the description or credits: Alan Lastufka

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