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Exciting Announcements and Mosquito-Borne Illnesses

2014-07-15 · letter vlog · John · 3:00 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Health (also: Nerdfighteria, Personal life, Global development) · mode: Personal update · tags: community lore, punishment or challenge, civic or action cta

John reports that Nerdfighters voted to turn on vlogbrothers pre-rolls with income split between the Foundation to Decrease World Suck and an educational video fund, announces a trip to East Africa with Bill Gates, and jokes about his mosquito-disease anxiety while noting how good US health infrastructure is.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Greeting; today's video in three parts

00:00:06 — Part one, business: Nerdfighters voted to turn on pre-roll ads and split the income between FTDWS and an educational video fund

  • ★★★ John reports that tens of thousands answered his question from last week (week of 7 July 2014); they voted overwhelmingly to turn on vlogbrothers pre-roll ads and split the income between the Foundation to Decrease World Suck and a fund for educational video projects. — 00:00:13 · Vlogbrothers, online advertising, Foundation to Decrease World Suck, world suck
  • ★★ John says the brothers will do what the vote decided and promises Nerdfighters updates on how the money is spent. — 00:00:25 · Nerdfighteria

00:00:29 — John's tan and his haircut schedule after Hollywood

  • ★ John jokes about his new tan from 'experimenting with outside' and says he controls his own haircut schedule for the first time in six months, since people in Hollywood have many opinions on haircut frequency. (playful) — 00:00:29

00:00:43 — Part two, exciting announcement: John is going to East Africa with Bill Gates

  • ★★★ John announces he is going to East Africa with Bill Gates, excited to meet people doing important work in health and agriculture. — 00:00:45
  • ★★ John says he hopes to learn a lot on the trip and make a bunch of videos. (hedged) — 00:00:57

00:00:59 — Part three, mosquito-borne illnesses: the CDC and Indiana State Department of Health pages feed John's health anxiety

  • ★★ John says some of his anxiety centers on physical health; when giving him vaccines for the trip, his doctor told him to read the CDC pages on the places he'll visit, which was a terrible idea. (playful) — 00:01:06 · vaccine
  • ★★ John relays the CDC pages: malaria mosquitoes bite mostly at night, yellow fever mosquitoes mainly by day, West Nile mosquitoes at dawn and dusk. — 00:01:19 · malaria
  • ★★ His doctor then sent him to the Indiana State Department of Health webpage, which added warnings about arbovirus and chikungunya besides West Nile, leaving John more anxious, not less. (playful) — 00:01:40
  • ★ John jokes that he is now, he thinks, the only person in history to have read the entire Indiana State Department of Health website. (playful, hedged) — 00:01:59

00:02:07 — US health infrastructure handles mosquito-borne illness well; John will see East Africa's health gains and remaining work

  • ★★★ John says the US has excellent health facilities, information and infrastructure (clinic power rarely fails), which help it handle mosquito-borne and other communicable diseases relatively effectively. — 00:02:07 · United States
  • ★★★ John says East Africa has dramatically improved health care and reduced infant mortality over the last twenty years; he is going to see this and how much work remains and where to help. — 00:02:21 · global health

00:02:31 — Behind the Beautiful Forevers book club video scheduled for next Tuesday

  • ★★ John says he will make a bunch of videos from the trip, but they probably won't be uploaded while he is travelling. (hedged) — 00:02:31
  • ★★ Meanwhile John will make a video on Behind the Beautiful Forevers, the Nerdfighter Book Club summer pick, and schedule it to upload next Tuesday (22 July 2014) so he doesn't get punished. — 00:02:34 · Punishment
  • ★★ John urges anyone who hasn't read Behind the Beautiful Forevers to read it now: it will make next week's (week of 21 July 2014) video more enjoyable, and it's excellent. — 00:02:40
  • ★ John says Behind the Beautiful Forevers won the Pulitzer Prize. — 00:02:45
    • check: the Pulitzer Prize — doubtful

00:02:51 — Hank owes a punishment; John asks for suggestions; sign-off

Humor (significant)

  • John points out his new tan. — 00:00:29

    “I've been experimenting a little bit with outside, although I can't, in good faith, recommend it.”

  • John reads CDC pages saying different disease mosquitoes bite at night, by day, and at dawn and dusk. — 00:01:27

    “I am going to a place where disease-ridden mosquitoes bite in shifts.”

  • The state health page warns of chikungunya, which John cannot pronounce. — 00:01:49

    “Hank, I don't want to be killed by something that I can't pronounce!”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Behind the Beautiful Forevers · Bill Gates · East Africa · mosquito-borne disease · online advertising

Also: Projects: Foundation to Decrease World Suck · Nerdfighter Book Club

Organizations: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention · Indiana State Department of Health · Pulitzer Prize

Rituals: Punishment

Concepts: anxiety disorder · arbovirus · chikungunya · global health · infectious disease · malaria · vaccine · West Nile virus · yellow fever

Places: Hollywood · United States

fact: infant mortality rate

Also centred on Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Walking the Red Carpet: Thoughts from Los Angeles · Influence, Airports, and the Nerdfighter Book Club · Our Old Friend Complexity: Behind the Beautiful Forevers · Ambiguous Victories and Real Progress: Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Also centred on Bill Gates: Bill Gates and John Green Discuss Global Health · It's a Pizzamas Miracle! (Pizzamas Day 2) · What Can't a Billion Dollars Buy?

Replies to

Later videos replying to this one

Part of an exchange of 5 videos, 2014-07-08 – 2014-08-01.