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What Are Paper Towns?

2015-03-17 · explainer · John · 3:04 · watch on YouTube

Topic: History & curiosities (also: Personal life) · mode: Explainer · tags: timely hook, self promotion

Ahead of the Paper Towns trailer, John explains the real 'paper towns': fictitious entries planted by mapmakers, encyclopedias and dictionaries that sometimes become real, and argues made-up things can matter and that we should imagine the world as complexly as we can.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — In an airport; Subbable acquired by Patreon; Hold Me Closer publication day; Paper Towns trailer Thursday on The Today Show

  • ★ John says he is in an airport he was in so recently that his wireless login hasn't expired. (playful) — 00:00:01
  • ★★★ John reports that yesterday (16 March 2015) Subbable was acquired by Patreon, which he calls great news. — 00:00:07 · Subbable
  • ★★ John says today is publication day for Hold Me Closer, David Levithan's musical novel companion to their co-written Will Grayson, Will Grayson: the actual Tiny Cooper musical, and fantastic. — 00:00:11 · Will Grayson, Will Grayson
  • ★★★ John says the Paper Towns trailer comes out on Thursday, which is why he is in the airport: he has to go be on The Today Show. — 00:00:23 · Paper Towns (film), Paper Towns

00:00:29 — All his children vomited on him; fear of throwing up on The Today Show and the GIFs

  • ★ John says all his children vomited on him in the past 24 hours, so he fears catching a stomach bug and throwing up on The Today Show, imagining the GIFs with Matt Lauer. (playful) — 00:00:29

00:00:46 — What paper towns are: fictitious entries in maps (Agloe, Argleton, Beatosu), encyclopedias (Mountweazel) and dictionaries (esquivalience), some becoming real

  • ★★★ John says 'paper towns' means different things to Q in the book, but in real life is about copyright: mapmakers plant fictitious entries so copying can be detected. — 00:00:49 · Paper Towns
  • ★★ John says every map company does this, usually with paper streets or bridges; Google Maps probably created a paper town called Argleton in England. (hedged) — 00:01:07 · Paper Towns, Google
  • ★★ John's favourite map examples: Agloe, New York, used in Paper Towns, and Beatosu, Ohio, invented by mapmakers who were University of Michigan football fans ('beat OSU'). — 00:01:16 · Paper Towns
  • ★★ John says copyright traps are not limited to maps: they appear in encyclopedias, dictionaries and paleontology textbooks. — 00:01:29
  • ★★ John says Margo's dog in Paper Towns, Myrna Mountweazel, honours a fictitious New Columbia Encyclopedia entry on Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, a fountain designer and photographer killed in an explosion on assignment. — 00:01:36 · Paper Towns
  • ★★ John says he is totally fascinated by how much fictional information floats around in the nonfictional world. — 00:01:51
  • ★★ John says Google recently used fictitious entries against Bing, and the Billboard charts have used them too. — 00:01:57 · Google

  • ★★★ John's favourite example is the New Oxford American Dictionary's invented word 'esquivalience', defined as avoiding one's official responsibilities; he is unsure how to pronounce it. — 00:01:59 · esquivalience

    “it's defined as avoiding one's official responsibilities”

  • ★★ John says that, like Agloe, esquivalience has kind of become real: it is now in a bunch of dictionaries, and the Apple dictionary even gives it a fictional etymology. — 00:02:19 · esquivalience

00:02:32 — Why it appeals: made-up stories matter; the dictionary shapes language; imagine the world complexly; don't be esquivalient

  • ★★★ John says this appeals to him as a writer because he needs to believe made-up stories can really matter in the lives of real people. — 00:02:32
  • ★★★ John says it also reminds him that language shapes the dictionary, but the dictionary also shapes the language. — 00:02:40

  • ★★★ John tentatively says it is humans' official responsibility to imagine the world as complexly and interestingly as possible, and urges: let us not be esquivalient. (hedged) — 00:02:46 · esquivalience

    “let us endeavor not to be esquivalient”

00:02:59 — Trailer on Thursday; sign-off

In the description and comments

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: esquivalience · fictitious entry

Also: People: Matt Lauer

Projects: Subbable

Works: Hold Me Closer · New Columbia Encyclopedia · New Oxford American Dictionary · Paper Towns · Paper Towns (film) · Today (American TV program) · Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Organizations: Apple · Billboard · Google · Michigan Wolverines football · Microsoft Bing · Patreon

Places: Agloe, New York · Argleton · Beatosu, Ohio

Characters: Lillian Virginia Mountweazel · Margo Roth Spiegelman · Myrna Mountweazel · Quentin Jacobsen · Tiny Cooper

Products: Google Maps

Only in the description or credits: Crash Course · David Levithan · SciShow

Also centred on fictitious entry: Agloe, New York

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