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Hank's Haircut and Related Existential Crises

2015-03-31 · letter vlog · John · 3:28 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Philosophy & meaning (also: Personal life, Sports) · mode: Personal essay · tags: community lore, self promotion

John says Hank's new haircut, which resembles that of a pixel footballer in his FIFA team, shows that virtual and real life are connected and that realness is a continuum; imagination and work can make ideas real.

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; Hank's new haircut in his video before the Batman song; Nerdfighter reviews positive, but John is his brother

  • ★★ John says Hank has a new haircut, seen in his video before the Batman song; Nerdfighter reviews were universally positive, but John is his brother. (playful) — 00:00:12 · Hank Green, Nerdfighteria

00:00:21 — John's three hairstyles (messy top, 'The Junior Senator from Maryland', 'Toad from Mario Kart'); 'The Hank' and its sudden change; change is overrated, so is death

  • ★ John lists his three hairstyles: messy-top for about 15 years, before that 'The Junior Senator from Maryland', and originally 'Toad from Mario Kart'. (playful) — 00:00:21
  • ★ John says Hank has had one hairstyle his whole life, which John calls 'The Hank', until this sudden, unannounced, radical change. (playful) — 00:00:36 · Hank Green
  • ★★ John says he is not a fan of change and thinks it tremendously overrated: life is change, but so is death. (playful) — 00:00:54

00:01:05 — The new haircut resembles that of Kennedy, left-back of John's FIFA team the Wimbly Womblys; an existential crisis about a real brother and a pixel player

  • ★★ John says Hank's new hairstyle upset him because it resembles the haircut of Kennedy, left-back of his fictional FIFA 14 team, whose hair he has mocked for years. (playful) — 00:01:05

00:01:47 — Virtual and real life are never fully disconnected; realness is a continuum; the two AFC Wimbledons, fictional and real; imagination and work make ideas real

  • ★★★ Because his real brother and a pixel footballer are now linked in his head, John concludes nothing in so-called virtual life is fully disconnected from so-called real life. — 00:01:47

  • ★★★ John thinks realness may be a continuum: selfhood, relationships, experiences and FIFA playing are varying degrees of real rather than simply real or not. (hedged) — 00:01:56

    “realness might be more of like a continuum than an actual thing”

  • ★★ John says there are two AFC Wimbledons in his life; his fictional FIFA team, the Wimbly Womblys, has risen from League Two to its first Premier League season. — 00:02:08 · AFC Wimbledon

  • ★ John jokes that the team's strikers, Bald John Green and Other John Green, have found renewed form since adopting their baby boy. (joke) — 00:02:18
  • ★★ Quoting Severus Snape, John says the Wimbly Wombly world is 'real for us', the people who support the team. — 00:02:26
  • ★★ John says the ad revenue from the FIFA series is used to sponsor the real AFC Wimbledon. — 00:02:34 · AFC Wimbledon
  • ★★ John says AFC Wimbledon is a real professional team in England that started 13 years ago from nothing but fans who had the idea to make a team. — 00:02:38 · AFC Wimbledon, England
  • ★★★ John says the fact that imagination and work can make ideas real resolved his existential crisis; it is the most beautiful and lovely thing about life to him. — 00:02:48 · AFC Wimbledon

00:02:57 — John starts a Twitch channel to do more video gaming in support of AFC Wimbledon

  • ★★ Wanting to support AFC Wimbledon more, John says he will try to do more video gaming, has started a Twitch TV channel and will try broadcasting that day. (hedged) — 00:02:57 · AFC Wimbledon

00:03:09 — Conclusion: admiration for people who make awesome things real; John now kind of likes Hank's haircut (and Kennedy's); sign-off

  • ★★ John says he admires people like Hank and the founders of AFC Wimbledon for working so hard to make awesome things real. — 00:03:09 · Hank Green, AFC Wimbledon
  • ★★ John concludes he kind of likes Hank's new haircut, and so, by extension, Kennedy's haircut in FIFA. (playful, hedged) — 00:03:18 · Hank Green

Humor (significant)

  • Nerdfighteria's universally positive reviews of Hank's haircut are explained away by its supportive nature. — 00:00:12

    “Nerdfighteria is a very supportive and loving community, whereas I am your brother.”

  • Listing his three lifetime hairstyles, after 'The Junior Senator from Maryland' John names his original haircut. — 00:00:32

    “and then of course there was my original hair cut "Toad from Mario Kart."”

  • John, no fan of change, concedes that life is change, then names what else is change. — 00:01:02

    “And that's true, but you know what else is change? Death.”

  • Before mocking a footballer's hair, John admits his own hair situation. — 00:01:14

    “when it comes to hair I live in the glassiest of glass houses”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: AFC Wimbledon · AFC Wimbledon Wimbly Womblys · digital dualism

Also: Works: FIFA 14

Organizations: EFL League Two · Premier League · Twitch

Groups: The Gregory Brothers

Terms: doobly-doo

Concepts: existential crisis

Places: England

Characters: Batman · Kennedy · Severus Snape · Toad

Only in the description or credits: HankGames

Replies to

Later videos replying to this one

Part of an exchange of 3 videos, 2015-03-27 – 2015-04-10.