Skip to content

Thoughts for Nerdfighteria

2013-10-15 · letter vlog · John · 3:18 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Nerdfighteria · mode: Personal essay · tags: community lore, punishment or challenge, on location

John notes Nerdfighteria is growing fast and fears that communities growing without deepening become less important; he recommits to making things together with Nerdfighteria rather than chasing size, starting with his own punishment.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — 12 seconds of silence to shed low-engagement viewers

  • ★★ John says a YouTube employee told him almost all so-called low-engagement viewers decide whether to watch a video in the first 12 seconds, hence his 12 seconds of silence. — 00:00:13 · YouTube

00:00:28 — In rainy Amsterdam: Nerdfighteria is growing (views, books reaching grandmothers, Crash Course, SciShow, Mental Floss, the YouTube feed)

  • ★ John is in Amsterdam, which only looks impossibly beautiful; when it starts raining he goes inside. — 00:00:28 · Amsterdam
  • ★★ John says the brothers' new videos have averaged over 600,000 views in the past month, views being the easiest metric of a video's success. — 00:00:32 · Vlogbrothers
  • ★★★ John says Nerdfighteria is growing in lots of ways, e.g. his books are reaching a much larger audience than he ever imagined. — 00:00:56 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ John now regularly gets all-caps emails from 80-year-old grandmothers whose retirement-home book clubs read his book, asking what happens to Anna's mom; he welcomes more old people in Nerdfighteria. (playful) — 00:01:01 · The Fault in Our Stars, Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ John says Crash Course, SciShow and Mental Floss all have large and growing audiences. — 00:01:20 · Crash Course, SciShow
  • ★★ John says the way people find YouTube videos is changing: a feed instead of a subscription box shows more videos from unsubscribed channels and fewer from subscribed ones. — 00:01:25 · YouTube

00:01:35 — Fear that communities growing without deepening become less important; Harry Potter fandom as the model; recommitment to collaboration

  • ★★★ John fears that as communities grow, especially without deepening, they paradoxically often become less important. — 00:01:35 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ John's example: many people watch Two and a Half Men, but its community is far less interesting and important than that of the much less popular Supernatural. — 00:01:43
  • ★★ Bigger need not mean less important: Harry Potter reached a large audience, yet its core fans, who listened to Wizard Rock and started the Harry Potter Alliance, made lasting changes in the world. — 00:01:52 · Harry Potter (book series)
  • ★★★ If Nerdfighteria keeps growing, John wants to make sure it grows like the core Harry Potter community. — 00:02:05 · Nerdfighteria, Harry Potter (book series)
  • ★★★ John says they realized years ago that fame is not very fulfilling, but making stuff you like with people you like is tremendously fulfilling. — 00:02:09 · celebrity

  • ★★★ John recommits to Nerdfighteria that the channel is truly a collaboration among all of them. — 00:02:18 · Nerdfighteria

    “I want to make that recommitment to nerdfighteria that this is truly a collaboration among all of us.”

  • ★★ John thinks they should keep making videos explaining health care costs, sovereign debt and the war in Syria, and videos about things they care about, like the TFiOS movie. (hedged) — 00:02:24 · The Fault in Our Stars (film)

  • ★★ John also wants to make good, funny, nerdy things with Nerdfighteria, starting today. — 00:02:34 · Nerdfighteria

00:02:39 — Our Pants rules his over-four-minute video not educational: John punished; rules for new viewers; punishment suggestions wanted

  • ★★★ John says his last video ran over four minutes and Nerdfighters in Our Pants ruled it not educational, so he is punished. — 00:02:39 · Four-minute rule, Punishment

  • ★★ For new viewers John explains: Our Pants is the forum; videos may not exceed four minutes unless educational; he likes pizza, Hank corn dogs; Nerdfighters fight to make the world suck less. — 00:02:47 · Four-minute rule, world suck, Nerdfighteria

    “nerdfighters are nerds who fight to make the world suck less”

  • ★★ According to Our Pants both brothers already owe punishments, so both are punished and John doubly. — 00:03:00 · Punishment

  • ★★ John asks Nerdfighters for lots of punishment suggestions in the comments. — 00:03:05 · Nerdfighteria, Punishment

00:03:08 — Thanks for the update video; excited for Emma Approved; sign-off

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Punishment

Also: Projects: Crash Course · Our Pants · SciShow

Works: Emma Approved · Harry Potter (book series) · Supernatural · The Fault in Our Stars · The Fault in Our Stars (film) · Two and a Half Men

Organizations: Mental Floss · The Harry Potter Alliance · YouTube

Rituals: Four-minute rule

Terms: nerdfighter · world suck

Concepts: celebrity · government debt · health care prices in the United States · Wizard rock

Places: Amsterdam

Events: Syrian civil war

Replies to

Later videos replying to this one

Part of an exchange of 8 videos, 2013-10-08 – 2013-11-01.