Skip to content

How To Be John Green

2013-06-11 · other · Craig Benzine · 3:57 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Nerdfighteria · mode: Comedy & performance · tags: guest or collab, community lore, song or performance

Guest host Craig (WheezyWaiter), filling John's Tuesday slot during his paternity leave, performs a comic impersonation of John and parodies his rituals: Question Tuesday, Sharpie face, Thoughts from Places, literary readings and airports.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Craig imitates John's mannerisms: fast talking, not blinking, pitch drop before jump cuts, hair puff; glasses would make him look like Vsauce

  • ★★ Craig Benzine: Craig opens by imitating John Green: talking fast, not blinking, dropping pitch before jump cuts and raising his hair's 'puff level'; with glasses he would look exactly like Vsauce. (playful) — 00:00:01 · John Green

00:00:23 — Craig introduces himself ('my real last name, according to John's previous video'), his beard, and clones that do his chores

  • ★ Craig Benzine: Craig picks up John's joke that WheezyWaiter is his 'real last name', replaying John's line from the previous video. (playful) — 00:00:23 · Craig Benzine

00:00:39 — Why he's here: John and Sarah had Alice; baby impression; Craig recites Hank's 'How to Be a Baby Properly' list

  • ★★ Craig Benzine: Craig explains he is there because John had a baby - Sarah had the baby, John helped - and they brought Alice Green into the world. (playful) — 00:00:48 · Sarah Urist Green, Alice Green, John Green
  • ★★ Craig Benzine: Craig recites Hank's list from 'How to Be a Baby Properly' (stuck in the world, cry, sleep 2.5 hours at a time, put stuff in your mouth, cry again, be cute) and says it is what he did in college. (playful) — 00:01:09 · Hank Green

00:01:26 — Honoured to be on the channel; practices with a Nerdfighter clone (DFTBA, decreasing worldsuck with a mop)

  • ★ Craig Benzine: Craig tells Hank and John it is an honour to be on their channel, so he had to step up his usual game (he shows a clip of himself shirtless). — 00:01:26 · Vlogbrothers, Hank Green, John Green
  • ★★ Craig Benzine: Craig makes a 'Nerdfighter clone' to practise talking to Nerdfighters; the clone says DFTBA and is sent to decrease worldsuck in the bathroom with a mop. (joke) — 00:01:43 · Nerdfighteria, DFTBA, world suck

00:02:03 — Parody Question Tuesday with made-up questions: when John returns, the name WheezyWaiter, Vsauce, 'Who the eff is Hank?', Sharpie face with a cracker

  • ★★ Craig Benzine: Craig parodies more things John does: Question Tuesday with fake questions, a 'Who the eff is Hank?' answer, Sharpie face (a cracker smashed on his forehead), a Thoughts from Places about his office, an Oscar Wilde reading, and a 'not-airport'. (joke) — 00:02:07 · Question Tuesday, Who the Eff Is Hank, Sharpie Face, Thoughts from Places
  • ★★★ Craig Benzine: Asked (in his own made-up question) when John is coming back, Craig is not sure, but says it will be a bunch of weeks with different people hosting each week. (hedged) — 00:02:19 · John Green
  • ★★ Craig Benzine: Craig says he is called WheezyWaiter because he has asthma and used to be a waiter. — 00:02:24 · Craig Benzine
  • ★ Craig Benzine: Craig says he does not hate Vsauce for looking like him; they really are friends. (playful) — 00:02:27

00:03:03 — Parody Thoughts from Places about his office corner

00:03:26 — Parody literary reading (Oscar Wilde, 'Catherine wheel'); John is often in airports, so Craig visits a 'not-airport'; sign-off

Humor (dominant)

  • Answering his own question 'Who the eff is Hank?', Craig defines Hank as a flippered Arctic marine mammal and a movement — 00:02:34

    “See? I'm hanking right now. Hank you very much.”

  • Asked to do John's Sharpie face, Craig has no Sharpies — 00:02:47

    “But I do have crackers, so I will smash one my forehead.”

  • Craig introduces a passage exemplifying Oscar Wilde's critique of false manners and hypocrisy, reads a line about a Catherine wheel — 00:03:26

    “Probably should have planned that out a little better.”

  • John is often in an airport, but Craig doesn't feel like going, so he goes somewhere John isn't often — 00:03:43

    “Ah, this is one of my favorite not-airports.”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Craig Benzine

Also: People: Alice Green · Michael Stevens · Oscar Wilde · Sarah Urist Green

Projects: Thoughts from Places

Rituals: Question Tuesday

Terms: DFTBA · Sharpie Face · Who the Eff Is Hank · world suck

Replies to

  • continues · A New Nerdfighter Baby — “That's my real last name, according to John's previous video.”
  • imitates · How To Be a Baby Properly — “The reason that I'm so good at impersonating a baby is because of your most recent video, Hank.”

Later videos replying to this one

Part of an exchange of 4 videos, 2013-06-04 – 2013-06-14.